Thirty-two medical schools have requested from the government 4,301 additional faculty members over the next six years, in order to address an anticipated faculty shortage in light of the state's plan to expand the medical school enrollment quota across the country. The medical schools slated for a quota increase next year submitted their requests for the thousands of additional faculty members to the Education Ministry in March, according to the report compiled by Rep. Jin Sun-mi of the

Social Affairs Aug. 14, 2024

An increasing percentage of foreign visitors to South Korea are opting to use air and sea ports in areas outside of the Greater Seoul region of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, government data showed Wednesday. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, data showed that 74.4 percent of the foreign visitors who entered the country in the first half of this year used Incheon International Airport, Incheon Port and Gimpo International Airport, which are located in the country's gateway

Social Affairs Aug. 14, 2024

Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday it has developed a diagnostic test to identify dog meat, with a recently passed ban on dog-sourced meat set to fully take effect in 2027. The test kit uses polymerase chain reaction to identify dog DNA in meat, and has been developed by Seoul's Research Institute of Public Health and Environment in June. The city government plans to use the system to catch those who attempt to sell dog meat by falsely advertising it as other types of meat. Seou

Social Affairs Aug. 14, 2024

A recent survey showed that many in South Korea who have divorced said that splitting up hit them the hardest when they were dividing assets with their former spouse, or when they were moving to a new home. Local matchmaking agencies Bien-Aller and Only-You conducted the survey of 267 divorced men and 267 divorced women, and asked them when was the moment their divorce sank in. Some 31.1 percent of the female respondents picked when they were receiving their half of the marital assets, or giving

Social Affairs Aug. 13, 2024

South Korean police said Tuesday that an Incheon man who had been reported missing after a work dinner last week was found dead in a water hazard or pond at a golf course three days after he had disappeared. The body of the man, in his 20s, was found by the police search team at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, according to Incheon Seobu Police Station. Investigators used drones and surveillance footage of the areas adjacent to where he was last seen in Seo-gu in the western part of the city, and managed to

Social Affairs Aug. 13, 2024

Seoul Metro, operator of the Seoul subway system, said Monday it has sold the naming rights for four stations to local companies in a recent open auction, in a bid to address its chronic financial issues. The naming right of Seongsu Station was sold to Olive Young, a health and beauty products retailer of the CJ Group, for 1 billion won ($730,000), while rights for renaming Yeouinaru Station was to Eugene Investment and Securities Co. for 220 million won. The naming right for Gangnam Station was

Social Affairs Aug. 13, 2024

A local civic group recently revealed its analysis of 46 consultation cases involving employees of small businesses, the majority of which were related to what the employees saw as wrongful dismissal from work. The Workplace Gapjil 119 looked into their consultations in 2023 involving employees of workplaces of fewer than five workers and found that 27 of them were cases related to dismissal. In one such case, the employee was fired after packing their own lunch instead of eating with co-worke

Social Affairs Aug. 12, 2024

  The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Monday it is kicking off an inspection of the Badminton Korea Association, following claims of irregularities made by Olympic gold medalist An Se-young. Immediately after she won the gold in the women's singles event in Paris, An suggested that the national team "did not take her injury seriously." Her comment sparked suspicion that she had been forced to play through an injury that had been ailing her since last year. She also al

More Sports Aug. 12, 2024

A man on the run from the law turned himself in to police two days after he fled officers while shielding himself with a female hostage, who turned out to be his romantic partner. Changwon District Prosecutors' Office said Monday that the suspect in his 50s had turned himself in at around 11:05 p.m. the night before, after police contacted him and persuaded him to do so. He had been on the run since April, when he was supposed to return to prison after being temporarily released for medic

Social Affairs Aug. 12, 2024

The Supreme Court recently confirmed the ruling that said the SK Telecom Co. did not violate the law with its electronic prescription service that the company provided 14 years ago, court officials said Friday. In a verdict reached last month, South Korea's highest court upheld the lower court's ruling that cleared SK Telecom of violating the Personal Information Protection Act and the Medical Services Act. The e-prescription service in question was launched by the largest wireless c

Social Affairs Aug. 10, 2024

Two extra sets of stairs are to be installed at Seoul's notoriously crowded Seongsu Station, the Seoul Metro said Thursday, in a bid to resolve overcrowding issues in the popular area. One of the new stairways will be installed next to the existing stairs leading to Exit No. 2, and the other next to the existing stairs leading to Exit No. 3, according to Seoul Metro's officials. Construction of the new stairs at the Line No. 2 station will be completed before October next year, by wh

Social Affairs Aug. 10, 2024

With Kim Yu-jin's stunning win in the women's 57-kilogram taekwondo event Thursday, South Korea has now won two taekwondo gold medals and 13 golds across all events at the Paris Olympics. The country has already matched its own record for the most gold medals it has won at an Olympics -- set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and matched at the 2012 London Olympics -- and is now shooting to beat it. South Korea also has a shot at matching its record of the most medals it has won overall -- 33 at the 1

More Sports Aug. 9, 2024

Of the four members of the South Korean taekwondo team competing in the Paris Olympics, Kim Yu-jin was probably the one least expected to bring home the gold medal. Her Olympic Kyorugi Ranking as of June, which was used for seeding of the Paris event, was No. 24 in the women's -57-kilogram class, far below her teammates Seo Geon-woo, Lee Da-bin, and gold medalist Park Tae-jun -- each ranked No.4, No.4, and No.5 in their respective classes. But Kim used her long 183-centimeter frame to h

More Sports Aug. 9, 2024

Government data showed Thursday that 4,394 domestic airline passengers could not reach their destination in the first half of this year, due to forced turnarounds caused by inaccurate weather forecasts. Of all the cases of planes returning to their departure airports due to bad weather between January and June of this year, the forecast was wrong on 20 occasions and did not require the turnaround. This was revealed by Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who cite

Social Affairs Aug. 8, 2024

  Overcoming his archrival, an upset in the semifinals, relative inexperience on the international stage -- after it all, South Korea's Park Tae-joon finally stood alone atop the taekwondo world in becoming the first Korean ever to win the men's lightest weight class at the Olympics. In the finals of the men's 58-kilogram (flyweight) event Wednesday, Park was declared the winner after Gashim Magomedov of Azerbaijan threw in the towel due to an apparent injury in the second round. Park had b

More Sports Aug. 8, 2024