[Yonhap News headlines at this time] - 18:00

The Serious Crimes Investigation Office (Serious Crimes Investigation Office) officially received an inspection order for Gwangju Regional Serious Investigations Office Director Lim Eun-jeong, who has been making critical comments targeting the first head candidate Kim Ji-yong, and has begun the inspection. The Central Investigation Agency announced that at around 2:25 pm on the 12th, it received an official letter ordering an inspection of Director Lim's comments from Minister of Public Administration and Security Yoon Ho-jung and ordered the acting inspector general to conduct the inspection.

Regarding the schedule for President Lee Jae-myung to move into the Blue House official residence, the Blue House announced on the 12th, "We are preparing to make it possible within the year through building commissioning and moving preparations." A Blue House official explained this on the same day, saying, “The schedule for moving to the Blue House official residence has not yet been confirmed.” Regarding the preparations for President Lee's move-in, he explained, "The environmental improvement of the Blue House facilities, including the official residence, is in the final stages."

On the 12th, the fairness and political neutrality of the police investigation came to the fore during the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee's audit of the National Police Agency. The Democratic Party of Korea insisted on a 'lenient investigation' regarding the investigation into the alleged 'false qualifications' of Rep. Han Dong-hoon's daughter, and the People Power Party did not offer any particular defense against this case and countered by taking issue with Rep. Kim Jae-seop's lengthy police investigation.

Kim Ho-cheol, Chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, said on the 12th that the regular and uniform payment of incentives to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is "violative of the guidelines based on the National Finance Act." When asked by Rep. Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party of Korea, chairman of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly, whether payment was possible during the National Assembly audit on this day, Director Kim responded, "Because regular and uniform payment is not possible (according to regulations), we took precautions not to do so."

KOSPI, which returned from the Hangeul Day holiday, showed a sharp decline on the 12th and continued its downward trend for four consecutive trading days. KOSPI closed at 6,384.24, down 241.69 points (3.65%) from the previous day, recording the largest decline in about a month since the 2nd of last month (-3.99%). The index showed weakness for 4 consecutive trading days from the 6th to this day, falling a total of 619.50 points (8.85%) during this period. During this period, it went through '7,000 PPI' (KOSPI 7,000 points) and fell to the 6,500 and 6,400 levels on this day.

Kim Dong-cheol, CEO of KEPCO, said that KEPCO will cover 20% of the resources for power supply to the Honam semiconductor cluster's first stage, and companies such as Samsung and SK Hynix will cover the remaining 80%. In response to a question from People Power Party lawmaker Kim Do-eup regarding the budget for transmission facilities during the audit of the National Assembly's Trade, Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Venture Business Committee on the 12th, President Kim said, "KEPCO is responsible for less than 20% of the burden," and added, "Samsung and SK Hynix are responsible for the remainder."

Lee Seong-hoon, CEO of Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), predicted that house prices are likely to plummet in the future due to the expansion of housing supply and rising interest rates. President Lee responded as follows when Kim Eun-hye, a member of the People's Power Party, criticized President Lee's previous statement that loan regulations for first-time homebuyers should be strengthened during the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee's audit of government affairs under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, including LH, on the 12th.

Novo Nordisk is pushing for health insurance coverage of ‘Wegobi’, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1)-based obesity treatment. With Hanmi Pharmaceutical's [128940] domestically produced obesity medicine 'Epee', which is known to have been released as early as this month, is expected to target the market with price competitiveness as a weapon, price competition for obesity medicine appears to be intensifying. According to the pharmaceutical industry on the 12th, Novo Nordisk Korea submitted an application for decision on health insurance nursing care benefits for Wegobi to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service.

Ambassador to Ukraine Park Ki-chang, who was summoned to Korea to protest against Ukraine, reported the local situation to Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun upon his return. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official met with reporters on the 12th and said that Ambassador Park visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building the day before and reported several pending issues to Minister Cho. Ambassador Park is expected to have reported to Minister Cho the conflict between the two countries over the disclosure of the repatriation of North Korean prisoners of war and the recent situation in Ukraine.

An incident occurred in Jeju where a woman in her 40s under police protection was stabbed to death with a weapon wielded by a man who had reported stalking and dating violence. Jeju Western Police Station announced on the 12th that it was urgently arresting and investigating Mr. A, a man in his 60s, on suspicion of murder. Person A is accused of stabbing Person B, a woman in her 40s, to death with a weapon on the street in front of a hotel in Yeondong, Jeju City at 1:38 am on this day.