Most Popular
-
1
Medical profs at top hospitals suspend surgeries, clinics
-
2
Exports to US reach all-time high, widen gap with China
-
3
Trump rekindles criticism: US forces defending 'wealthy' S. Korea 'free of charge'
-
4
Samsung chip business back on track, logs W1.9tr operating profit in Q1
-
5
Shinsegae faces showdown with investors over SSG.com's delayed IPO
-
6
[Music in drama] Rekindle a love that slipped through your fingers
-
7
Hopes rise for possible Gaza truce deal
-
8
S. Korea discussed possible participation in AUKUS Pillar 2 with Australia: defense minister
-
9
[New faces of Assembly] Architect behind ‘audacious initiative’ believes in denuclearized North Korea
-
10
On May Day, labor unions blast Yoon's foreign nanny proposal
-
[Newsmaker] Park’s new political aide faces challenges
Amid the worsening relationship between Cheong Wa Dae and parties over a controversial prime minister nominee, President Park Geun-hye’s new top political aide is drawing keen interest from both in and out of the political arena. Cho Yoon-sun, former gender equality minister, was appointed the new senior presidential secretary for political affairs last week. She was the first woman ever named to the top aide post. The 47-year-old was in the spotlight also because she was given the crucial task
PoliticsJune 19, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Wider use of electronic tags
In the six years since Korea started fitting electronic tags on convicted sex offenders, the rate at which criminals reoffend has dropped, the Justice Ministry says.According to the ministry, around 15 percent of sex offenders committed similar crimes again between 2006 and 2008, but the rate sharply dropped to below 2 percent after the use of tracking devices was adopted in September 2008.Child kidnappers and murderers were added to the list of criminals subject to the measure in 2009 and 2010,
Social AffairsJune 18, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Obama faces Iraq nightmare
WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Barack Obama returned to Washington on Monday after a brief family break in California to find himself confronted once again by the nightmare from which America thought it had escaped: Iraq.Obama ran for the White House as a young leader who opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion, and then won re-election as the steady hand who had finally withdrawn American troops eight years later.But now his generals have brought out the old map once again and the 44th president ― like the 41st, 42
World NewsJune 17, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Tough decisions await FM nominee
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister-nominee Choi Kyung-hwan stands at a crossroads as he will soon have to make tough decisions and policy recommendations for President Park Geun-hye to revitalize the economy, which has become sluggish following the ferry disaster in April.A slew of economic tasks await the incoming deputy prime minister after his parliamentary confirmation hearing, and among sensitive issues he will have to address are taxes and loan-related regulations for the housing m
June 16, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Maritime minister escapes the chop
Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Lee Ju-young, whose ministry was directly responsible for handling the Sewol ferry disaster, has managed to hang onto his post. The news came as a shock to many, as speculation was rife that he would be the first to be replaced in the government’s recent personnel shake-up aimed at repairing its image. It was more surprising because the seven ministers that President Park Geun-hye said would be replaced included two ― the education minister and security minister
PoliticsJune 15, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Profiles of minister nominees
Park’s close aide set to take economic helmChoi Kyung-hwan, a third-term lawmaker from the ruling Saenuri Party, was nominated on Friday as South Korea’s new deputy prime minister and finance minister, a key post for the nation’s economic policy direction. The appointment of Choi, the floor leader of the ruling party who is considered a close aide of President Park Geun-hye, is seen as signaling a continuation in the administration’s economic reform efforts.Choi, 59, who served as minister of kn
June 13, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Despite loss, Korea gets sets for World Cup
FOZ DO IGUACU, Brazil (Yonhap) ― Players on the South Korean national football team have put their recent big loss to Ghana behind them as they get ready for a more crucial task ahead.On Wednesday, head coach Hong Myung-bo and his 23-man team arrived in Foz do Iguacu, their base camp during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, after wrapping up an earlier camp in Miami.South Korea has struggled mightily in its preparation for the tournament. It lost to Tunisia 1-0 in Seoul on May 28 and fell to Ghana 4
SoccerJune 12, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] P.M.-nominee receives mixed reactions
Prime Minister-nominee Moon Chang-keuk took a single path as a newspaper journalist for 38 years. The 66-year-old former political correspondent never strayed from his job or attempted to cross over into politics or elsewhere. Even after his retirement in 2012, he stood in front of college students, offering lectures on the principles of journalism and its role of pursuing truth without favor.Moon was not a popular figure but was a journalist who wrote a series of columns highly critical of high
PoliticsJune 11, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] AI emulates teen to pass ‘Turing Test’
LONDON (AFP) ― A Russian supercomputer posing as a 13-year-old boy has convinced judges that it is human, becoming the first to pass the “Turing Test” in a historic moment in artificial intelligence, British scientists said.The computer became the first in the world to be mistaken for a real person more than 30 percent of the time, during a series of five-minute keyboard conversations with humans conducted at the Royal Society in London.The test was established in 1950 by Alan Turing, a World Wa
World NewsJune 10, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Egypt’s el-Sissi: From general to strongman
CAIRO (AFP) ― Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who was sworn in Sunday as Egypt’s president, may have donned civilian clothes but his crackdown on opponents has raised fears he could herald a return to autocracy. Sissi was chosen as president in a May 26-28 election with 96.91 percent of the vote, nearly a year after toppling the country’s first freely elected leader, Islamist Mohamed Morsi.Taking the oath on Sunday, Sissi vowed “to respect the constitution and the law and to care for the in
World NewsJune 9, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Korea real winner in new Eurasian union?
While Russia’s relationships with the United States and Europe are frayed over the conflict in Ukraine, the newly minted Eurasian Economic Union ― made official during a signing ceremony in Astana, Kazakhstan, on May 29 ― will surely tighten Russia’s ties with former Soviet republics.But that aspect of the newly minted EEU belies the pact’s real winner, Kazakhstan, how the pact could boost economic growth in the Central Asian nation and, by extension, the benefit to foreign investors, including
Foreign AffairsJune 8, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Nam brings biggest win to Saenuri
Nam Kyung-pilNam Kyung-pil, the Gyeonggi governor-elect, is a seasoned politician and former journalist who was educated at Yale in the U.S. and Yonsei University in Seoul.The five-time lawmaker of the ruling party won one of the toughest races on Wednesday, beating his rival and NPAD candidate Kim Jin-pyo by a margin of less than 1 percent. The former deputy floor leader has been considered one of the few innovative members of the Saenuri Party, along with Won Hee-ryong, the newly elected gover
PoliticsJune 5, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Park seals second term with clear election win
Park Won-soon of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy defeated conservative candidate Chung Mong-joon in the Seoul mayor election Wednesday.Turnout among Seoul’s 8.4 million voters was 58.6 percent. Chung’s defeat in a key battleground district deals a political blow to President Park Geun-hye and the Saenuri Party, but President Park’s past leadership in political crises has been resilient. NPAD Seoul Mayor Park talks to volunteer workers at his campaign office on Wednesday m
PoliticsJune 4, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] 25 years on, Tiananmen barely known to youth
BEIJING (AP) ― Born in 1989, Steve Wang sometimes wonders what happened in his hometown of Beijing that year. But his curiosity about pro-democracy protests and the crackdown on them passes quickly.“I was not part of it,” he said. “I know it could be important, but I cannot feel it.”A quarter century after the Communist Party’s attack on demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, it is little more than a distant tale to most young Chinese. The ruling party prohibits public disc
World NewsJune 3, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Kim reemerges at center of security policy
After three and a half years at the helm of the Defense Ministry, the hawkish Kim Kwan-jin was expected to leave the government to pave the way for a more flexible, conciliatory policy toward North Korea.Yet, he has reemerged as the centerpiece of the Park Geun-hye administration’s security policy as Park seeks to maintain a robust deterrence posture amid Pyongyang’s saber-rattling and menacing rhetoric against Seoul.Park appointed him to head the presidential office of national security on Sund
DefenseJune 2, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Fear mounts over net neutrality breakdown
The Internet, one of the world’s greatest inventions of the 20th century, faces a possible makeover as it is being threatened by a new U.S. rule that can overthrow its openness and indiscriminate accessibility.Concerns over the possible breakdown in net neutrality, in which all Internet data should be treated equally, have been rising especially since the U.S. Federal Communications Commission lost a court battle against Verizon early this year.The two sides have been duking it out over net neut
TechnologyJune 1, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Park under pressure to sack chief of staff
Presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon is drawing yet more fire from opposition parties in the wake of Ahn Dae-hee withdrawing his nomination for prime minister. Since the Sewol ferry disaster, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has been stepping up pressure on President Park Geun-hye to remove Kim from office. The NPAD and other opposition parties accuse Kim of being responsible for Park’s long string of failed nominations for high-level government posts, which they refer
PoliticsMay 29, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Park deeper in crisis over PM nominee
President Park Geun-hye’s reform efforts aimed at improving safety measures and ending corruption in offices were dealt with a serious blow on Thursday. Prime Minister nominee Ahn Dae-hee, who has been hailed as a corruption fighter, withdrew his nomination on Wednesday afternoon, saying he would be “a burden to the government” if he kept the nomination. Ahn’s abrupt announcement came amid a growing speculation that he made a fortune by using his connections with former colleagues to get prefere
PoliticsMay 28, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Economist Piketty rejects FT’s claims of data flaws
Thomas Piketty rejected allegations that data behind his best-selling book on inequality are flawed as fellow economists spoke up in his defense.Piketty, the French economist whose book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has transformed the debate on the causes and consequences of disparities in income and wealth, called a Financial Times analysis of his statistics “just ridiculous.” He added in an email to Bloomberg News that “there’s no mistake or error” in his work. The newspaper’s economi
World NewsMay 27, 2014
-
[Newsmaker] Daum, Kakao merge to take on giant rivals
Watch out Naver, here comes Daum and Kakao.The merger between Daum, the nation’s second-largest search engine, and Kakao, the most-used mobile messaging service, surprised many observers, who said that it was a “game-changing move” that can potentially shake things up, at least here in Korea.But globally, they may find it challenging to stand out among heavyweights such as Naver, Facebook, Tencent and Google in this mobile age, or even win a foothold in the mobile messaging market dominated by W
TechnologyMay 26, 2014