The Korea Times

Korea to crack down on ‘fake ambulances’ with GPS tracking

The government is moving to crack down on so-called “fake ambulances” that illegally use emergency vehicles for personal purposes or nonurgent transport, amid concerns that such abuses are risking the lives of patients. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare Wednesday, under a new plan, all ambulances will be required to transmit their GPS location data in real time to the national center, allowing authorities to monitor operations and flag suspicious movements. The ministry said it will discuss the issue Thursday at the inaugural meeting of its task force launched last month to rectify irregularities in the nation’s medical and welfare system. Private ambulances play a key role in Korea’s emergency transport system, handling nearly 70 percent of intermedical facility transfers. But some recent cases of vehicles being used to shuttle celebrities under the cover of sirens and lights have sparked public backlash, with critics warning such abuses can delay real emergencies and erode trust. Through inspections conducted between July and September last year, the central and l

May 6, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Korea to crack down on ‘fake ambulances’ with GPS tracking

People & Events

Ex-PM Lee Hong-koo dies at 91

Lee Hong-koo, a scholar-turned-politician who served as Korea’s prime minister in the 1990s and held key diplomatic posts in London and Washington, died on Tuesday. He was 91. Born in 1934, Lee graduated from Kyunggi High School and Seoul National University before studying politics at Emory University and Yale University in the United States. After receiving his Ph.D. in political science, he returned to Seoul National University as a political science professor and gained prominence through his academic work and newspaper columns that dissected contemporary Korean politics. Lee entered public office in 1988 during the Roh Tae-woo administration as the head of the National Unification Board, the predecessor of the Ministry of Unification. He later went on to serve as ambassador to Great Britain. Under President Kim Young-sam, Roh’s successor, Lee was appointed prime minister in 1994. Later, he moved into partisan politics as a key figure in the conservative New Korea Party and won a seat as a National Assembly member in 1996. Lee resigned his parliamentary seat in 1998 to serve as a

May 5, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Society

Over 50,000 back petition to restrict life-size sex doll imports into Korea

More than 50,000 people have signed a National Assembly petition calling for strict curbs on the import and distribution of life-size sex dolls, saying they violate women’s human dignity. This comes after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an importer in April, confirming that adult-shaped sex dolls are not obscene materials under the Customs Act and can be legally brought into the country. As of Sunday, the petition had gathered 53,500 signatures, surpassing the threshold for a formal review. The petition was posted on the Assembly’s site on April 7, three days after the ruling. The petitioner argued that hyperrealistic dolls pose broader social harms and said imports should be halted, at least until a clear social consensus is reached. “Real (sex) dolls realistically replicate women’s bodies and treat them as sexual tools. This runs counter to the values of gender equality our society strives for and carries a high risk of encouraging people to see women not as persons, but as possessions or instruments,” the petitioner wrote. “Although the latest verdict was premised on t

May 5, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Over 50,000 back petition to restrict life-size sex doll imports into Korea

Global Community

New Korean initiative honors foreign workers killed on job

On the quiet morning of March 20 at Incheon International Airport, the head of a government agency responsible for administering industrial accident insurance stood before a memorial adorned with flowers and a photo of Nguyen Van Tuan, a 23-year-old Vietnamese worker who died 10 days earlier in a conveyor belt accident at a gravel factory in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. As president of the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (K-COMWEL), Park Jong-kil bowed deeply, offered flowers and placed his hand on the shoulder of Tuan’s friend who was there to escort his remains home. In halting words bridged by interpreters, Park delivered a letter expressing gratitude for Tuan’s contributions to Korea and offering sympathy. “The language was different, but the grief was the same,” he recalled in an interview at the agency’s Seoul office on April 23, ahead of Industrial Accident Workers’ Memorial Week (April 28-May 4). That airport farewell marked the debut of the country’s first pilot scheme expanding funeral support for deceased foreign workers, a benefit the agency is

May 4, 2026By Jung Min-ho

New Korean initiative honors foreign workers killed on job

Law & Crime

Appeals court raises Yoon’s term to 7 years over obstruction of duty charges

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday after an appellate court found him guilty of abusing his presidential authority, obstructing official duties and fabricating documents over his handling of the 2024 martial law declaration and the subsequent investigation into his actions. The Seoul High Court increased his prison term to seven years, up from the five years handed down in the first trial. This case focused on the allegations that Yoon blocked his own arrest, overstepped his authority and tampered with documents. It is separate from the insurrection case that led to a life sentence on Feb. 19. “As sitting president at the time of the crimes, Yoon bore a heavy responsibility to uphold the Constitution and to protect and advance the people’s freedoms and rights, but instead he betrayed that duty and deepened social unrest through this case,” Judge Yoon Seong-sik said. The appeals court found that he infringed on the deliberation rights of nine Cabinet members who were left out of the Cabinet meeting that preceded the martial law decree

Apr 29, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Appeals court raises Yoon’s term to 7 years over obstruction of duty charges

Society

Lawyers, counselors grapple with what AI can and cannot replace

A Seoul-based lawyer surnamed Ha spends about 600,000 won ($410) a month on artificial intelligence (AI) subscriptions such as Claude and Korean legal platforms such as SuperLawyer and LBOX. Hiring a junior lawyer would cost him close to 100 million won a year, roughly 14 times as much. The math, he says, is no longer close. “Without AI, I’d probably have one more person in the office by now,” Ha told The Korea Times, adding that over the past two years, he has used large language models intensively for work. “I still need to review the quality of final drafts, but the need to hire new lawyers has definitely gone down.” Only a few years ago, Korean law firms routinely hired swarms of new law school graduates to plow through ruling precedents, check statutes and draft the first versions of briefs. Now, more managing partners reach for a subscription instead of a job posting, and the same calculation is playing out across other white-collar professions, from legal offices to counseling rooms, as AI forces a reckoning over what kind of work still requires a human. “I don’t re

Apr 29, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Lawyers, counselors grapple with what AI can and cannot replace

Society

Korean government to pay ‘fair allowance’ to short-term workers

The government will introduce a new allowance and raise pay for short-term public sector workers as part of a sweeping plan to stamp out unfair employment practices affecting irregular workers whose contract is less than one year across state-funded organizations. At a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, the Ministry of Employment and Labor reported that the plan, drawn up jointly with related ministries, is aimed at rooting out practices such as repeatedly renewing 11-month contracts to avoid paying severance and sidestep giving permanent jobs to short-term workers. The new measure is expected to be adopted next year. According to a government survey of 2,100 state-related bodies, there are roughly 146,000 fixed-term workers in the public sector, with about half — some 73,000 — on contracts of less than one year. The average monthly wage for these workers is 2.89 million won ($1,960), but those on contracts that last less than one year earn slightly less at 2.8 million won a month. Based on those findings, the labor ministry has decided to work toward banning contracts shorter than 12 months

Apr 28, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Korean government to pay ‘fair allowance’ to short-term workers

Society

Declining income, no consent: AI eats into Korea's creative, language workforce

It is a familiar sound: the brisk, slightly metallic voice at the end of a TV shopping segment, rattling off legal disclaimers. For many voice actors, that sound now means a lost livelihood and a warning of what may come next. Instead of hiring a professional, companies now pick a digital voice and just start typing. “That used to be our work,” Choi Jae-ho, head of the Korea Voice Performance Association, told The Korea Times. “Now they go into a system, download a voice they like and type in the script. That work is simply gone.” Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the most powerful new colleague — and competitor — for Korea’s creative and language professionals, from voice actors and webtoon artists to interpreters. It is cutting deep into some people’s incomes, quietly erasing entry-level jobs and forcing unions and associations into emergency talks on how to protect their jobs, even as many professionals say it is also making their best work faster and better. Few professional groups have felt the shock as viscerally as voice actors. Choi says the average income

Apr 24, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Declining income, no consent: AI eats into Korea's creative, language workforce

Law & Crime

80,000 rally behind young woman who died after police dropped sexual assault case

More than 80,000 people have signed a petition calling for a renewed investigation after a 19-year-old woman died by suicide in late February following a police decision to drop her sexual assault case. As of Thursday, the petition posted on the National Assembly site on April 16 has collected 80,900 signatures, surpassing the 50,000-signature threshold that obligates the Assembly to formally review it. The case centers on a woman who filed a criminal complaint in December 2025 against her employer at a bar in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, accusing the owner, a man in his 40s, of quasi-rape. She told police that she had drunk heavily, blacked out and later came to her senses to find him on top of her and engaged in sexual activity. Police, however, accepted the owner’s claim that it was consensual and decided not to send the case to the prosecution, citing CCTV footage that showed the two smiling and talking to each other before and after the encounter. Days after being informed of the conclusion, the woman, who had been an aspiring police officer, according to her family, fell to her deat

Apr 23, 2026By Jung Min-ho

80,000 rally behind young woman who died after police dropped sexual assault case

K-pop

Seoul to transform Chang-dong into K-pop hub with new arena

Seoul unveiled on Tuesday a 2.7 trillion won ($1.9 billion) plan to transform Chang-dong, a neighborhood in the city's northeastern Dobong District, into a 24/7 K-pop-themed cultural hub, anchored by a new concert venue as well as a cluster of entertainment and commercial facilities intended to draw more visitors north of the Han River. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the “K-entertainment town” project is meant to serve as a new economic engine for the area and beyond as the city aims to draw 30 million foreign tourists a year. “Chang-dong and the surrounding Sanggye area will no longer be the outskirts of Seoul, but will become the cultural and artistic hub of the city and a solid economic core that will shoulder its future as a key area in opening the era of 30 million foreign tourists,” Mayor Oh Se-hoon said during a press conference. The central part of the scheme is the Seoul Arena, a K-pop concert hall slated for a May 2027 opening. The place will be able to accommodate up to 28,000 fans per performance and is expected to host some 100 large-scale shows a y

Apr 21, 2026By Jung Min-ho

Jung Min-ho

Read more

Korea to crack down on ‘fake ambulances’ with GPS tracking

Ex-PM Lee Hong-koo dies at 91

Over 50,000 back petition to restrict life-size sex doll imports into Korea

New Korean initiative honors foreign workers killed on job

Appeals court raises Yoon’s term to 7 years over obstruction of duty charges

Lawyers, counselors grapple with what AI can and cannot replace

Korean government to pay ‘fair allowance’ to short-term workers

Declining income, no consent: AI eats into Korea's creative, language workforce

80,000 rally behind young woman who died after police dropped sexual assault case

Seoul to transform Chang-dong into K-pop hub with new arena

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