A retaining wall at an apartment complex in Taean-gun, South Chungcheong Province, collapsed at around 3:20 a.m. Thursday, with no deaths or injuries reported. According to local emergency services, structural damage to the 20-meter wall caused blocks of concrete to fall and destroy nine cars in the parking lot of the apartment complex. A resident of the apartment wrote in an online posting that the building's management personnel notified the residents to remove their cars from the parking

Social Affairs Feb. 22, 2024

South Korean police said Wednesday it is investigating a 32-year-old man on suspicion of robbing a 70-something woman living in a rural home, some 65 kilometers away from the city of Daegu where the suspect was living. According to Changnyeong Police Station, the suspect rode on a bicycle for seven hours from his home to invade the victim's home in Daehap-myeon, South Gyeongsang Province, at around 9 p.m. last Thursday. Police said he threatened her with a weapon and took a little over 3 mi

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2024

South Korean public broadcaster KBS' recent decision to pull a documentary about the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry has been sparking criticism from within the company's ranks. Eight KBS producers issued a joint statement urging that the episode of the channel's weekly documentary series "Docu Insight" on the tragedy should be aired as scheduled. The episode was slated to feature the tragedy and the post-traumatic stress survivors still suffer from, but KBS decided not

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2024

A state-run commission on Wednesday officially recommended that the South Korean government apologize to a 68-year-old man named Lee Sang-chul, who was falsely accused of being the culprit of a 1980 kidnap and murder case and tortured into a false confession. "We have verified the fact that police had imprisoned Lee without proper legal procedures, such as having an arrest warrant issued, and tortured him," the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea said, pointing out t

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2024

A South Korean teacher has been making headlines for wearing a stab-resistant vest to classes, which he relayed to local media on Wednesday as intended to defend himself from a student's threats. The teacher, working at a high school in North Jeolla Province, started wearing the protective vest after he was threatened by a student he had reprimanded in 2022. He got into an argument while disciplining a student for smoking at school, leading to a feud that has lasted for nearly two years. Th

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2024

Soccer star Lee Kang-in said Wednesday that he recently visited national team captain Son Heung-min in London to apologize for his actions in a scuffle during the Asian Cup 2023 earlier this month. "I thought it was important to visit (Son) Heung-min and apologize in person, and through a long conversation with him, I came to understand the weight he shoulders as the captain and look back upon myself," he wrote in the official apology posted on in Instagram page, saying that he paid a

Soccer Feb. 21, 2024

South Korean soccer star Hwang Ui-jo's sister-in-law, currently on trial accused of blackmailing Hwang and distributing his private videos, recently submitted a letter of apology to the court admitting that she did intentionally reveal the videos. The defendant surnamed Lee said that she committed the crime so she could punish her brother-in-law "for being ungrateful" to her and her husband. "We gave up everything in South Korea and looked after (Hwang) for five years as he

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2024

The brother of the woman who was murdered along a Sillim-dong hiking trail has shared the story of what the bereaved family has been through in a recent online post, since the brutal attempted rape and death of the 35-year-old teacher in August 2023. In a crime that shocked the nation, a then-30-year-old man named Choi Yoon-jong followed the victim, surnamed Gong, to a remote area along a hiking trail in Gwanak-gu, southern Seoul, before attacking her with the intent to rape her. He then fatal

Social Affairs Feb. 20, 2024

The South Korean government on Tuesday said it will revamp the supervision and maintenance system for the medical equipment in the country, as recent data shows that some 42.6 percent of what is deemed "special medical equipment" here has been in use for 10 years or more. The Ministry of Health and Welfare's recently-announced second comprehensive state health insurance program for the 2024-2028 period kicked in this year, which includes plans to shorten the term for regular inspe

Social Affairs Feb. 20, 2024

South Korean prosecutors recently indicted a man for providing false testimony and rigging evidence related to the alleged rape of his girlfriend by another man. The man reportedly tried to convince his girlfriend that she had not been assaulted. Investigators have pushed for charges of perjury, instigation of perjury, and forging of evidence against the 20-something suspect, according to officials. The suspect, who was in a romantic relationship with the victim, was approached by a friend of

Social Affairs Feb. 19, 2024

Giant panda Fu Bao, who has been the darling of animal lovers in South Korea, will be on display for the public at Everland until March 3, the South Korean amusement park said Monday. Fu Bao will then be kept in a separate space at the park's Panda World for a month to undergo preparations for her overseas transfer to the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan Province in early April. The female giant panda, the first of her kind to be born in South Korea, is

Travel Feb. 19, 2024

Regional governments across South Korea have been expanding benefits for senior citizens who forfeit their driving privileges, as the number of car accidents across the country involving older drivers has been on the rise. Jisan-gun in Busan said earlier this month that it has implemented a policy of giving 100,000 won ($75) in gift certificates to be used in traditional markets for anyone aged 65 and above who gives up their driver's license. The district became the first to introduce bene

Social Affairs Feb. 19, 2024

South Korean police on Monday commenced an investigation into an anonymous online post urging trainee doctors to delete hospital files before resigning, as part of collective action by local physicians in protest of the government plan to increase the enrollment quota for medical schools. Seoul Gangnam Police Station said it was trying to track down the person who wrote the post, based on a tip-off it received around 1:30 a.m. this morning. The post is believed to have first been uploaded on Med

Social Affairs Feb. 19, 2024

About 1.55 million people aged 70 and above were still in work as of January 2024, accounting for 24.5 percent of South Koreans in that age group. The number of over-70s working rose by 11.4 percent compared to the 1.39 million the year before, according to the Korean Statistical Information Service operated by Statistics Korea. The group made up 5.6 percent of the overall working population of the country this year, up from 5.1 percent in January of 2023. Roughly half of those who still work be

Social Affairs Feb. 19, 2024

South Korea's 119 emergency service received a total of 53,935 reports last year requesting a search for a missing person, more than double the number of the previous year, the National Fire Agency revealed this week. Some 36 percent of those reports were requests to find people aged 65 or older, with the 119 dispatch service cooperating with local police to seek the missing person in 7,819 cases. This figure also marked a steep increase from 5,137 cases in 2021. "We think this is due

Social Affairs Feb. 17, 2024