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SEOUL — The cellphone bill was coming due. The pricey medication for her chronic skin condition was running low. She’d already tapped the parental credit line, promising to pay them back in monthly installments. In her bank account, less than 50,000 won — not quite $45. A few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the typical part-time gigs 23-year-old Lee Ho-jung usually relied on had vanished. Restaurants, bars and supermarkets were laying off workers. Dozens, if not hundreds of applicants were flocking to minimum-wage jobs with limited hours. So Lee turned to what has increasin...

South Korea cheers 'trailblazing' Yuh-Jung Youn, a pusher of boundaries on and off screen Victoria Kim © Provided by The LA Times Passersby in Seoul watch a live television broadcast showing veteran South Korean performer Yuh-Jung Youn receiving the Oscar for best supporting actress. (Lee Jin-man / Associated Press) Wonsuk Chin distinctly remembers sitting in a theater in South Korea as a cinema-loving teenager, blown away by Yuh-Jung Youn's performance in the 1985 revenge film "Mother." More than 35 years later, as Youn was named best supporting actress at this year's Acad...

President Trump charted a whipsaw course in relations with North Korea, going from alarming nuclear tests and brash threats to friendly summits with Kim Jong Un. President-elect Biden has not ruled out meeting with Kim but has signaled he’d revert to a more patient, measured approach. Advertisement In a speech at a party congress this month, Kim acknowledged the country “fell a long way short” of five-year economic targets set in 2016, a candor that has set him apart from his father. Blaming external factors and his government for the economic failings, Kim appeared to double down on e...

Can Kim Jong Un's economic ambitions survive the COVID-19 pandemic? Victoria Kim © Provided by The LA Times North Korean soldiers applaud Kim Jong Un at a Workers' Party congress in Pyongyang on Jan. 15, 2021. (Jon Chol Jin / Associated Press) After declaring three years ago that his country had fulfilled its decades-long ambition to become a nuclear power, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un turned his attention to fixing an ailing economy that was undermining his pledge to better the lives of his people. Since then, in the face of heavy international sanctions restricting tra...

Dec. 15, 2020 8:37 am ET SEOUL—For years, activist groups in South Korea have sent everything from Bibles to K-pop across the border to the North. Now that could cost them up to three years in prison and a $27,000 fine. Late Monday, South Korea banned sending material across the border that was critical of the North Korean regime without permission from the Seoul government. The new law, backed by the ruling party of President Moon Jae-in, drew criticism from North Korean defectors and human rights groups, who accused the government of limiting free speech and undermining democratic...