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Young entrepreneur buys Lee Kun-hee’s former Itaewon home for $16.4 million in cash

A company led by Kang Na-yeon, chairwoman of Tehwa Holdings, has purchased the former Itaewon residence of the late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee for 22.8 billion won ($16.4 million) in cash. According to property registry records on Wednesday, Kang signed the sales contract on June 13 and completed the transfer of ownership on Friday after paying the balance in full. The purchase was made without a mortgage. A 15 percent stake in the property was registered under her child’s name. Born in 1984, Kang has headed Tehwa Holdings since 2013. The company specializes in trading energy and steel, importing raw materials from countries such as Russia, Indonesia and Australia, and supplying them to Asian markets. Major Korean steelmakers including Hyundai Steel and POSCO are among its clients. The residence, located on a hill in Itaewon, was purchased by Lee in 2010 for about 8.2 billion won. The property has a land area of 1,073 square meters and a floor space of 496 square meters, and for years was regarded as a symbolic home of the Samsung family. In 2010, its official appraised va

Sep 17, 2025By Hankookilbo
Young entrepreneur buys Lee Kun-hee’s former Itaewon home for $16.4 million in cash

‘Jeonse’ scams trap tenants in housing rental crisis

When Kim, 25, who asked to be identified only by her surname, moved to Incheon in February 2020 for a new job, she placed her life savings into a unique Korean rental system. Her investment was a “jeonse” deposit, a once-trusted rental arrangement where a tenant pays a large lump-sum deposit to a landlord in lieu of monthly rent. For decades, the system offered tenants an affordable path to housing while providing landlords with capital to invest. But as the housing market has grown volatile, the system has become a source of risk, leaving tenants vulnerable to fraud and foreclosure. For Kim, the system’s promise swiftly unraveled. With her 50 million won ($35,800) in savings and an additional 30 million won from a friend, she signed a lease and moved into an apartment. Two years later, a court notice informed her that the home was being put up for auction. She was listed as a junior creditor, a designation that meant her money would be paid out only after others had been compensated, putting both her and her friend’s savings at risk. “Unlike today, when people are more alert t

Sep 17, 2025By Park Ung
‘Jeonse’ scams trap tenants in housing rental crisis

Police disclose mug shots of pizza store murder suspect

Police on Tuesday disclosed photos and the identity of a suspect who stabbed three people to death at a pizza store in Seoul earlier this month. The mug shots of Kim Dong-won, 40, were made public by the Seoul Metropolitan Police and will be posted on the agency's website until end-September. Kim allegedly killed a 49-year-old pizza franchise company employee, a 60-year-old interior contractor and his 32-year-old daughter with a sharp weapon at his franchise pizza store in Seoul's southwestern Gwanak District on Sept. 3. The suspect injured himself as he tried to take his own life and received treatment at an intensive care unit in a nearby hospital before being arrested last week. Kim, who ran the pizza store for about two years, had been in a dispute with the victims over the store's interior construction work, according to officials. The police said the disclosure was made in consideration of the brutality of his crime, the severity of the damage and public interests, such as crime prevention.

Sep 16, 2025By Yonhap
Police disclose mug shots of pizza store murder suspect

Park Myung-soo’s comments on shortened workweek stir debate

Comedian Park Myung-soo has voiced concerns about Korea’s possible adoption of a four-and-a-half-day workweek, a policy under active discussion by the Lee Jae Myung administration. His remarks triggered heated debate online, including dozens of supportive and critical comments on his social media accounts. Park expressed his views during the Friday broadcast of KBS Cool FM’s “Park Myung-soo’s Radio Show.” Referring to the era when Koreans worked six days a week, he said, “Back then, work ended at noon on Saturdays, and we would go home for lunch. I think it’s because we lived that way, working so hard, that we now live more comfortably.” From that point, he made his opposition clear. “With our declining population, how can we reduce working hours even more? People say too much time is wasted, but we just need to avoid wasting it,” he said. He added, “I’m a freelancer, so I even work during Chuseok holiday. It’s not bad to move with the times, but companies’ perspectives also matter. Businesses must survive for us to survive. This requires thorough discussion, e

Sep 16, 2025By Hankookilbo
Park Myung-soo’s comments on shortened workweek stir debate

Risky system, housing scams leave many young tenants financially ruined

On Feb. 25, 2023, Park Soon-nam, 49, vice chair of a countermeasure committee for victims of “jeonse” housing fraud in Incheon’s Michuhol District, appeared at a press conference alongside another victim, a man in his 30s whose name she declined to disclose. Jeonse is a unique Korean rental system where tenants pay a large lump-sum deposit, known as key money, to the landlord, in lieu of monthly rent. “He was one of the most dedicated members of our committee,” Park told The Korea Times. “He kept revising the statement until the day before the press conference, and on the day itself, we couldn’t even share lunch because he was rushing between job interviews.” That was the last time Park saw him. Three days later, he took his own life. Over the next three months, three more victims followed, all casualties of jeonse housing fraud, a scandal that has shaken Korea in recent years. The recent tragedies have underscored how the jeonse system has become a source of financial ruin for many. Designed to offer stable housing, the system has instead exposed residents to devastating

Sep 16, 2025By Park Ung
Risky system, housing scams leave many young tenants financially ruined

Coast Guard chief offers to resign over officer's death

The head of Korea Coast Guard offered to resign Monday over the death of an officer during a rescue operation, after President Lee Jae Myung ordered an independent probe into the case amid allegations of a cover-up. Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Yong-jin tendered his resignation days after assistant inspector Lee Jae-suk, 34, died while rescuing a man in his 70s stranded on a mudflat off the country's west coast. He reportedly gave his life jacket to the man before being swept away by the tide. "I feel a heavy sense of responsibility in connection with the president's remarks on the fallen officer," Kim said in a statement. "I am offering my resignation to help uncover the truth behind this incident and to contribute to building a new Coast Guard." At a press conference earlier in the day, Lee's fellow officers said patrols are required to be carried out in pairs and claimed the tragedy could have been prevented. They also alleged their superiors ordered them not to disclose specifics of the operation.

Sep 15, 2025By Yonhap
Coast Guard chief offers to resign over officer's death

Companies to face fines of up to 5% of profit for repeated fatal industrial accidents

Companies that suffer from at least three industrial accident deaths a year will be fined up to 5 percent of their operating profit, the labor ministry said Monday. Under the new industrial safety measures, the government will revise a law that would revoke the licenses of companies that continually report fatal accidents at work, according to the ministry. The ministry unveiled the series of punitive measures it seeks to implement in the wake of fatal accidents at construction companies this year, most notably at POSCO E&C, which prompted the company's CEO to resign last month. Through the measures, the ministry seeks to lower the country's number of industrial accident deaths at 0.39 per 10,000 people to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of 0.29 by 2030. Under the planned measures, the ministry will create a new regulation allowing it to ask for registration cancellations against construction companies that suffer from repeated serious industrial accidents. If a company faces business suspension for the third time in three years due to such acciden

Sep 15, 2025By Yonhap
Companies to face fines of up to 5% of profit for repeated fatal industrial accidents

Colleagues of deceased Coast Guard officer claim superiors attempted cover-up

Four colleagues of a Coast Guard officer who drowned on duty while rescuing a Chinese man claimed Monday they were kept by their superiors from speaking the truth about the incident. The officers made the claim in a press conference at the funeral home of assistant inspector Lee Jae-suk, a 34-year-old Coast Guard officer who died last week after pulling a 70-something-year-old Chinese man out of a mudflat in Incheon during high tide. The four said they were jointly standing duty with Lee at their Coast Guard substation in Yeongheung, Incheon, when Lee responded to an emergency call in the early hours of Thursday, while they were on a break. They claimed their team leader did not wake them up and that they learned of Lee's situation only after returning to duty at 3 a.m. "We have been getting orders from the head of the Yeongheung substation to keep silent on the case as assistant inspector Lee must be made into a hero," one of the officers said. "The substation chief told staff to shed tears, not say a word and stay silent when we met the bereaved family," the officer said. According to th

Sep 15, 2025By Yonhap
Colleagues of deceased Coast Guard officer claim superiors attempted cover-up

Rise of single-person households transforms Seoul’s family landscape

Single-person households and households consisting of older people are on the rise in Seoul, while the number of families with young children is shrinking, reshaping the capital’s family landscape. The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Monday released a study analyzing shifts in marriage and divorce, family values and household structures, drawing on government data, including figures from Statistics Korea. As of last year, single-person households were the most common in Seoul, totaling around 1.66 million, or 40 percent of the total. Two-person households made up 26 percent, followed by four-person households at 12 percent. In July, Seoul became a “super-aged society,” with more than 20 percent of its population age 60 or older. Additionally, more than 30 percent of households had at least one member 65 or older. In contrast, households with children and single-parent households have been declining. In Seoul, households with children aged 5 or younger fell from about 350,000 in 2016 to 200,000 in 2024, a drop of more than 40 percent. Over the same period, the number of children 5 o

Sep 15, 2025By Park Ung
Rise of single-person households transforms Seoul’s family landscape

Nat'l alert issued over 1st report of African swine fever case in 2 months

Korea's quarantine authorities issued a red alert nationwide on Monday to beef up the response to an African swine fever (ASF) case reported for the first time in two months, officials said. On Sunday, the country reported the ASF case, the first in about two months, at a pig farm in the county of Yeoncheon, located in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province. This marked the fifth confirmed case of ASF this year, with the previous one reported in the city of Paju, Gyeonggi Province, in July. The government issued a 48-hour standstill order for pig farms and related facilities in Yeoncheon and surrounding regions, and is taking necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus, including the culling of affected pigs, according to the officials. "Since all five cases this year have been concentrated in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province, the provincial government must mobilize all available human and material resources to make every effort to prevent any further spread of the disease," Vice Agriculture Minister Kang Hyoung-seok said in a disaster response meeting.

Sep 15, 2025By Yonhap
Nat'l alert issued over 1st report of African swine fever case in 2 months
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