South Korea

The government will lower the age of eligibility for COVID-19 treatment pills from 65 to 60 to better contain the spread of the Omicron variant, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Friday.

The number of foreign nationals staying in South Korea shrank nearly 4 percent on-year in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Korea Immigration Office said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has raised the travel-alert level for 12 provinces in southeastern Ukraine to Level 3, the second-highest in the four-tier system. On Tuesday, the foreign ministry held an emergency online meeting with the Korean Embassy in Ukraine and other ministries to discuss how to protect Korean residents there amid a heightening chance […]

The government's frequently changing quarantine guidelines are prompting confusion while health authorities have implemented a new medical response system due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Starting Wednesday, it changed the criteria and rules for those who are considered vaccinated, and those who have had close contact with confirmed patients.

Korea saw the number of daily coronavirus infections surpass 10,000 for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, driven up by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Tuesday's tally stood at 13,012, including 12,743 local transmissions, breaking the all-time record of 8,571 daily […]

Rescue workers found one person trapped under rubble at the site of a collapsed apartment building under construction in the southwestern city of Gwangju on Tuesday.

Main opposition People Power Party (PPP) presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol is quickly rebounding in his support rate despite allegations involving his family members, while ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Lee Jae-myung is failing to break above the 40 percent mark.

Presidential candidate Sim Sang-jung acknowledges that Korea's geopolitical position and stance are situated uneasily between the United States and China, but she doesn't view that fact pessimistically. She says that there is still room for Korea as a middle power to make its voice heard and influence global affairs, and that, if elected, she will try to […]

Presidential candidate Sim Sang-jung took a five-day break in mid-January. For a presidential candidate on the campaign trail, taking a hiatus for five days without reaching out to voters seemed like something akin to a gamble - if not a detrimental move.

Drug smuggling uncovered by the South Korean customs agency hit a record high last year as trafficking via non-contact delivery means shot up amid the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Wednesday.

The number of babies born in South Korea fell to a record low in November last year, data showed Wednesday, underpinning the country's gloomy demographic situation with the chronically low birth rate.

Ahn Surl-hee, the daughter of People's Party presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, joined her father's election campaign, by uploading YouTube video clips of herself to enhance communication with supporters.

A man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for forming a criminal organization and distributing marijuana in South Korea through the dark web, a court said Wednesday.

Presidential candidate Sim Sang-jung, a politician who focuses on representing the grassroots, has vowed to end Korea's era of “super-presidents” if elected, to make more people's voices heard in the legislature. Having stood for workers, women, sexual minorities and other vulnerable groups for over 20 years as a lawmaker, Sim criticized the country's […]

United States Ambassador to Colombia Philip S. Goldberg is expected to be the new top U.S. envoy to South Korea, a post which has been vacant for more than a year, according to sources, Wednesday.

INCHEON - Russell the dog was once destined to be food, as he was locked up in a dirty wire cage on a dog meat farm in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. But his fate changed after being rescued last October, and he was put on a flight bound for Toronto in search of a new family three months later. Russell is among the 110 canines that were rescued from dog […]

President Moon Jae-in will not hold a New Year's press conference as he focuses on handling the COVID-19 situation with the highly transmissible Omicron variant becoming the dominant strain in Korea, a senior presidential official said Monday.

The Japanese Embassy in Seoul has refused to accept South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Lunar New Year gift, claiming the gift's box bears an image of South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, Japanese news reports said Saturday.

President Moon Jae-in returned home Saturday from a three-nation trip to the Middle East, where bolstering economic and defense cooperation was high on his agenda.

Daily COVID-19 cases jumped to over 7,000 for the first time in a month Saturday amid the fast spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

It all started with a ruling party lawmaker comparing a Buddhist temple with a blind con artist who appears in a popular Korean folktale. Last year, Rep. Jung Chung-rae of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) likened Haein Temple on Mount Gaya to Bongi Kim Seon-dal, a popular Korean folklore character known as one of the most brilliant swindlers of the […]

CAIRO - President Moon Jae-in will return home from his eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, without inking a deal with Cairo on exports of Korea's K-9 self-propelled howitzers.

The Seoul Western District Court ruled in favor of minor People's Party presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo in his request to ban three TV broadcasters - namely KBS, SBS and MBC - from hosting and airing a one-on-one TV debate between two presidential candidates.

South Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) held a high-level meeting on Wednesday and agreed to establish a joint bidding team for nuclear energy projects in third-party countries, the foreign ministry said.

An outspoken political commentator has joined the minor opposition Justice Party again, two years after he left the progressive political group to protest its approval of the Moon Jae-in government's appointment of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, when the corruption scandals surrounding the former minister and his wife had reached a fever pitch.

Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul will reopen in July after completing over 1 1/2 years of renovation that will more than double the total area, including tripling the space for trees and other plants, the city government said Tuesday.

Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the minor opposition People's Party, denounced Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), Tuesday, calling him an unprepared candidate who has been benefiting from the Moon Jae-in administration's incompetence in state affairs. The former software tycoon also said it was premature to say […]

Ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chairman Song Young-gil announced Tuesday that he won't seek reelection in the next National Assembly election, vowing his party will also not field candidates for by-elections which will take place on the same day of the March 9 presidential election.

The number of Korea's daily new coronavirus infections could increase to as many as 30,000 by early next month, given the rapid spread of the Omicron variant that has become the dominant strain in the country, health authorities warned, Tuesday. The warning came after the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported that Korea added a […]