The number of taxpayers signing up in an online campaign to abolish the state-run pension system is nearing 100,000, signaling a growing opposition against the mandatory program for all employees in the country. The Alliance for Taxpayers Korea said on Saturday that the number of people who think the current pension scheme is unfair and disagree with a plan to raise subscribers’ contribution rat...

Lawmakers are set to file a complaint with the prosecution against South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo after he refused to attend a parliamentary hearing on his closure of a provincial public hospital. The Assembly’s special committee on the inquiry into the current status of public medical institutions, which is looking into the shutdown of Jinju Medical Center, will determine whet...

Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Sohn Kyung-shik, who is also co-chairman of CJ Group, officially resigned from his KCCI post on Tuesday, explaining that he could no longer carry on have chairmanship duties due to his extensive involvement in CJ Group’s crisis-management committee. Since CJ Group chairman Lee Jay-hyun’s arrest on July 1 for allegations of embezzlement and tax evas...

Secret video footage showing a group of monks playing poker while drinking and smoking in a hotel room shocked the nation last year as the news of a handful of local Buddhist monk leaders from the Jogye Order, the country’s largest Buddhist order, caught gambling made headlines. At a press conference held in the Pohang City Hall Briefing Room on Monday, Ven. Jangju further revealed the severity ...

Kim Jong-shin led Korea’s nuclear industry when it began to flex its muscles in the world market, culminating a $40 billion contract to build plants in the United Arab Emirates in 2009. It is becoming increasingly clear that the former president of the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power was also at the center of a corruption scandal and safety blunders that tarnished the atomic power sector...

Asiana Airlines on Sunday apologized over the deadly jet crash that killed at least two people and injured more than 180 others in San Francisco over the weekend. The Boeing 777 passenger jet traveling from Seoul crashed while landing Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, smashed into pieces and caught fire. “I sincerely apologize to the public for the crash landing,” Asiana Airlines...

The ejection of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will likely divide the country into those who call it the toppling of a democratic government, and those who say there is more to democracy than elections. Morsi was elected to power in June 2012 after mass protests prompted the military to eject longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. The armed forces repeated their trick Wednesday, after four days of...

The government’s plan to enhance Hanja, or Chinese character, classes sparked backlash from civic groups and advocates for Hangeul, or the Korean writing system, who claim it would hamper efforts to defend the purity of the Korean language and further burden students. They launched a sit-in protest in front of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education in Jongno demanding the authority cancel the pl...

Uneasy calm settled on the streets of the provincial capital city of Urumqi in the western Chinese territory of Xinjiang as paramilitary police and dozens of armored vehicles entered the region Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping ramped up rhetoric against separatists among Xinjiang’s Muslim Uighur minority and ordered tighter security, following at least two outbreaks of violence that claime...

In an aim to boost investment in the local economy, the government said it would offer benefits to companies that leave their overseas manufacturing sites to return to Korea. According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday, such returning companies will be allowed access to special economic zones with various site rental and tax benefits...

The Financial Supervisory Service, Korea’s financial regulator, is facing heat for paying excessively high annual salaries to its employees amid mounting worldwide criticism against overpaid executives in the financial sector. The controversy escalated as the FSS recently posted last year’s average annual salary of its employees. Payrolls of all state-controlled organizations are required to dis...

Kevin Rudd has taken dramatic revenge against Julia Gillard, regaining the Australian premiership that she took from him almost exactly three years ago to the day. But his return as prime minister may be short-lived, as he takes over just months ahead of a general election that polls suggest his party will lose badly. Rudd had come to power in 2007 in a landslide victory for his Labor Party, an...

Nelson Mandela, Africa’s most famous son, is coming to the end of his time on earth. And the world’s media are desperate ― some would say to the point of being disrespectful ― to cover every moment he has left. On Tuesday, the media quoted comments by a member of the Mandela family that were interpreted to mean preparations were underway for the death of the 94-year-old former anti-apartheid rev...

National Intelligence Service chief Nam Jae-joon did not waste a moment when he authorized the disclosure on Monday of the controversial transcript of the 2007 inter-Korean summit. The spy chief’s decision came just days into a tug-of-war between the rival parties over a parliamentary investigation into the agency’s involvement in last year’s presidential election, and a full disclosure of the t...

Park In-bee is poised to write a new chapter in South Korean golf history on the LPGA Tour. On Sunday, she defeated fellow South Korean Ryu So-yeon in the first playoff hole at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. It was her fifth LPGA Tour victory of the season. With the victory, the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer tied the record for most wins by a So...