K-pop stars JYJ and actress Han Hye-jin are to perform at Park Ji-sung’s charity soccer match in Vietnam. The game to be played at a stadium in Ho Chi Minh city on June 15 will be the first ever Asian Dream Cup organized by the Korean soccer star’s charity foundation. JYJ are to perform at half time at the match against Navibank Saigon, and are also to participate in a Vietnamese boy’s soccer s...

An animal rights group has said it will stage an anti-fur protest at Fendi’s Seoul fashion show if the Italian designer thwarts the city government’s ban on fur on the catwalk. Government officials told the Italian fashion house Monday to remove all fur items from a show of its fall/winter collection due to complaints from animal rights groups. But Fendi said it would negotiate with city offici...

On Monday, the National Tax Service summoned senior officials and regional office heads to a conference at short notice. That was unusual. The usual practice is to hold such a conference annually, at the outset of each year. Even odder was that there was no urgent issue to deal with. Instead, what the participants were told was to refrain from arranging jobs for their retiring colleagues because...

In recent consultations with small and medium-sized businesses, President Lee Myung-bak said the chaebol owner-centered style of management needs to be changed. He stopped short of specifying details of how to do so, but said they should alter their management style to favor co-prosperity with SMEs. But it takes no genius to guess what message Lee wanted to get across to the business tycoons con...

The Navy SEALs who raided Osama bin Laden’s compound aren’t the only members of the mission to be cloaked in mystery. The military dog the commandos took along is too. The government won’t even release his ― or her ― breed, although most military dogs are German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, Labradors or Lab mixes. We do know the canine was included in the very private meeting President Obama held...

A federal appeals court will soon consider a challenge to an Oklahoma measure prohibiting the use of Sharia, or Islamic law, in the state’s courts. The constitutional amendment is part of a national trend in which politicians ― including Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich ― argue that it is vital to prevent Sharia from insinuating itself into the administration of justice in U.S. cou...

One school of thought about the so-called jobless recovery of the American economy blames high unemployment on the federal deficit. But that’s blaming the wrong deficit. To achieve an authentic recovery that includes new jobs, the deficit we need to cut is in trade. For 20 years, America’s exports have been surpassed by its imports, with a big bite of that trade deficit composed of oil imports....

If, two years ago, reports of Timothy Geithner possibly leaving reached the White House, some advisers would have seized on them as an opportunity; President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary got off to a very rocky start, and was considered a short-termer. Today, if rumblings that he’s thinking about stepping down made their way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there would be near panic. Geithner i...

Even before the shocking events of the past few days, the international policy community had been contemplating a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the International Monetary Fund. Strauss-Kahn, the IMF managing director, was expected to begin campaigning soon for the presidency of France. Now, whatever happens in the New York legal system as he defends himself against attempted rape allega...