Following YouTuber Tzuyang's recent revelation about her being assaulted and financially exploited by her former boyfriend for four years, a group of YouTubers were suspected to have blackmailed her for money in exchange for keeping quiet about her past. The revelation shocked and angered viewers over what many are calling the moral bankruptcy of the so-called "cyber wreckers," who make a profit by posting rumors or negative news about celebrities often in a maliciously edited f

Social Affairs July 13, 2024

Popular South Korean YouTuber Chimchakman released a statement concerning a recent online threat made against his 11-year-old daughter, saying he will not tolerate any foul play against his family. Officials from the Dongdaemun Police Station in Seoul said Thursday that they have launched an investigation into a threat against the daughter of the YouTuber, whose real name is Lee Byeong-geon. The unidentified individual, who posted the threat on an online community at around 9:34 p.m. on Tuesda

Social Affairs July 12, 2024

An elderly woman pinned underneath a bus was saved Thursday by a group of citizens nearby who lifted the bus to get her out. According to Seodaemun Police Station in Seoul, the woman in her 70s had been getting off a bus at a stop near Hongje Station around 6:25 p.m., when she slipped and fell. The driver did not see her fall, and when the bus moved forward her arm was pinned down by one of the wheels. The people at the bus stop came to her rescue by collectively lifting the bus to free her. T

Social Affairs July 12, 2024

One of the three suspects behind the May murder of a South Korean tourist in Pattaya, Thailand has been extradited here Wednesday, 58 days after he was apprehended in Cambodia. Korea's National Police Agency said the 27-year-old suspect arrived via Incheon International Airport this morning. He was nabbed by police in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 14, and the Korean police has been working with the local authorities to ensure that the suspect is sent here as quickly as possible within the bou

Social Affairs July 10, 2024

Over two dozen people are being investigated in a drug scandal surrounding former professional baseball player Oh Jae-won, Seoul police said Wednesday. Seoul Gangnam Police Station said it has forwarded the case to the prosecution, with 29 people facing charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act. The list includes 13 active or retired pro baseball players, a trainer for Oh's former team the Doosan Bears of the KBO, parents of a player from Oh's baseball academy, three people who

Social Affairs July 10, 2024

South Korea's highest court recently upheld a lower court ruling that cleared an 82-year-old man of spy charges, for which he served a seven-year prison term after being convicted over five decades ago. The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the prosecution, who claimed that the man, surnamed Kim, was guilty on some of the charges pressed against him back in 1969. The court said the evidence presented against him did not indicate that Kim could potentially threaten the nation's securi

Social Affairs July 10, 2024

An actor in his 40s is being investigated on the charge of drunk driving, with additional allegations of him assaulting the people who reported him to the authorities. The officials at Seoul Seongdong Police Station said they have handed prosecutors a drunk driving case that occurred at on July 2 in Seongdong-gu, eastern Seoul. The actor is believed to have been drinking at a restaurant in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, before driving his car some three kilometers to his home in Seongdong-gu. The m

Social Affairs July 10, 2024

More than half of recorded incidents suspected of being sudden unintended acceleration have involved drivers under the age of 60, government data showed Wednesday, contrary to the spreading belief that many such cases are caused by operator error on the part of older drivers. There have been 456 reports of SUA in South Korea from 2014 through last month, according to a Korea Transportation Safety Authority report submitted to Rep. Ahn Tae-jun of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. The

Social Affairs July 10, 2024

A South Korean court sentenced a 27-year-old man who led a scam that involved spiking teens' drinks with drugs and blackmailing parents to 23 years in jail Tuesday. The defendant surnamed Lee is believed to have been the leader of a crime ring that made drinks out of methamphetamine and milk and distributed them to middle and high school students in Daechi-dong, southern Seoul on April 3, 2023. The perpetrators falsely claimed that the drinks would help students concentrate. Lee ordered his

Social Affairs July 9, 2024

A local DJ was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for a February drunk driving accident that resulted in the death of a 54-year-old motorcyclist. The Seoul Central District Court found Ahn Ye-song guilty of death by dangerous driving, hit and run, drunk driving and not taking appropriate measures after causing an accident. It also ordered that her car be seized as a relatively rare form of punishment imposed on particularly severe drunk-driving cases. The investigation found that Ahn, whi

Social Affairs July 9, 2024

Of cases in which hospitals refused to take emergency patients, 41.9 percent occurred because the hospital lacked the necessary medical staff to take care of the patient, fire agency data has shown. From 2023 to June of 2024, there were 4,227 cases across the country in which a hospital refused to admit an emergency patient taken there by ambulance, according to the National Fire Agency data provided to the Rep. Kim Sun-min of the minor opposition Rebuilding Korea Party. Of those cases, 1,771

Social Affairs July 9, 2024

A man in his 50s is being investigated by local police on suspicion of deliberately driving his car into another vehicle, injuring a pregnant woman, who was a passenger in the other car at the time. According to the Hwaseong Seobu Police Station in Gyeonggi Province, the driver ran his car into the side of another car Saturday. The other driver's pregnant wife and two young children, aged 3 and 4, were in the vehicle at the time. The female victim, who was 24 weeks pregnant at the time, fel

Social Affairs July 9, 2024

The South Korean prosecutors said Monday it has indicted a man in his 30s for killing his own mother in her sleep. The Daegu District Prosecutors' Office pressed the matricide charges against the suspect, who has intellectual disabilities. He is accused of killing the victim at 4 p.m. on June 10, while she was sleeping at a restaurant she owned in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province. The suspect told the investigators he committed the crime because of a grudge for his mother repeatedly repr

Social Affairs July 9, 2024

An opposition lawmaker on Monday accused the incumbent Yoon Suk Yeol administration of "giving up trying to defend Dokdo as Korean territory," given that the Oceans' Ministry's reports to the president have never mentioned the island since Yoon took office in 2022. Rep. Lim Mi-ae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea said that the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries report she recently acquired shows that the Dokdo Islets are not mentioned once in the reports submitte

Social Affairs July 8, 2024

A record-high 47.56 million passengers used South Korean carriers in the first half of this year, logging a 29.1 percent increase from the same period in 2023. The passenger traffic was the highest in the country's history, up from the previous high of 47.04 million in the H1 of 2019, according to the Air Portal data of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The annual all-time high for passengers of local airlines is 93.47 million, also recorded in 2019. The number of passenge

Social Affairs July 8, 2024