NEWS BRIEF

[Anchor Lead]

The South Korean government has a sent a presidential plane to Japan on Tuesday afternoon to evacuate S. Korean citizens currently staying on a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama. According to authorities, the evacuees include 4 S. Korean nationals and the spouse of one of them and the plane will be arriving in Seoul on Wednesday.
North Korea's Rodong Sinmun today cited Health Ministry official Song In-bom as saying that there are zero confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the country. The official stressed that the North is ready to fight against the virus through powerful quarantine emergency measures as soon as anyone in the nation is found to be infected.
The National Tax Service has launched a tax probe into 138 people, including 11 sellers of pharmaceutical products who disrupted the market by stocking up on protective facemasks. One of the sellers purchased 2.3 million facemasks worth one billion won through a bogus firm and sold them for nearly twice the original price. The seller also allegedly concealed profits amounting to 1.3 billion won by using a borrowed-name bank account.
A poll conducted by the job portal Incruit on some 660 working people has revealed that about 39 percent of them changed the way they work because of the coronavirus outbreak. About 29 percent said they either cancelled or postponed their business trips. The respondents also said they cancelled or avoided gatherings and crowded places such as corporate dinners, business meetings and product launch events.