[Newsmaker] Quarantined voters to cast ballots under strict guidelines

In Wednesday’s general elections, even those in quarantine can vote.   　 South Korea will pick 300 members of the National Assembly in the first nationwide election to take place during the pandemic.   　 According to the National Election Commission, there are about 50,000 eligible voters under self-quarantine.   　 Not all can vote. Only those who express their intent to vote by 6 p.m. Tuesday will be allowed to step outside their places of isolation to visit polling sta

Social AffairsApril 14, 2020

[Newsmaker] US grateful to S. Korea for supplying virus test kits: official

The United States is grateful to South Korea for supplying COVID-19 testing kits, a senior US government official said Monday ahead of the planned arrival of a shipment of Korean-made kits. Two South Korean companies were set to load their test kits on a US cargo flight Tuesday (Seoul time) after getting interim approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. "We are grateful to our Republic of Korea partners for assisting the United States in procuring COVID-19 tests, and for its sup

Foreign AffairsApril 14, 2020

[Newsmaker] COVID-19 concealed president’s missteps: Ahn

Ahn Cheol-soo, chief of the minor People’s Party, said Monday that President Moon Jae-in’s missteps have been concealed by the COVID-19 crisis, appealing to voters to support his reformative center-right party in the April 15 general elections. Referring to a news article published by Bloomberg headlined “Virus helps bury controversy in South Korea’s pandemic election,” Ahn said the Moon administration and the Democratic Party of Korea were fortunate to rebuild

PoliticsApril 13, 2020

[Newsmaker] SsangYong Motor to receive W40b from Mahindra & Mahindra

SsangYong Motor will receive 40 billion won ($32 million) in special funds this month from its major shareholder, Indian carmaking conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra, to urgently address liquidity issues, the Korean automaker said Sunday. SsangYong said it finalized its plan to raise 40 billion won in new funds at an extraordinary general meeting Friday. Mahindra will first invest in SsangYong as a loan, which will be converted to equity later upon Indian and Korean government agencies&rs

MobilityApril 12, 2020

[Newsmaker] Bill Gates calls for funding from G-20 members to develop vaccine against coronavirus

In order for the world to better contain the spread of the coronavirus, leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) major economies should provide more funding to develop a vaccine, Bill Gates said. In an opinion piece provided in South Korea exclusively to Yonhap News Agency on Sunday, Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, noted that COVID-19 has not yet affected many low- and middle-income countries, and said world leaders, particularly G-20 members, must step up to keep it that way because it is "like

World NewsApril 12, 2020

[Newsmaker] Football legend's son given suspended sentence for drunk driving

South Korean football legend Cha Bum-kun's second son Cha Se-jji, indicted for causing a traffic accident while drunk driving last December, was given a suspended sentence Friday. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced the junior Cha to 1 1/2 years in prison with a stay of execution for three years after finding him guilty of dangerous driving. The 34-year-old was also given two years of probation and ordered to attend a 40-hour compliance driving lecture. Cha was accused of ramming into

Social AffairsApril 10, 2020

[Newsmaker] Animal Crossing exposes Korea’s selective boycott of Japanese products

The explosive demand for Nintendo Switch video game console in South Korea has reignited debate about the selective approach to boycott of Japanese products by local citizens. According to Korean game distributor Daewon Media on Tuesday -- which retails more than half of Nintendo’s products here -- demand for the console has spiked following the recent release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Nintendo is a multinational video game giant headquartered in Japan, with offices in the US a

IndustryApril 10, 2020

[Newsmaker] US ambassador to South Korea is discussing plans to resign: sources

US Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris has said privately that he does not plan to stay on beyond the November US presidential election, regardless of whether President Donald Trump wins another term, five sources told Reuters. Harris, a 40-year veteran of the US Navy who started in Seoul in 2018 after Trump appointed him, has expressed increasing frustration with the tensions and drama of his tenure, the sources said, all speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensiti

Foreign AffairsApril 9, 2020

[Newsmaker] COVID-19 makes case for universal health care

  Easy access to health services is helping South Korea better navigate through the novel coronavirus crisis, experts suggest.　 More hospital beds mean more patients will likely recover from COVID-19, says preventive medicine professor Shin Ae-sun of Seoul National University College of Medicine. In a recent analysis of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states with over 3,000 confirmed virus cases, those with greater hospital bed capacity tended to have a higher

Social AffairsApril 8, 2020

[Newsmaker] S. Korea considers wristbands to track those in quarantine

South Korea is considering using electronic wristbands to track whereabouts of those placed under compulsory home quarantine, authorities said Tuesday. 　 But faced with concerns over privacy and human rights, the authorities stressed using wristbands is only one of the several options under consideration to counter increasing cases of self-quarantine violations. 　 The government is considering connecting the wristband to a mobile application installed on a smartphone. The wristband would trig

Social AffairsApril 7, 2020

[Newsmaker] From drive-thru markets to flower challenges, virus-hit businesses go creative

Small businesses and local governments in South Korea are testing out creative ideas as they seek to overcome a slump stemming from the new coronavirus that has infected more than 10,000 here. In the southern cities of Gimhae and Seosan, farmers have set up drive-thru markets to sell vegetables and fruit, taking a cue from the government's successful drive-thru virus screening centers. A package of 11 kinds of vegetables is being sold for 20,000 won (A social media challenge aimed at helping

ConsumerApril 7, 2020

[Newsmaker] Ivermectin latest drug candidate for coronavirus

Ivermectin, a parasiticide, could be the next breakthrough solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to initial reports, but further tests must prove the efficacy of the drug in living organisms, experts say. Ivermectin became the center of attention after scientists from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia found that a single dose of the parasiticide could stop the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus growing in a cell culture. Ivermectin effectively eradicated all genetic material of

IndustryApril 6, 2020

[Newsmaker] Korea to push for abolishing statute of limitations for child sex crime

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the government have agreed to push for abolishing the statute of limitations for sex crime involving children and minors. DP and government officials held a consultative meeting Sunday to discuss ways to strengthen the punishment of digital sex crime in response to a high-profile sex exploitation case at online chat rooms involving minors, widely known as the "Nth room case." At least 103 people, including 26 underage girls, are known to have been

PoliticsApril 6, 2020

[Newsmaker] US military uses Seoul lab to test troops outside Korea

A Seoul-based lab tested 72 American troops positive for COVID-19, but the US military in Korea said they belonged to soldiers stationed elsewhere, and not here, a local report said Sunday. 　 A US hospital at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, where the US military is headquartered, sent clinical specimens to the lab, which shared the results with the city in Gyeonggi Province, as it was bound by law to do so. The city pressed the US military for more details, but it came to confirm only the fact t

DefenseApril 5, 2020

[Newsmaker] Public bath emerges as a new cluster of infections

Concerns are rising that a public bath in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, may have become the site of a COVID-19 infection cluster as at least four people who used it have been confirmed with the virus. A 70-year-old woman who used the same public bath with a 67-year-old woman confirmed earlier was confirmed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus Friday. A high school student and a woman in her 50s, who were confirmed a day earlier, were also found to have used the same public bath -- th

Social AffairsApril 3, 2020

[Newsmaker] Not just Telegram: Predators also use Discord

South Korean authorities are zoning in on sex crimes involving encrypted messaging app Telegram, but the platform is not the only one used for sex crimes. After the discovery of an alleged sexual blackmail and abuse ring on Telegram operated by Cho Ju-bin, local reports say access to illegal material is also being sold on Discord, another messaging app that is newer, and less widely used than Telegram. One of the servers on Discord was found to carry content of a sexual nature with some 900

Social AffairsApril 2, 2020

[Newsmaker] Prosecutor denies report he plotted against prominent liberal figure

A high-ranking public prosecutor accused of plotting with a journalist to tarnish the reputation of a vocal supporter of President Moon Jae-in denied Wednesday the accusation made against him by MBC. The terrestrial broadcaster reported Tuesday that a cable network sought to dig up dirt on Rhyu Si-min, using its connections with the prosecution. Lee Cheol, a major shareholder of biotech company SillaJen who is currently in jail for financial fraud, told MBC that a reporter at Channel A pres

Social AffairsApril 1, 2020

[Newsmaker] American soldiers' premature twins transferred to US from virus-hit Daegu

The US military has transferred prematurely born twins of an American soldier couple stationed in South Korea's coronavirus-hit city of Daegu to a Navy hospital in the United States to provide them with better care even though they were not infected with the coronavirus, an official has said. The babies were transported from a neonatal intensive care unit in Daegu to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington via Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul, a

DefenseMarch 31, 2020

[Newsmaker] Jeju sues coronavirus-carrying travelers

The southern province of Jeju Island said Monday it has filed a lawsuit against two travelers who tested positive for coronavirus after a five-day trip of the island. The lawsuit, filed by the provincial government and six local businesses, is seeking over 100 million won ($82,000) in damages and business losses.  The defendants are a 19-year-old who attends a university in the US and her mother. They traveled to Jeju five days after the daughter returned from the US, and tested positi

Social AffairsMarch 30, 2020

[Newsmaker] Germany bets on S. Korean model in virus fightback

BERLIN (AFP) -- In the race against the coronavirus, Germany is betting on widespread testing and quarantining to break the infection chain, a strategy borrowed from South Korea whose success in slowing the outbreak has become the envy of the world. Germany is already carrying out more coronavirus tests than any other European country at a rate of 300,000 to 500,000 a week, according to officials. But Chancellor Angela Merkel's government aims to ramp that up to at least 200,000 tests a day,

WorldMarch 30, 2020