Democratic Party lawmakers protest the Education Ministry’s announcement over a controversial history textbook at the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. From left: Reps. Yoo Eun-hye, Bae Jae-jung, Yoo Ki-hong, Do Jong-hwan, Park Hae-ja, Woo Won-shik and Park Hong-keun (Lee Gil-dong/The Korea Herald) The dispute over a local history textbook is turning into an ideological war as lawmakers loc...

A man braves the cold and walks along the shore of Lake Michigan as temperatures remain in the negative digits on January 7, 2014 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A 'polar vortex' of frigid air centered on the North Pole dropped temperatures to the negative double digits at its worst. (Darren Hauck/Getty Images/AFP) As record-low temperatures dogged the northern United States for the past several days, ...

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. (Yonhap News) Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is set to confer with key officials in Washington over North Korea and relations with Japan frayed by its premier’s visit to a controversial war shrine. During a three-day stay, he is scheduled for talks with U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Monday and Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday. Yun also plans to m...

Former Environment Minister Yoon Yeo-jun (Yonhap News) Former Environment Minister Yoon Yeo-jun has once again created a stir in the political arena by joining independent Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo’s “new politics” movement. In 2012, Yoon sent ripples across the conservative bloc when he joined the presidential campaign of the Democratic Party’s Rep. Moon Jae-in. The move, unexpected because of his lo...

A bull figure representing a bullish stock market stands in the middle of the office district in Yeouido. (Ahn Hoon/The Korea Herald) Chairmen of Korea’s top conglomerates started off the year on Thursday by urging executives and employees to brace for crisis. Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee emphasized that the business behemoth should keep trying to shed old things in running business in o...

A still image of a promotional video on Dokdo released Wednesday by the Foreign Ministry on its website and on YouTube. (Foreign Ministry) Korea unveiled a new promotional video on Dokdo on Wednesday, countering Tokyo’s increasing territorial assertions and lambasting Japanese politicians’ visits to a controversial war shrine. The 260-second clip was released at midnight on YouTube and the Fore...

President Park Geun-hye President Park Geun-hye enters her second year in office with a mass of tricky domestic issues unresolved and increasingly volatile dynamics in Northeast Asia. Disputes over the National Intelligence Service’s alleged election meddling still haunt her government despite the political parties spending much of 2013 on the matter at the cost of state affairs being delayed. ...

Shinzo Abe Japanese leader Shinzo Abe is struggling to contain a backlash over his recent visit to a controversial war shrine that has sparked a barrage of criticism even from domestic supporters and international allies, notably the U.S. The prime minister’s visit on Thursday to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo honoring war criminals has further aggravated diplomatic tension with South Korea and C...

People loiter around Jogyesa Temple’s main hall as railway unionists continued to take refuge in the Seoul temple for the third day on Thursday. (Ahn Hoon/The Korea Herald) The country’s largest Buddhist order Jogye on Thursday took the side of railway workers in their ongoing strike, putting the government in a dilemma after last week’s botched police raid on the Korean Confederation of Trade U...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (center) speaks during a U.N. Security Council meeting on South Sudan, at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday. (Xinhua-Yonhap News) Thousands of South Sudanese have been killed in over a week of violence, according to the United Nations, with reports of bodies piled in mass graves fueling fears of a worsening of ethnic bloodletting in the wor...

Kwon Seon-joo Besides the first female president, Korea has seen another woman break through a glass ceiling, this time in the banking industry. Kwon Seon-joo, the senior executive vice president of the Industrial Bank of Korea, was named the next CEO of the state-run IBK on the approval of the Financial Services Commission on Monday. Before Kwon, no woman had been named CEO of a Korean bank. ...

Leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, including its chairman Shin Seung-cheol (center), denounce the police raid on the umbrella union’s office at a press conference on Monday. (Chung Hee-cho/The Korea Herald) Escalating labor strife is giving new momentum to Korea’s major labor group crippled by internal splits and its links with alleged pro-North Korea politicians. On Sunday, p...

Choo Shin-soo Choo Shin-soo of South Korea has agreed to the biggest-ever contract for an Asian player in the U.S. professional baseball free agent market. A report on the Major League Baseball website said Sunday that outfielder Choo agreed to a seven-year, $130 million contract with the Texas Rangers. The deal will be finalized if Choo passes a physical test, which is expected to be done by ...

Dennis Rodman Former NBA star Dennis Rodman made his third visit to North Korea on Thursday, drawing keen attention as he is the first high-profile American allowed to stay in the reclusive country in the aftermath of the chilling execution of Kim Jong-un’s uncle. Rodman is trotting into the secretive society thanks largely to his special relationship with Kim, who recently surprised the intern...

Ahn Hee-jung Ahn Hee-jung, South Chungcheong Province governor and late President Roh Moo-hyun’s right-hand man, entered the fray in the power-struggle within the opposition Democratic Party on Tuesday. The 49-year-old liberal-minded politician was one of Roh’s closest aides, from 1994 onward. In the years leading up to Roh’s election in 2002, Ahn played the role of top strategist, earning hims...