South Korean minister apologises after husband breaks Covid rules for yacht-shopping trip to US

South Korea’s foreign minister is under growing pressure to resign after her husband defied the ministry’s travel advice and flew to the United States on Saturday. The public has been further enraged after it emerged that Lee Yill-Byung, a university professor and husband of Kang Kyung-wha, was travelling to the US to purchase a new yacht. Only essential overseas travel is permitted, at a time when many Koreans have lost their jobs due to the impact of coronavirus. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper accused Mrs Kang of “flagrant hypocrisy” after her ministry demanded that people skip this year’s Chuseok holidays, the equivalent of Thanksgiving and the most important holiday on the Korean calendar, to stop the spread of the Covid-19. Mrs Kang, of the Left-leaning Democratic Party, was quoted as saying that people’s “private lives are not an absolute right” as she ordered the public to stay at home. Local media have learned that her husband flew to Vietnam for a week in February, travelled to the French territory of Martinique shortly after returning and then went to Greece in June.

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