Most Popular
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'Super Rich in Korea' will leave viewers appreciating Korea more: producers
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Probe of first lady on Dior bag allegations set to begin
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Top prosecutor pledges 'speedy, strict' probe into first lady's luxury bag allegations
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Indonesia’s KF-21 fighter jet deal cut back -- what’s next?
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[KH Explains] Can tech firms' AI alliances take on Nvidia?
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Korean battery makers heave sigh of relief over 2-year IRA reprieve
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Over 80,000 millionaires, 20 billionaires in Seoul: report
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Police seek arrest warrant for med student who killed girlfriend
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Local filmmakers criticize ‘The Roundup: Punishment’ monopoly of screens
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Will China's self-sufficient dream in HBM come true?
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[Editorial] Budget cut concerns
The National Assembly’s National Defense Committee curtailed the Ministry of National Defense’s budget for next year by 446.4 billion won ($375 million), from 55.227 trillion won to 54.781 trillion won. The committee cut the ministry’s “defense capability improvement” expenditures by 612.2 billion won, from 17.336 trillion won to 16.724 trillion won. The expenses, calculated by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, are needed to purchase or develop advanc
Nov. 23, 2021
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[Editorial] COVID crisis, again
“Living with COVID-19” has turned out to be more painful than the government forecast, with related figures reaching a precarious level. Unless proper measures are taken in time, the spread of the coronavirus is feared to spiral out of control. Few want to stop the gradual return to pre-pandemic life under the state-guided “living with COVID-19” scheme, but there are signs the nationwide easing of antivirus restrictions on Nov. 1 has caused serious problems. The Korea
Nov. 22, 2021
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[Editorial] Parliamentary probe threat
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea went too far when it put pressure on the Ministry of Economy and Finance to include presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung’s major election pledges in the government budget. Referring to this year’s surplus tax revenue, estimated at 50 trillion won ($42.3 billion), Democratic Party Floor Leader Rep. Yun Ho-jung said Tuesday that the financial authorities’ underestimation of the nation’s tax revenue constitutes dereliction of duty and is g
Nov. 19, 2021
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[Editorial] Time to halt stopgap measure
As South Korea loosens social distancing rules this month, the number of people venturing out of their homes is rising sharply. This upsurge of outdoor activities was widely expected. What’s surprising, though, is that the Korean government appears to be ill-prepared to handle the increase in human traffic and related changes, suggesting that policymakers did not see what was coming with the introduction of the “living with COVID-19” transition. Even before the restrictions
Nov. 18, 2021
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[Editorial] Tax politics
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is belatedly rushing to pass its bill to cut the real estate transfer income tax for homeowners without second homes during the ongoing parliamentary session. The party adopted a platform in June to ease the real estate transfer income tax and proposed a bill in August to expand the exemption of the tax to houses owned by persons without second homes from 900 million won to 1.2 billion won ($765,000-$1.02 million) in terms of sale price. It put the bill on t
Nov. 17, 2021
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[Editorial] Shutdown law shuttered
South Korea finally moved to scrap the decade-old rule blocking minors from playing PC-based online games past midnight, a belated yet welcome move considering that the dispute-laden regulation has long been outdated and ineffective. The National Assembly on Thursday held a plenary session and voted in favor of a revision to the Youth Protection Act, abolishing what is called the “shutdown law” banning online PC game access for youngsters under 16 between midnight and 6 a.m. The co
Nov. 16, 2021
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[Editorial] Swim with the current
Nuclear power has reentered the spotlight overseas as an effective response to climate change and energy issues. At home, heads of state-owned electric power enterprises drew attention for mentioning the need to change the current government’s stubborn nuclear phase-out policy. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation Tuesday that France would build new nuclear reactors to help the country reduce its dependence on foreign countries for energy and meet car
Nov. 15, 2021
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[Editorial] Due attention
A draft resolution condemning North Korea’s dire human rights situation was recently submitted to the UN’s Third Committee for approval. If passed, it will be put to a vote at the UN General Assembly in mid-December. South Korea excluded itself from a list of 35 co-sponsors of the resolution, though it plans to join the document’s adoption by consensus. President Moon Jae-in’s government has taken such a lukewarm position with regard to a UN resolution on human suf
Nov. 12, 2021
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[Editorial] Unfair probes
The prosecution and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials are investigating suspicions involving the presidential nominees of the ruling and main opposition parties, but their investigations seem unfair. The CIO booked Yoon Seok-youl, presidential nominee of the opposition People Power Party, again. This time, in connection with a complaint that he instructed prosecutors to document judges’ ruling tendencies when he was the prosecutor general. It marked the fourt
Nov. 11, 2021
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[Editorial] Sensible policy needed
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea won a landslide victory in last year’s parliamentary elections after it blanketed negative voter sentiment with a pledge to provide coronavirus relief cash handouts to all households. After the electoral win, President Moon Jae-in’s government doled out 14.3 trillion won ($12.1 billion) in relief grants to more than 21 million households across the country. Lee Jae-myung, the liberal ruling party’s candidate for the presidential election in
Nov. 10, 2021
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[Editorial] Diversify import sources
Diesel vehicles, including trucks and buses, are at risk of stopping across the country. This is largely attributable to China’s abrupt urea export curb since Oct. 11. South Korea depends on China for 97 percent of its urea imports. Due to the shortage of urea, the price of diesel exhaust fluid has already risen tenfold. Urea is the main component of diesel exhaust fluid, a solution that is injected into the exhaust stream of a diesel engine using a process called selective catalytic redu
Nov. 9, 2021
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[Editorial] Many tasks ahead
Former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, who was nominated last week as the main opposition People Power Party’s presidential candidate, faces the task of framing himself as a capable and inclusive leader if he is to achieve a change of power with the election four months away. After a period of soul-searching following his resignation from the top prosecutorial post in March, Yoon declared he was entering politics in June and joined the conservative opposition party a month later. What
Nov. 8, 2021
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[Editorial] Get to core of case
The prosecution is showing signs of winding down its investigations in the Daejang-dong scandal. The scandal stems from the unusual profit distribution scheme of a public-private partnership project to develop Daejang-dong in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, just south of Seoul. A few speculators realized astronomical rates of return from their modest investments in the project led by Seongnam Development Corp., a public enterprise funded by the Seongnam municipal government. The prosecution on Mo
Nov. 5, 2021
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[Editorial] Habitual contender
Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the minor centrist opposition People’s Party, announced Monday that he would run for president in the 2022 election. It marks the third presidential bid by the software mogul-turned-politician. Ahn withdrew from the 2012 presidential race to lend his support to Moon Jae-in, then candidate of the main opposition party. He ran again in the 2017 election and finished third with 21.4 percent of the votes. Moon won the election to succeed disgraced President Park Geun
Nov. 4, 2021
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[Editorial] Means to get votes
Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s presidential candidate, is pushing for COVID-19 relief payments to everyone. When he was Gyeonggi governor, he defied the decision by the government and the party to restrict Chuseok holiday coronavirus relief to the bottom 88 percent income bracket and went through his plan to offer the assistance to all of the residents in the province by tapping the provincial budget. He expended more than 600 billion won ($510 million) to give 250,
Nov. 3, 2021
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[Editorial] Policy fiasco
Many of the policies President Moon Jae-in’s administration has pursued with the purported intent of helping the less privileged have only brought more difficulties to them. The most obvious case of such policy paradox is Moon’s strenuous drive to turn temporary jobs into permanent positions. Just days after he took office in May 2017, Moon pledged to ensure that all temporary employees in the public sector would be given permanent status during his five-year tenure. Since then, hi
Nov. 2, 2021
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[Editorial] Obsession with NK
North Korea is said to have demanded, as preconditions for talks on declaring the end of the Korean War, that South Korea and the United States stop their combined military exercises and that economic sanctions against Pyongyang be lifted. A lawmaker who attended a parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service on Thursday told reporters later that the agency’s chief had made the revelation. South Korea and the US have already reduced their combined drills, both to ease inter-
Nov. 1, 2021
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[Editorial] Sapping momentum
Data released this week by the Bank of Korea cast doubts on whether the country’s economy will grow around 4 percent this year as forecast earlier by the central bank and the government. South Korea saw its real gross domestic product expand 0.3 percent in the July-September period from three months earlier. In August, the BOK said that Asia’s fourth-largest economy could achieve annual growth of 4 percent in 2021, if it grew by at least 0.6 percent on-quarter in the third and fourt
Oct. 29, 2021
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[Editorial] A meeting at a sensitive time
The meeting between President Moon Jae-in and presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party was probably inevitable. Quite a number of party members still have bitter feelings toward him in the aftermath of the race to select a presidential candidate, and Lee may have felt the urgent need to create a united front. He wasted no time, visiting Cheong Wa Dae about an hour after registering with the National Election Commission as a preliminary presidential candidate. Of cours
Oct. 28, 2021
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[Editorial] Belated bid
South Korea is hastening work to apply to join a regional trade bloc called the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. It plans to hold a meeting of external economy-related ministers early next month to make a formal decision to pursue CPTPP membership. The meeting was scheduled to be held Monday, but has been postponed due to the need to coordinate on differences among government agencies. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki, who doubles as deputy prime minister for economic affai
Oct. 27, 2021