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  • Politics

    Soon-to-be PM Han carries high expectation for AI transformation

    Han Seong-sook, Korea’s soon-to-be prime minister, arrives at the post with high expectations that she will leverage her technological expertise to help accelerate the country's artificial intelligence (AI) transformation. The parliamentary confirmation hearing committee approved a report, Tuesday, clearing Han as qualified for the post, with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) leading the approval after she was nominated on June 7. Han is now just one step away from officially taking office, with her appointment to be finalized once the National Assembly approves the confirmation motion at a plenary session. The process leading to Han’s likely appointment comes as President Lee Jae Myung pushes to position Korea among the world's top three AI powers, alongside the United States and China. The blueprint has become increasingly concrete since Lee outlined the vision last year, with initiatives such as the government's allocation of a record 9.9 trillion won ($6.3 billion) for AI this year and public-private plans to build four new semiconductor plants in southwestern Korea to m

    2 MIN READBy Yi Whan-woo
    Soon-to-be PM Han carries high expectation for AI transformation
  • Defense

    Defense minister backs push for unified military academy as fundamental reform for future

    2 MIN READBy Yonhap
    Defense minister backs push for unified military academy as fundamental reform for future
  • Law & Crime

    Outgoing North Chungcheong governor raided over bribery allegations

    1 MIN READBy Yonhap
    Outgoing North Chungcheong governor raided over bribery allegations
  • Education

    Kookmin University student wins 2nd place at IBM Bob Hackathon

    2 MIN READBy Park Yoon-bae
    Kookmin University student wins 2nd place at IBM Bob Hackathon
  • Defense

    Ukrainian outlet's critique exposes gaps in Korea's counter-drone strategy

    3 MIN READBy Bahk Eun-ji
    Ukrainian outlet's critique exposes gaps in Korea's counter-drone strategy
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CEO & Publisher: Oh Young-jinDigital News Email: webmaster@koreatimes.co.krTel: 02-724-2114Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아52844Date of registration: 2020.02.05Masthead: The Korea TimesCopyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.

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Society

Seoul steps up school support for immigrant youth

Seoul will strengthen educational and emotional support for immigrant youth with a range of expanded programs to facilitate their integration into school life. Immigrant youth are those who enter Korea between ages 9 and 24 after being born and raised abroad, including children of multicultural families, overseas Koreans and those born abroad to North Korean defectors who married foreign nationals. The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday the expanded programs are available at the Seoul Global Youth Education Center in Yeongdeungpo District, where key programs include Korean language classes on weekday afternoons and weekends. To accommodate students' schedules, the center has expanded its class hours to run weekdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For immigrant youth newly enrolled in university and struggling with academic language and peer relationships, the center offers tailored mentoring and multilingual peer counseling led by fellow immigrant youth who majored in psychology. To further expand its reach, the center signed agreements in February with

May 4, 2026By Park Ung
Seoul steps up school support for immigrant youth
Law & Crime

Special counsel appeals ex-first lady's 4-year corruption sentence to Supreme Court

A special counsel team said Monday it has challenged an appeals court ruling sentencing former first lady Kim Keon Hee to four years in prison on corruption charges. The Seoul High Court raised Kim's sentence from 20 months to four years in prison Tuesday, finding her partially guilty of involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and guilty of accepting luxury gifts from the Unification Church. Special counsel Min Joong-ki's team had sought a 15-year prison term for the wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol after indicting her on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act, the Political Funds Act and a law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation. The team appears to have appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court to dispute the appellate court's acquittal of her on charges of violating the political fund law for allegedly receiving free opinion poll results from a self-proclaimed power broker. The appeals court had extended Kim's sentence after reversing a lower court ruling that acquitted her of taking part in the stock price manipulation scheme and found her guilty of only acc

May 4, 2026By Yonhap
Special counsel appeals ex-first lady's 4-year corruption sentence to Supreme Court
Politics

Lee's approval rating falls below 60%: poll

President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell below the 60 percent mark for the first time in two months partly due to growing concerns over people's livelihoods, a survey showed Monday. According to the survey conducted by Realmeter and commissioned by the EKN newspaper among 2,006 respondents aged 18 and older, the positive assessment of Lee's performance slipped 2.7 percentage points to 59.5 percent. Negative assessments rose 1.6 percentage points to 35 percent, while 5.5 percent said they were unsure. Lee's approval rating had stayed above 60 percent for seven consecutive weeks since the second week of March before dropping in the latest poll. Realmeter said the decline was marked by a decline in support among centrist voters and vulnerable groups sensitive to the cost of living, citing mounting pressure from rising oil and consumer prices. The pollster also attributed the fall to the recent controversy over Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's reference to North Korea's Kusong region as one of the sites hosting the country's uranium enrichment facilities, which Washington reporte

May 4, 2026By Yonhap
Lee's approval rating falls below 60%: poll
Global Community

InterviewNew 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

Arrest warrant issued for key drug supplier to notorious drug kingpin Park Wang-yeol

A district court on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for a key drug supplier to notorious drug trafficker Park Wang-yeol following his repatriation from Thailand last week. The Suwon District Court issued the warrant for the man, surnamed Choi, on charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act, citing the flight risk and concerns about him destroying evidence. Choi, who arrived in South Korea on Friday from Thailand, has undergone police investigation for his alleged ties with Park. Choi is accused of smuggling and distributing illegal drugs worth 10 billion won ($6.77 million) since 2019. During the investigation, Choi partly admitted to separate drug-related allegations, but is believed to have denied the alleged relationship with Park, claiming that he was not aware of the drug kingpin. Choi is believed to have led a luxurious life overseas, funded by illicit activities. He first came to authorities' attention during the investigation into Park, who was repatriated from the Philippines on March 25. Park is accused of trafficking methamphetamine into South Korea from overseas. He was retu

May 3, 2026By Yonhap
Arrest warrant issued for key drug supplier to notorious drug kingpin Park Wang-yeol
Society

Nearly 120,000 people receive over $1,360 in monthly pensions: data

Almost 120,000 people in Korea currently receive a monthly payment of over 2 million won ($1,360), data from the state-run pension agency showed Sunday. A total of 116,166 people received more than 2 million won in pensions as of the end of January, according to the data from the National Pension Service (NPS). The monthly amount is widely considered the threshold to maintain a stable standard of living without additional income after retirement, according to a survey conducted by the National Pension Research Institute in 2024. The number of such recipients has increased sharply from 10 people in 2018 to 437 in 2020 and 93,350 people in 2025. Seoul first introduced the pension scheme in 1988. Such a steep rise is attributable to an annual raise in pension payments to reflect inflation, and a growing number of long-term pension holders, notably those who have subscribed to the service for more than 20 years. By gender, only 2.2 percent of the high pension receivers were women, likely due to many women being employed at low-paying jobs, or discontinuing their careers due to child birth or p

May 3, 2026By Yonhap
Nearly 120,000 people receive over $1,360 in monthly pensions: data
Society

Busan draws over 1 mil. foreign tourists in Q1 at record pace

Busan welcomed more than 1.02 million foreign tourists in the first quarter of this year, surpassing the 1 million mark faster than ever, as the southern port city emerges as a fast-rising tourist destination in Asia. Busan Metropolitan City said Friday that the speed with which the number of international visitors exceeded 1 million was the fastest since the city began tracking foreign tourist arrivals in 2014, surpassing last April's record by a month. By nationality, Taiwan led with 208,984 visitors, accounting for about 20 percent of the total, followed by China with 197,958, Japan with 130,217, the United States with 81,437 and Vietnam with 44,352. Visitors from the Philippines, Hong Kong and Indonesia rounded out the top eight, a spread the city said reflects growing market diversification, putting it on track for its goal of drawing 5 million foreign visitors by 2028. Foreign tourist spending in the first quarter also rose to 235.5 billion won ($159.4 million), up 26.4 percent from the same period last year. The city credited the growth to expanded maritime tourism through cruise

May 3, 2026By Park Ung
Busan draws over 1 mil. foreign tourists in Q1 at record pace
Defense

Pilot exodus in military: Air Force loses veteran pilots to commercial airlines

Hundreds of veteran Air Force pilots have left the military for commercial airlines over the past decade amid poor working conditions, causing significant losses for the military, data showed. According to Air Force data submitted, Sunday, to Rep. Kang Dae-sik of the main opposition People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee, a total of 896 veteran pilots voluntarily left the service from 2017 to March this year. The term "veteran pilots" refers to those with eight to 17 years of experience who are capable of independently carrying out operations and training lower-grade pilots. In the first three months of this year alone, 47 pilots left the Air Force to join civilian airlines. Of the total, up to 622, or 69.4 percent, joined Korean Air, the country's flagship carrier, while 147, or 16.4 percent, joined Asiana Airlines and 103, or 11.5 percent, joined low-cost carriers. Separate 2025 data compiled by Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, another member of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee, showed that 113

May 3, 2026By Park Ji-won
Pilot exodus in military: Air Force loses veteran pilots to commercial airlines
Global Community

InterviewKorean adoptee to Sweden traces roots to founder of ancient kingdom

Jenny Dargren, 51, a Korean adoptee to Sweden, says her yearslong search for her biological family led to an unexpected discovery — a possible lineage linked to Dae Jo-yeong, founder of Korea's ancient Balhae Kingdom (698-926). Born in Korea under the name Tae Jeong-sun, Dargren was adopted to Sweden as an infant in 1975 with little known background. She had questioned her identity for most of her life and began actively searching for her origins around 2014. "I reached out to a lot of government agencies and submitted DNA to multiple databases, but to find my biological family needs their approval, so everything remained sealed," Dargren told The Korea Times in a recent interview. However, a different route led to a breakthrough. After multiple inquiries to adoption agencies and local governments, Dargren was eventually connected — through officials in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province — to members of the "Yeongsun Tae" clan. The Tae clan is centered in a small community known as "Balhae Village" in Gyeongsan, where dozens of families bearing the Tae surname, believed to be desce

May 3, 2026By Lee Hyo-jin
Korean adoptee to Sweden traces roots to founder of ancient kingdom
Law & Crime

Police impose travel ban on Japanese K-pop trainee over alleged fraud

Seoul Yeongdeungpo Police Station recently banned the trainee from leaving Korea after the group's management agency had filed a complaint over his having previously signed with another company. According to police and the agency, the man, whose identity is being withheld, walked out on a six-member boy group last December, two months ahead of its debut, citing "broken trust." The group had already shot a music video and released its first single on streaming platforms. The agency had also unveiled all six members of the group, which is currently working as a quintet sans the Japanese member. The agency belatedly learned that the missing member had already signed a deal with another management company, but he reneged on his commitment with that company as well. "He had signed with Korean agencies and made them spend large amounts of money on him, and then gone missing just before his groups were about to make their debuts," the agency that filed the police complaint said. "Smaller agencies may not pursue legal action in these instances because doing so can be time-consuming and costly, a

May 3, 2026By Yonhap
Police impose travel ban on Japanese K-pop trainee over alleged fraud
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