SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – A National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) report submitted to the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee on October 18 revealed that from 2013 through September of this year, the NHIS subsidized 18.9 billion won in hepatitis C treatment for foreign nationals. From 2013 to 2015, annual subsidies ranged from [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean washers topped product reviews by major U.S. consumer evaluators, industry watchers said Thursday, as Washington’s trade commission moves to take protectionist steps. Earlier this month, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) determined that products made by Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. are exerting an adverse [...]
BRUSSELS, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Korea Chair positions have been introduced at U.S.-based universities and think tanks, but the one at the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) marks the first time the role has been created in Europe. Dr. Ramon Pardo of the Department of European and International Studies [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Wednesday to seek all possible diplomatic options for peacefully and completely resolving the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam hosted trilateral talks in Seoul with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama. “We [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — The Moon Jae-in administration will have to spend over 7.3 trillion won (US$6.4 billion) in the 2018-2020 period to subsidize the raising of the country’s minimum wage to 10,000 won ($8.8) per hour, a report said Wednesday. The Moon government said in July it will raise the minimum wage [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Thirty-five professors at state-run universities have been disciplined for sexual offenses in the last four years, government data showed Wednesday. But only 11 of them received heavy punishments, such as firing or dismissal, while the rest kept their jobs, according to the education ministry data submitted to Rep. Kim [...]
ANSAN, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Emergency quarantine protocols were put in place at the Port of Busan after foreign red fire ants were discovered at a nearby open-air yard for shipping containers late last month. Questions over whether the protocols need to be expanded have been raised after a live lizard was discovered inside [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors offloaded South Korean stocks and bonds worth US$4.3 billion in September due to profit-taking amid North Korea risks, the central bank said Wednesday. Foreign investors sold local stocks and bonds worth $830 million and $3.47 billion, respectively, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said. It marked the second [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea on Wednesday denied a reported allegation by a group of lawyers that former President Park Geun-hye’s human rights are being violated in her detention cell. CNN reported Park’s international legal team led by MH Group plans to submit a document on her human rights situation to the United Nations [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Lim Ji-yeon, a working mother of two living in western Seoul, is constantly haunted by mobile phone messages from her clients, which often come even after office hours and disrupt her free time and private life. “Can’t we just make after-hour messaging illegal so that it would at least [...]