NEWS BRIEF

[Anchor Lead]

Civilian aircraft tracking site Aircraft Spots twitted that the U.S. Air Force's special reconnaissance plane capable of detecting nuclear weapons flew over Korea's East Sea yesterday morning. A source inside the National Security Forum said that the rare flight was likely tasked to prepare for potential provocations from North Korea.
Statistics Korea announced today that wage earners' average income in 2018 stood at 2.97 million won and the median income at 2.2 million won, up 100,000 won respectively from the previous year. Meanwhile, employees of conglomerates earned on average around 5 million won a month, whereas those of small and medium businesses earned less than half that at 2.31 million won.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor reported that 105,165 workers in the private sector took childcare leave last year, up 6% from 2018. The number of males taking paternity leave increased 26.2% to 22,297 from the previous year and more than half of them worked for a company with more than 300 employees.
The National Institute of Environmental Research released today the findings of an air pollution study conducted in Beijing, China by the joint Korea-China air quality research team since 2017. During the periods with severe air pollution, both countries saw a 10% increase in the gaseous emission of ammonium nitrate, with Seoul showing a big spike of 22%.