Articles by Kim Arin
Kim Arin
arin@heraldcorp.com-
Cambodian boy visited by first lady to get free care at top Seoul hospital
The Cambodian boy who was visited by South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee last month will be given cost-free care at a top hospital in Seoul next month. Asan Medical Center, one of the largest hospitals in Seoul, said Monday that all of the boy’s medical expenses will be covered by the hospital and its parent foundation, the Asan Foundation. The boy, who is reported to be suffering from a congenital heart disease, will likely be treated at the Seoul hospital’s pediatric cardiac cen
Politics Nov. 28, 2022
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Democratic Party gives Yoon ultimatum to fire safety minister
The Democratic Party of Korea on Sunday gave President Yoon Suk-yeol a one-day ultimatum to fire Lee Sang-min, the minister of interior and safety, over the deadly crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon last month. “The president needs to stand by his words that there will be accountability. The first step to do that is to remove the interior and safety minister from his post,” Democratic Party spokesperson Rep. Lee Soo-jin said in a briefing. If Yoon fails to respond to do so by Monda
Politics Nov. 27, 2022
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South Korea’s 4th monkeypox patient in stable condition: KDCA
South Korea’s fourth monkeypox patient is a health care worker who came into close contact with the country’s third monkeypox patient on Nov. 15, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The KDCA said the health care worker was exposed while taking samples from the third monkeypox patient a week ago, and has been put under “active monitoring” since. The health care worker’s test results came back positive on Tuesday. The health care worker sh
Social Affairs Nov. 22, 2022
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Yoon highlights North Korea threat, budget to half-empty National Assembly
President Yoon Suk-yeol on Tuesday addressed the National Assembly amid escalating partisan conflict that led to an unprecedented complete boycott by the main opposition party. Doubling down on defense In the address, Yoon stressed the need to strengthen deterrence against North Korea, saying that another nuclear weapons test by Pyongyang is imminent. “It is judged that North Korea has already completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test,” Yoon said. "North Korea has rece
Politics Oct. 25, 2022
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What will South Korea do when Russians come fleeing draft?
Diplomatic and other questions are being raised for South Korea, as Russians trying to avoid conscription into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are anticipated to head to the country to seek refugee status. Earlier this month, about two dozen Russians apparently fleeing Vladimir Putin’s draft were refused entry to South Korea. Over the first few days of October, five yachts carrying Russian passengers were spotted in South Korean waters, according to Coast Guard data submitted to
Politics Oct. 12, 2022
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‘South Korea rode out BA.5 wave without social distancing,’ says health ministry
The South Korean government says the resurgence of COVID-19 this summer has subsided without leading to a spike in hospital admissions or deaths, despite social distancing rules being phased out. In recent briefings the Ministry of Health and Welfare called the summer resurgence, triggered by omicron’s BA.5 subvariant, “the first large wave of COVID-19 the country has gone through without social distancing.” “South Korea was able to minimize critical and fatal cases in th
Social Affairs Oct. 10, 2022
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Gangneung welcomes tourists with portal site, ‘Visit Gangneung’
You might know Gangneung as one of the host cities for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and among the host cities of another Olympics event, the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics. But Gangneung is so much more. Gangneung, a city in Gangwon Province on the east coast of South Korea, is where you can watch the first sunrise in the country. If you take the high-speed KTX train, it takes an hour and 50 minutes from Seoul to get to Gangneung, and three hours from Incheon Airport. The Yangya
Social Affairs July 5, 2022
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[H.eco Forum] Small island nations warn developed world: ‘Our present is your future’
Small island countries were on the front lines of climate change but the clock is now ticking for the developed world, former president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, said at the H.eco Forum in Seoul on Thursday. “Hurricane Katrina hit the southeastern US in 2005, at a time when many parts of the country were still in denial of climate change,” Tong said. “The scale of destruction caused by that hurricane left even the most economically developed country on the planet struggling.&r
Social Affairs May 26, 2022
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Pandemic’s bereaved seek accountability
The first known COVID-19 death in South Korea was a 63-year-old hospitalized at a closed ward of a psychiatric hospital in Cheongdo, North Gyeongsang Province. The man, who was schizophrenic, died with pneumonia on Feb. 19, 2020, at the hospital where he had been a resident for over 20 years. He tested positive postmortem. In less than a week after his death, six more at the hospital lost their lives to the virus. All of the 101 patients save for just two ended up getting infected. The outbrea
Social Affairs Feb. 22, 2022
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Omicron surge ‘necessary process’ to get to endemic stage, says Health Ministry
South Korea’s top health official said Monday the surge the country is experiencing now is necessary to move toward an endemic phase from the pandemic, and omicron’s milder severity aids the transition. Son Young-rae, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s spokesperson, said the recent uptick in hospitalizations and deaths driven by the omicron variant “does not warrant the same level of alarm as with the delta wave.” From cases diagnosed Jan. 16-29, the overall f
Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2022
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Safety of COVID-19 self-care scheme in doubt as patients die at home
South Korea stopped monitoring COVID-19 patients younger than 60 beginning Feb. 10 in a switch to what is known as a self-care scheme, after the milder omicron overtook delta as the dominant strain here. But following deaths among younger patients isolating at home, concerns are rising over possible safety oversights in the new system. According to health authorities Monday, at least two patients died in the Seoul area while in home isolation over the weekend. In Suwon, Gyeonggi Provi
Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2022
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Why isn’t COVID-19 top priority for S. Korea’s next president?
A new president is about to be elected, leading South Korea through the next phase of the pandemic. So why is COVID-19 getting so little attention in the presidential race? It wasn’t until after a hospital bed shortage induced by the “living with COVID-19” scheme in November that the leading candidates -- the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s Lee Jae-myung and main opposition People Power Party’s Yoon Suk-yeol -- set up dedicated committees for outlining their p
Politics Feb. 21, 2022
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[Newsmaker] Korea’s plans for COVID-19-positive voters spark voting rights concerns
South Korea has changed the rules around voting to let people infected with COVID-19 cast their ballots in polling stations, as the omicron surge places record numbers of people under self-quarantine. On the second day of advance voting, March 5, and on the day of the presidential election, March 9, eligible voters with active cases will be able to vote in person past the regular hours, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The National Assembly passed the exceptional measure into a bill on Monday. As many as
Social Affairs Feb. 15, 2022
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Ahn Cheol-soo is only presidential contender with science literacy: adviser
Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate for South Korea’s centrist People Party, will prioritize sound judgments based on science over populism as Korea seeks a safe exit from the pandemic, according to his COVID-19 adviser. Dr. Park Jin-kyu, COVID-19 adviser to Ahn and the former Korea Medical Association vice president, told The Korea Herald that response has been swayed by political meddling. Ahn -- the qualified medical doctor, software engineer and two-time presidential candida
Politics Feb. 11, 2022
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[Weekender] How South Korea went from ‘test, trace, treat’ to ‘let it spread’
South Korea is determined to go easy on omicron, which is behind the ongoing record surge in COVID-19 patients, in the hope that the new dominant variant will not be as bad as the ones that came before. But is this reckless? The rationale for the shift to the omicron response plan is that the new variant is less threatening than its predecessor, delta, the government says. Messaging from health officials surrounding omicron has been consistently hopeful. Son Young-rae, spokesperson for th
Social Affairs Feb. 4, 2022
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