South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Sunday it has confirmed that two Korean passengers were on board an aircraft that had crashed near an airport in central Nepal. "We have confirmed that two Korean nationals were on the list of passengers in a passenger aircraft that crashed in Nepal," said a Foreign Ministry official. "We are working to check whether the passengers were on board and the damage...

An arrest warrant was issued for a 47-year-old woman in Incheon on Friday for failing to register her mother's death for over two years, keeping her body in the house where they had lived together to collect her social security benefits. Police are seeking charges of concealing and possessing a corpse, a crime in South Korea that can be punished by imprisonment of up to seven years. The warrant ...

An appellate court on Thursday found the South Korean state partially guilty of secondary victimization of Sewol ferry victims' bereaved families. The Seoul High Court ordered the government and now-defunct Sewol ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine to pay over a combined 88 billion won ($70.6 million) to people who lost their loved ones in the 2014 ferry sinking. The size of the compensation went...

The surge in imported cases from China is a worrying sign despite the circumstances, as Seoul is poised to begin discussing eased masking rules. "China is a factor, and experts will discuss next week whether Korea can control the spread without a mask mandate, given the virus situation in China," Han said. Korean health authorities said Wednesday that 17 percent of entrants from China have so f...

Meanwhile, Lee is also being targeted by prosecutors in a widening probe into a separate scandal. The case centers around a lucrative land development project in 2015 to supply homes in Daejang-dong, Seongnam. Prosecutors have been looking into Lee's involvement in approving the land developer consortium's dividend plan, as heard from a suspect during a court trial in October. The plan had allo...

K-pop composer Kim Min-su, better known by his stage name Don Spike, was handed a three-year suspended jail sentence on Monday for buying 45 million-won ($36,100) worth of methamphetamine and abusing it for recreational purposes for at least 14 times. The Seoul Northern District Court ordered the 45-year-old to serve five years of probation and 80 hours of drug awareness classes for treatment. H...

Police said Friday they were unable to tell whether Lee Ki-young, suspected of the murders of a taxi driver and an ex-girlfriend in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is a psychopath or not. "We've concluded that we are lacking materials with regards to some evaluation methods to assess (Lee's) psychopathy," said an official of Ilsan Dongbu Police Station. According to police, they will not further condu...

Quarantine authorities earlier revealed that the arrested tourist will be punishable by a jail sentence of up to one year, or a fine of up to 10 million won ($7,900). Those who violated the rule will also be subject to deportation and reentry ban "for a specific period of time" which is yet to be determined. Authorities also hinted at revealing the violator's personal identity, following consult...

The city government of Seoul opened the doors to a more dynamic skyline in South Korea's capital city on Thursday by scrapping the apartment building height limit, a move that could prop up Seoul's chilly housing market. The 2040 Seoul Plan confirmed Thursday will immediately put an end to the floor limit for new residential buildings across Seoul, introduced in 2013 by since-deceased former Seo...

Similarly, senior officials at the police emergency dispatch service center said they first became aware of the crowd disaster at around 10:59 p.m. According to records seen by Basic Income Party Rep. Yong Hye-in, however, by 10:59 p.m. there had already been several calls made to the police dispatch service as well as requests from the fire department for a joint response. Yong, citing records...

The potential gravity of Lee's crime is reigniting the long-standing debate over need to release the suspect's personal identity for public safety measures. While uncommon in Korea, police earlier had already revealed Lee’s name, age and identification card photo. But online media opinions said Lee looked different in real life than in his photo. Lee’s first appearance in public after the arres...

South Korea on Tuesday counted a death of a teenager, who survived in the aftermath of Itaewon crowd crush but later took his own life in December, in its official death toll. This pushed the Itaewon disaster death toll up to 159. The Ministry of Interior and Safety said bereaved families of the victim will be eligible for the same state support such as a financial relief as other victims. "Th...

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday that its plan to extend Seoul Subway Line No. 9 farther east side of the country's most populous city has been approved by the central government. Under the plan worth 640.8 billion won ($504 million), the capital city looks to add four more subway stops along a new 4.1-kilometer branch of Line No. 9, stretching out of VHS Medical Center Station, lo...

South Korean police unveiled Monday plans to ramp up human rights protections for foreign suspects through a new set of standards and a new policy. The Korean National Police Agency said it would seek to make video recordings of custodial interrogations involving foreign suspects mandatory beginning this year at their request in case they need an interpreter. Foreigners would be among those eli...

In his message, Yoon put forward the three key pillars that his conservative administration aims to reform -- labor market, education and pension scheme. Under Yoon's plan, more companies will be encouraged to replace their seniority-based compensation systems with performance-based pay, to enhance flexibility in the labor market. This tallied with the hardline stance against labor unions that t...