A Siberian cold wave hit South Korea on Tuesday, causing temperatures to plunge across the country to the lowest points this winter, grounding flights and stranding traffic in some parts on the last day of the four-day Lunar New Year weekend. The most affected region was Jeju Island, where all 476 flights to and from the nation's southern island were axed, leaving some 43,000 passengers stranded, according to Jeju Regional Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. "

Social Affairs Jan. 24, 2023

A South Korean court sided with the police agency's decision to punish a veteran police officer for verbally abusing a subordinate and having her run his personal errands, showed a court ruling Monday. Judges in the Seoul Administrative Court in December dismissed an officer's suit against the nation's chief of police to nullify a reprimand warning -- the lightest punishment on a six-tier scale -- handed down by the national police agency in March 2021. The court ruling indicated

Social Affairs Jan. 23, 2023

Prosecutors in South Korea demanded an arrest warrant on Thursday at around 12:40 a.m. for Kim Seong-tae, the former chairman of underwear maker Ssangbangwool who was returned home after fleeing for eight months, to look into links between Kim and President Yook Suk Yeol's political opponent. Kim went through 13 hours of interrogation by prosecutors in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, beginning Tuesday afternoon. The interrogation resumed at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The crime ring member-turned-entre

Social Affairs Jan. 19, 2023

A man rammed his car into a convenience store in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, after his request to buy a plastic bag a few months before was rejected by the store owner, police said Monday. The unnamed driver was arrested by police at the scene in the southern region of South Korea. Police are seeking charges of special destruction of private property and retaliatory crime. At around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, the driver slammed the car into the store, damaging some items there. With the lights p

Social Affairs Jan. 16, 2023

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Sunday it has confirmed that two Korean passengers were on board an aircraft that had crashed near an airport in central Nepal. "We have confirmed that two Korean nationals were on the list of passengers in a passenger aircraft that crashed in Nepal," said a Foreign Ministry official. "We are working to check whether the passengers were on board and the damage caused by the crash." The ministry added it has dispatched an official of th

Foreign Affairs Jan. 15, 2023

An arrest warrant was issued for a 47-year-old woman in Incheon on Friday for failing to register her mother's death for over two years, keeping her body in the house where they had lived together to collect her social security benefits. Police are seeking charges of concealing and possessing a corpse, a crime in South Korea that can be punished by imprisonment of up to seven years. The warrant was issued by the Incheon District Court on Friday. This comes as the welfare authorities grew su

Social Affairs Jan. 15, 2023

An appellate court on Thursday found the South Korean state partially guilty of secondary victimization of Sewol ferry victims' bereaved families. The Seoul High Court ordered the government and now-defunct Sewol ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine to pay over a combined 88 billion won ($70.6 million) to people who lost their loved ones in the 2014 ferry sinking. The size of the compensation went up by 15.7 billion won compared with the previous ruling. This includes 1.06 billion won in the s

Social Affairs Jan. 12, 2023

SEJONG -- China said Korean and Japanese nationals will be required to have transit visas when transiting through a Chinese airport as of Wednesday, extending its apparent retaliation against Seoul's quarantine mandate on travelers from China that requires them to submit a PCR test upon arrival. Citing "discriminatory entry restrictions" by Korea and Japan, China also said travelers from two countries will not be allowed to get visas at points of entry in China. The announcement w

Social Affairs Jan. 11, 2023

SEONGNAM, Gyeonggi Province -- Main opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung appeared at a prosecutors office for questioning Tuesday, denying the bribery charges against him and accused authorities for pushing ahead with "a politically motivated investigation." "Prosecutors have already made a conclusion to indict me whatever the circumstances might be," Lee told the media as he was entering the district public prosecutors' office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Calling th

Politics Jan. 10, 2023

K-pop composer Kim Min-su, better known by his stage name Don Spike, was handed a three-year suspended jail sentence on Monday for buying 45 million-won ($36,100) worth of methamphetamine and abusing it for recreational purposes for at least 14 times. The Seoul Northern District Court ordered the 45-year-old to serve five years of probation and 80 hours of drug awareness classes for treatment. He was also given 120 hours of community service, and some 40 million won in penalty charges. The light

Social Affairs Jan. 9, 2023

Police said Friday they were unable to tell whether Lee Ki-young, suspected of the murders of a taxi driver and an ex-girlfriend in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is a psychopath or not. "We've concluded that we are lacking materials with regards to some evaluation methods to assess (Lee's) psychopathy," said an official of Ilsan Dongbu Police Station. According to police, they will not further conduct another psychopathy test, while prosecutors are likely to continue with such testing, as t

Social Affairs Jan. 6, 2023

South Korea vowed Friday to take stern actions against a Chinese tourist who was arrested in central Seoul after fleeing COVID-19 isolation for two days. The 41-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 immediately after arriving in Korea with his wife. He was sent to a quarantine facility near Incheon Airport, but escaped the facility on Tuesday. "The escapee, who tested positive upon arrival in Korea and was arrested Thursday, will face serious punishment under the law and according to princi

Social Affairs Jan. 6, 2023

The city government of Seoul opened the doors to a more dynamic skyline in South Korea's capital city on Thursday by scrapping the apartment building height limit, a move that could prop up Seoul's chilly housing market. The 2040 Seoul Plan confirmed Thursday will immediately put an end to the floor limit for new residential buildings across Seoul, introduced in 2013 by since-deceased former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul has prohibited any plans

Social Affairs Jan. 5, 2023

Police chiefs said they did not know about the Halloween crowd disaster at Itaewon in Seoul’s Yongsan as it was unfolding on the night of Oct. 29 last year, appearing as witnesses at a National Assembly hearing on Wednesday. At the hearing, the police chiefs and senior officers of Seoul, Yongsan and the national police were grilled about their lack of presence on the night of the incident, leaving the fire department to respond by itself. “I wasn’t briefed or contacted by anyon

Politics Jan. 4, 2023

Police on Wednesday sent the Paju, Gyeonggi Province murder case of 31-year-old Lee Ki-young to prosecution, seeking charges against Lee including robbery-homicide, punishable by life sentence or death. Under the Criminal Act, a murder by a robber is punishable by life sentence or death. Robbery-homicide has a greater punishment than homicide, which is punishable by at least seven years in prison, excluding ones under extenuating circumstances. The latest update to the charges brought against

Social Affairs Jan. 4, 2023