Most Popular
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Blinken calls on China to press N. Korea to end its 'dangerous' behavior
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New celebrity-endorsed therapy for face contouring requires only a pair of rubber bands
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[Weekender] How DDP emerged as an icon of Seoul
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Tensions heighten ahead of first president-opposition chief meeting
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Doctor group's incoming head renews call for govt. to scrap medical school quota hike for dialogue
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[Music in drama] An ode to childhood trauma
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Seoul to provide housing subsidy to married couples with newborns
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'The Roundup: Punishment' becomes fastest 2024 film to top 2 mln admissions
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New head of doctors' association vows war in case of disadvantage to medical professors
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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S. Korea plans to create 55 trillion won fund for unification with N. Korea
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's point man on North Korea policy said his government is planning to set up a fund as early as this year to start raising 55 trillion won ($49.4 billion) to help pay for its eventual reunification with the North. "Government agencies are near an agreement o
PoliticsNov. 1, 2011
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Professor gets 30 years in jail for killing estranged wife
BUSAN, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean professor was sentenced to 30 years behind bars on Tuesday for killing his estranged wife and abandoning the corpse in collusion with his secret lover, a regional court said. The Busan District Court delivered the jail term to the 53-year-old man surnamed Kan
Social AffairsNov. 1, 2011
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Stress drives more Korean adolescents to depression
An increasing number of South Korean youth suffer from depression and sleep disorders due to stress, with many of them going untreated, data showed Tuesday.According to the data compiled by the National Health Insurance Corp. (NHIC), 23,806 adolescents aged 10 to 19 nationwide received treatment for
Social AffairsNov. 1, 2011
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Gov't to reinforce welfare for ailing veterans, patriots
SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- The government will provide free respite care service to aged and ailing veterans and patriots under a bill that the Cabinet approved Tuesday to improve the welfare of those people, officials said.Under the program, caregivers will visit homes of veterans and patriots who a
PoliticsNov. 1, 2011
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Public-sector salaries likely to increase 2.5 percent next year
SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- Salaries of workers at South Korea's state-run companies and other public institutions will likely grow about 2.5 percent next year, the finance ministry said Tuesday. The ministry said that it will hold a meeting next week and produce guidelines on which such public agenci
PoliticsNov. 1, 2011
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U.S. army private gets 10-year jail term for raping S. Korean
A regional court sentenced a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea to 10 years behind bars for raping a local teenage girl in what could be one of the nation's heaviest punishments for crimes committed by a U.S. soldier.(Yonhap News)The 21-year-old U.S. Army private of the 2nd Infantry Division stat
Social AffairsNov. 1, 2011
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Vietnamese leader to make state visit to Korea next week
President Lee Myung-bak will hold summit talks next week with Vietnamese President Trong Tan Sang, who will make a three-day state visit, Lee’s office said Monday.The two leaders will exchange views on bilateral cooperation in foreign policy, security, energy and resource development as well as economic and trade ties at the summit next Tuesday, Cheong Wa Dae said in a press release. During his visit, Sang is scheduled to visit Korea’s industrial facilities, meet with Korean business leaders to
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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Ex-P.M. Han acquitted of illegal funding
Former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook was acquitted Monday of charges that she took illegal political funds from a builder in 2007. This is the second time the ex-premier has been found not guilty of accusations by prosecutors. Last April the Seoul Central District Court cleared her of charges that she had received $50,000 from Kwak Young-wook, former chief executive officer of Korea Express, in December 2006 in exchange for helping him obtain the top post at a state-run corporation.This time, H
Social AffairsOct. 31, 2011
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Former PM acquitted of receiving illegal political funds
SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's first-ever female prime minister was acquitted on Monday of receiving illegal political funds, a decision expected to help her clear barriers to her political aspirations.Han Myeong-sook, who worked as prime minister between 2006 and 2007 under the late liber
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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S. Korea, Japan vice defense chiefs to discuss cooperation
Vice defense ministers of South Korea and Japan will hold talks in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss regional security and ways to enhance bilateral defense cooperation.South Korean Vice Defense Minister Lee Young-geol and his Japanese counterpart Kimito Nakae are also expected to exchange views on issues concerning North Korean military threats.Their talks were arranged after the defense chiefs of the two countries agreed in January to hold a vice-minister-level meeting on a regular basis as part of
DefenseOct. 31, 2011
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Personal info online despite law revision
Private personal information is readily available online a month after a revision of the personal information protection law took effect, leaving much of the population here at risk.According to Internet security experts on Monday, private information including resident registration numbers of Grand National Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won, who ran for Seoul mayor, civil servants and people with disabilities can be found online.Na’s resident registration number, for instance, was first discovered on
Social AffairsOct. 31, 2011
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S. Korea, China to discuss N.K. nukes in Beijing
South Korea will push for closer consultations with partners of the stalled multinational talks on North Korea’s denuclearization in nuclear talks with China and trilateral talks with the U.S. and Japan, officials said Monday. As his final trip to a six-nation dialogue member state, Seoul’s new chief nuclear negotiator Lim Sung-nam will arrive in Beijing Tuesday for talks with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei, according to the Foreign Ministry here. It is Lim’s first official visit to China sinc
Foreign AffairsOct. 31, 2011
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Korea to cut drug prices drastically
Pharmaceutical firms vow to defy measure designed to reduce insurance expendituresThe government plans to slash the price of about half the drugs on the market by an average of 14 percent, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Monday. The price cuts, if approved by the Prime Minister’s Office in December, will be the largest since the government took away drug sales rights from doctors and gave them exclusively to pharmacists in 1999.The move, designed to reduce national health insurance expen
Social AffairsOct. 31, 2011
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Students caught cheating on Korean language exam
Police apprehended several Chinese students studying here for using cameras, mics and other devices to cheat on the state-administered Korean language test.According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency, officers have arrested a 22-year-old Chinese national surnamed Ma, along with two others for helping Chinese students here on study abroad programs cheat on the Korean Language Proficiency Test.Police have also booked Yang, 23, a Chinese student and 18 others without detention, for cheating
Social AffairsOct. 31, 2011
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Seoul’s pointman on N.K. to visit U.S. for talks
South Korea’s chief of North Korean affairs will visit the United States this week to discuss Seoul’s recent policies on Pyongyang and pending regional issues, the Unification Ministry here said Monday. The visit will be first to the U.S. by South Korean Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik, who took over the post from his hardline predecessor last month. President Lee Myung-bak’s appointment of Yu has been seen as an indication of Seoul’s softening stance toward North Korea.Yu has repeated a willingn
North KoreaOct. 31, 2011
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Lee off to Russia, Cannes for talks
President Lee Myung-bak is set to leave for St. Petersburg Tuesday to hold summit talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev before heading to Cannes to attend the G20 Summit.At the summit with Medvedev on Wednesday, Lee will discuss bilateral cooperation while talks are underway between the Korea Gas Corp. and Russia’s Gazprom, as well as between Gazprom and its North Korean counterpart on piping Siberian gas to South Korea via North Korea.Lee will fly over to Cannes, France, later Wednesday
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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Cheong Wa Dae shake-up looms large
Lee’s chief of staff says he will step down in Dec. after budget bill, FTA passesCheong Wa Dae was scrambling to deal with mounting pressure over last week’s defeat in the mayoral by-election, with its chief of staff saying he will quit after the National Assembly passes the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill and next year’s budget bill.The presidential office is planning an organizational shake-up, officials said Monday, as it has often done after losing elections.Dong-a Ilbo, a local newspap
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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GNP’s key figures step up welfare plans
Following the defeat in the Seoul mayoral by-election last week, key figures of the ruling Grand National Party are looking to reach out to the public, especially young voters.Former chairwoman and presidential hopeful Rep. Park Geun-hye is to present on Tuesday a complex policy model, suggesting that welfare should be realized through employment and self-support, according to officials.She will also claim that the government’s job training systems should be reinforced especially for the underpr
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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Parties fail to move FTA bill forward
Despite a flurry of meetings on Monday, rival political parties failed to move forward a long-pending motion to ratify the Korea-U.S Free Trade Agreement. Opposition lawmakers physically obstructed a session of a parliamentary committee on foreign trade, where the FTA bill was scheduled to be handled. “I am not going to push anymore to hold a session today, causing a physical clash between members,” Rep. Nam Kyung-pil of the ruling Grand National Party, the committee’s chair, said outside the me
PoliticsOct. 31, 2011
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Four military security personnel arrested on hacking charges
Four military personnel were arrested this month on charges of hacking into e-mails of a professor at Chosun University in the southeastern city of Gwangju, military investigators said Monday.The Criminal Investigation Command under the Defense Ministry said that security operatives broke into the e-mails of Gi Gwang-seo, political science professor at the university, and downloaded nearly 700 documents in early September.This incident has drawn attention as speculation has risen that military s
DefenseOct. 31, 2011