15 en A British parliamentary group focused on North Korean issues sent a letter to the British foreign secretary, calling for attention and response to China’s forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees.  David Alton and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the co-chairs of the United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Fri, 19 Apr 2024 10:03:46 +0900 International President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday visited a national cemetery in Seoul to pay tribute to the victims of the government’s crackdown on the April 19 Revolution, a pro-democracy civil uprising in 1960.  The top office said that President Yoon reflected on the significance of the uprising, pledging to ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Fri, 19 Apr 2024 09:35:39 +0900 Politics Concerning the Korean currency’s recent decline against the U.S. dollar, an official at the International Monetary Fund(IMF) has said that exchange rate volatility does not pose significant economic challenges to South Korea. Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Fri, 19 Apr 2024 09:18:00 +0900 Economy Finance minister Choi Sang-mok has expressed negative views on the opposition party’s call to compile a supplementary budget, saying that the government is more focused on supporting people’s livelihoods.  The minister, who is visiting the U.S. to attend meetings of the International Monetary ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:58:29 +0900 Economy The new commander of the United States Pacific Fleet, Admiral Stephen Koehler, visited South Korea’s Fleet Command in Busan on Thursday. According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS), JCS Chairman Kim Myung-soo met with Koehler, who took up his post on April 4, and discussed ways to boost ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:44:06 +0900 Politics The government has estimated that the amount of unpaid wages, which had posted a new high last year, surged more than 40 percent in the first quarter on-year.  According to the labor ministry on Thursday, the amount of back wages in the first three months of this year reached nearly 572 billion won, or ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:40:29 +0900 Domestic Health minister Cho Kyoo-hong has vowed to steadfastly accomplish medical reform, which he stressed as being an imperative task. Cho made the pledge on Thursday when chairing a government response meeting on the collective action taken by trainee doctors in protest of the government's planned medical ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:57:25 +0900 Politics The foreign ministry says it is mulling various steps with likeminded countries on creating an alternative mechanism for a UN panel that monitors the enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea and whose term of office will end later this month.  The ministry’s spokesperson, Lim Soo-suk, made the ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:41:35 +0900 International The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs expressed its opposition to the proposed revision to the Grain Management Act and the Act of Distribution and Price Stabilization of Agricultural and Fishery Products, citing concerns over negative effects.   The ministry on Thursday argued that if the ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:26:36 +0900 Politics President Yoon Suk Yeol's mother-in-law is expected to undergo a parole review by the Ministry of Justice next week.   Choi Eun-soon, the 77-year-old mother of First Lady Kim Keon-hee is reportedly among several inmates being considered for parole during the justice ministry's monthly parole review slated ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:50:39 +0900 Politics North Korea has removed street lamps along two inter-Korean roads, in an apparent move to completely close the routes once seen as symbols of cooperation and exchange between the two Koreas.   According to the South Korean military last month, the North began dismantling dozens of street lamps along the ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:16:15 +0900 Inter-Korea The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index(KOSPI) climbed  50-point-52 points, or one-point-95 percent on Thursday to close at two-thousand-634-point-7. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ rose 22-point-62 points, or two-point-72 percent, to close at 855-point-65. On the foreign exchange, the local currency ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:51:20 +0900 Politics The government has pledged to provide over 300 million U.S. dollars worth of humanitarian and development support for the war-ravaged Ukraine this year. At the Fifth Ukraine Ministerial Roundtable held in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, finance minister Choi Sang-mok said Seoul is actively enforcing a ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:50:31 +0900 Politics Anchor: Following the recent sharp depreciation of the Korean won and Japanese yen against the dollar, the finance chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan have acknowledged "serious concerns" and agreed to consult closely on foreign exchange markets. Koo Heejin gives us the details. Report: ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:48:42 +0900 Economy Bank of Korea(BOK) Governor Rhee Chang-yong reasserted that the central bank holds the necessary resources and methods of intervention to ease any volatility caused by the weakening Korean won against the U.S. dollar. During a conversation on the margins of the annual meetings of the International ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:38:36 +0900 Economy U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen called for trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to jointly fight against economic pressures from China. At the inaugural meeting of the three sides' finance chiefs in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Yellen targeted China, without ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:11:32 +0900 Politics New Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok said there is a low possibility his party would form a joint parliamentary negotiation body with former justice minister Cho Kuk's Rebuilding Korea Party in the 22nd National Assembly due to differences in political directions. On a local radio show on Thursday, ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:50:50 +0900 Politics Ruling People Power Party(PPP) lawmakers sitting on the parliamentary agriculture committee lambasted the opposition for proceeding without the PPP to pass a package of bills, including a disputed grain bill, to be put to a vote at a plenary session. In a statement on Thursday, the PPP lawmakers ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:43:30 +0900 Politics Anchor: The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations held an exclusive interview with KBS. Wrapping up her four-day visit to South Korea, she said that the establishment of a new organ within the UN General Assembly to monitor the enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea is under consideration.  Kim Bum-soo ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:19:33 +0900 Inter-Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol has reportedly held talks over dinner with former presidential candidate and incumbent Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo following the ruling party's defeat in last week's general elections. According to sources within the ruling camp on Thursday, the four-hour-long meeting on post-election ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:03:54 +0900 Politics The annual reading rate among adults in South Korea plunged to a new record low of 43 percent last year. According to the culture ministry's 2023 survey results on Thursday, 43 percent of adults in the country had read in writing or via audio at least one book, an all-time low since 1994, when the ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 13:43:35 +0900 Domestic The percentage of seniors among the population in rural regions in South Korea surpassed 50 percent for the first time last year, due largely to an exodus of young people from such communities. According to Statistics Korea on Wednesday, as of last December, there were 999-thousand farming households, ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 13:40:24 +0900 Domestic A parliamentary committee dominated by the main opposition Democratic Party(DP) has directly tabled a controversial grain bill, which would require the government to purchase surplus rice, to a plenary parliamentary session.  The parliamentary committee on agriculture, food, rural affairs, oceans and ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 12:14:38 +0900 Politics The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations(UN) said that the establishment of a new organ within the UN General Assembly to monitor the enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea is under consideration.  In the wake of Russia’s veto of a resolution to extend the mandate of a panel tasked with monitoring ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 11:29:43 +0900 Politics The ruling People Power Party(PPP) has launched the process of merging with its satellite People’s Future Party, which was formed for last week’s general elections.  Rep. Lee Hun-seung, the chief of the PPP’s national committee, announced on Wednesday that the party’s standing national committee ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 10:39:33 +0900 Politics President Yoon Suk Yeol reportedly met with Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo earlier this week to discuss the direction of state affairs after the ruling party’s defeat in last week’s general elections.  According to an official at the top office on Thursday, Yoon had dinner with the former chief of the ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 10:05:52 +0900 Politics South Korea’s national debt in proportion to gross domestic product(GDP) surpassed 50 percent in 2021 and is projected to approach 60 percent in 2029. The findings were released on Wednesday in the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Monitor report, which presented the IMF’s estimates on national ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:58:35 +0900 Economy President Yoon Suk Yeol has called for South Korea and Japan to contribute to regional peace and prosperity through close bilateral cooperation and trilateral cooperation with the United States.  Yoon made the statement during a phone call with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:29:51 +0900 Politics An earthquake with a magnitude of six-point-six hit southern Japan Wednesday night, prompting reports from South Korean people who felt the tremor in the southern region.  According to local fire authorities, the 119 hotline for emergency received about 160 such calls after the quake struck off the west ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:03:09 +0900 Science Following the recent sharp depreciation of the Korean won and Japanese yen, the finance chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan have acknowledged "serious concerns" and agreed to consult closely on foreign exchange markets.  Finance minister Choi Sang-mok, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...

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]]> KBS WORLD Radio Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:54:26 +0900 Politics