Opposition leader calls trade deals more difficult to change than Constitution The ruling and opposition parties once again clashed on Monday over the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Following the U.S. Congress’ ratification of the bill last week, the ruling Grand National Party urged the parliamentary foreign affairs committee to follow suit, but the main opposition Democratic Party claimed t...

Nearly half of all tenants in South Korea have signed up for a monthly rent contract, a report showed on Monday, underscoring the shift in tenancy agreements accelerated by a prolonged period of low interest rates and stagnant property prices. According to Real Estate 114, the proportion of the monthly rent, or “wolse,” in the total rented homes rose from 45.85 percent in 2005 to 49.69 percent i...

Regulator’s move to promote ‘shared growth’ is met with protest Korea’s major credit card firms said on Monday they would slash the transaction fees they collect from small merchants as a reluctant response to the growing calls for a rate cut to bolster their shaky profits amid regulatory pressure. Shinhan Card, a credit card unit of the Shinhan Financial Group, said it would lower the transact...

Hwang Woo-suk, a veterinary scientist who doctored his research data claiming to have cloned the world’s first human embryonic stem cells, claimed Sunday that he had become the first to succeed in cloning endangered coyotes. “We produced the cloned coyotes by extracting adult skin cells from coyotes and transferring them into a dog’s egg,” Hwang said in a ceremony in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, ...

Seoul city government is asking foreigners in the capital to voice their complaints and make suggestions for improving the city, officials said Monday. Foreign residents in Seoul can post complaints and suggestions about life in Seoul on the Seoul Global Center website (global.seoul.go.kr) from Oct. 17-25, according to officials. The center is a Seoul city agency which helps foreign residents ad...

Top universities in South Korea, China, Japan and Vietnam have agreed to launch a joint degree program over the next couple of years as part of academic exchanges, officials said Monday. According to Seoul National University, presidents of Seoul National University in South Korea, Peking University in China, University of Tokyo in Japan and Hanoi National University in Vietnam agreed to work on...

On the Jeju base... I’m not Korean nor have I even been to Jeju, but I have seen many pictures of Jeju Island, read about it and dream to go there one day. I voted for it for the 7 Wonders of the World. I watched 1N2D go there and I was there in spirit with them as they showed me the wonders of Jeju Island. The culture, the people, the beauty, like stepping back to a time when the world was at p...

Korea’s parts makers are set to expand supplies to U.S. industrial giants Caterpillar and Applied Materials Inc., as well as Samsung Electronics as part of a government program for shared growth. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Monday it has signed two agreements to shore up cooperation between the multinational corporations and their smaller partners here. Under the deals, Korean parts ...

The new chief executive of the Korea Electric Power Corp. vowed on Monday to improve the company’s financial structure as a primary goal for his three-year term. Kim Joong-kyum, a former head of Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., took office at the state-run utility a month ago. “Financial soundness is the most urgent matter at this point,” Kim told reporters at a meeting in Gwacheon, Gyeo...