SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s finance ministry said Thursday the country has decided to designate Oct. 2 as a temporary holiday in the latest move to boost domestic consumption. The decision creates a six-day extended break, starting with the day before the Chuseok holiday, the autumn harvest celebration, which falls on Sept. [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — The infection level of COVID-19 was reduced to the lowest Class 4, on a level with seasonal flu, in South Korea on Thursday as part of the country’s effort to fully return to a pre-pandemic level, health authorities said. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said its [...]
JEJU, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — Firefighters on Jeju Island successfully conducted a rescue operation when a group of cows became stranded in a retention basin due to heavy rainfall. The Jeju Province Fire Safety Headquarters on Wednesday received a notification about a flooded retention basin in Seogwipo, which resulted in six cows becoming isolated [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Police said Wednesday it will maintain the number of school zones on a trial run with a relaxed speed limit at night, in an about-face of its earlier announcement that it will apply the same rule across the country starting next month. The abrupt retraction came only a day [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon has ordered correctional institutions to inspect their execution facilities for proper maintenance, sources said Wednesday. Han made the instruction last week to four correctional institutions that house execution facilities, including the Seoul and Busan Detention Centers, and the Daegu and Daejeon Correctional Institutions, the legal [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of deaths caused by serious industrial accidents at workplaces in the first half of the year dropped nearly 10 percent from a year ago, a government report said Wednesday. A total of 289 workers died from January to June, marking a drop of 9.1 percent, or 29 [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — The population of kindergarten to high-school students shrank by nearly 100,000 this year from a year earlier, extending its falling streak to the 18th year, the education ministry said Wednesday. The number of students at the country’s kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools nationwide amounted to slightly over [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s total births and fertility rate fell to record lows in 2022, data showed Wednesday, signaling a red alarm on the growth potential of Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Only 249,000 babies were born in 2022, down 11,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea has launched intensive radiation tests on salt fields across the country amid safety concerns over Japan’s release of contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, the oceans ministry said Wednesday. Last week, Japan began discharging radioactive water from the power plant into the ocean, sparking [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — As South Korea grapples with a series of “don’t-ask-why” crimes targeting random people, one common trait stands out among the suspects behind the recent killings. They showed signs of being “reclusive loners,” largely shut out from outside contact for months and, in some cases, even years. In May, Jung [...]