Ben S. Bernanke, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speaks during a discussion at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 16. (Bloomberg) WASHINGTON (AP) ― Ben Bernanke on Friday closed the door on a precedent-breaking eight years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke took office on Feb. 1, 2006, more the shy Princeton professor than a likely combatant in Washingt...

Job seekers leave a high school in Seoul after taking Samsung’s entrance exam in October 2013. (Yonhap) Samsung Group, South Korea’s largest conglomerate, said Tuesday it would scrap its heavily criticized plan to introduce a new recruitment path that favors top-tier universities in Seoul. The new hiring method proposed by the country’s most preferred workplace would have allowed universities t...

Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo (left) and Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee. (The Korea Herald) A bidding war is heating up between the nation’s two top conglomerates Samsung and Hyundai as the two are seeking to secure an 80,000-square-meter site in the affluent district of Gangnam in southern Seoul. According to industry sources on Monday, Hyundai Motor Group has recently...

Hwang Chang-gyu Time has come for Hwang Chang-gyu to prove his ability to overcome a crisis as he officially takes the helm at KT, Korea’s second largest mobile carrier, Monday. Faced with a lackluster earnings outlook and negative public image due to a corruption scandal concerning Hwang’s predecessor Lee Suk-chae, not to mention an overgrown bureaucracy, Hwang will be expected to roll up his ...

Mohamed El-Erian speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in 2011. (Bloomberg) When Mohamed El-Erian first told Bill Gross several weeks ago that he wanted to leave to “recharge the batteries,” the co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. was “shocked” and “discouraged.” El-Erian, 55, for years had been putting in long hours as the public face of Pimco next to Gross, appearing in t...

Models pose with LG Electronics’ flexible OLED TVs unveiled at the international CES in Las Vegas this month. (LG Electronics) Dominance is shifting in the global display market as Chinese companies are fast emerging to challenge Korea’s giants in advanced technology. Korea’s liquid crystal display panels in terms of global output and shipment saw their market share slide from 48.9 percent in ...

Photos and articles describe the feats of Ahn Jung-geun, who assassinated the first prime minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito, in Harbin in 1909 in protest against its colonial rule, at a newly opened memorial hall in the northeastern Chinese city on Sunday. (Yonhap News) Tension is intensifying further in Northeast Asia after Japan protested the launch of new facilities devoted to a Korean independ...

Customers wait to have their credit cards reissued to prevent losses from a leak of personal information at the Lotte Card Center in a branch of Lotte Department Store in Seoul on Monday. (Yonhap News) The country’s credit cards firms are facing their worst crisis on record with people rushing to cancel accounts following yet another massive data leak scandal. Data breaches of various scales ha...

Mike Honda U.S. lawmaker Mike Honda’s push for historical justice gained greater momentum last week with the passage of a spending bill that included a provision pressuring Japan to apologize for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women. Albeit nonbinding, the provision brought fresh international attention to the women whose human dignity was trampled as they were forced to serve at front...

Activists supporting the abolition of the candidate nomination system for local elections call on the ruling Saenuri Party to follow through with President Park Geun-hye’s campaign pledge outside the party’s office in Seoul on Monday. (Yonhap News) The political arena is swamped by talk of June 4 local elections, but the political parties continue to bicker over one of its most basic rules. Abo...

Lawmakers taking part in a forum aimed at reducing regionalism, including Democratic Party Rep. Park Jie-won (second from left) and Saenuri Party floor leader Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan (second from right), tour late President Kim Dae-jung’s birthplace in Sinan-gun, South Jeolla Province, Wednesday. (Yonhap News) The main opposition Democratic Party’s North Korean policy is under the spotlight followi...

French President Francois Hollande (left) and his companion Valerie Trierweiler arrive for a state dinner at the Elysee Palace, in Paris as part of Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski's two-day visit to France. The woman considered France's first lady has been hospitalized after a report that the president is having an affair with an actress. Valerie Trierweiler's chief of staff, Patrice Bianco...

Newly named Korean cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung holds a bouquet of flowers in a congratulatory ceremony at the Seoul Archdiocese building in Myeong-dong, Seoul, Monday. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald) Seoul Archbishop Yeom Soo-jung will be the third Korean to become a cardinal ― the second-most senior position in the Roman Catholic Church after the pope. Yet, he will be the only representative...

In this Feb. 7, 2001, file photo, Ariel Sharon looks up as he touches Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall. (AP-Yonhap News) JERUSALEM (AFP) ― Ariel Sharon, who died on Saturday aged 85, was one of Israel’s most skilled but controversial political and military leaders, whose ruthless methods earned him the moniker “The Bulldozer.” The veteran soldier fought in all of Israel’s major wars be...

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...