Most Popular
-
1
Opposition-led Assembly unilaterally passes bill to probe Marine's death
-
2
Inflation eases in April, continues bumpy ride
-
3
Golden chance to liquidate babies’ gold rings?
-
4
Seoul to more than double military drones by 2026 to counter NK threats
-
5
Russia sent more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to N. Korea in March: White House
-
6
Seoul alerts overseas missions to NK terror threats
-
7
[New faces of Assembly] Architect behind ‘audacious initiative’ believes in denuclearized North Korea
-
8
Over 60% of S. Koreans support W100m childbirth incentive: survey
-
9
‘Inside Out 2’ adds four new emotions, explores teenage life
-
10
Questions raised over fair promotion of RM, NewJeans
-
Park calls on police to thwart any terrorist attempts
President Park Geun-hye called on the police Friday to thwart any possible terrorist attempts by North Korea amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula.South Korea believes that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to concentrate on building capabilities for terror attacks and cyberattacks against the South.Tensions have spiked on the peninsula over North Korea's fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7."I hope that the police will deal effectively w
March 18, 2016
-
State launches probe into 19 missing children
The South Korean government said Friday it had launched a probe into the safety of 19 children who have not been registered for school this year with their whereabouts unknown.Since earlier this year, the government has surveyed the enrollment status of schoolchildren who were supposed to enter elementary and middle schools this year nationwide, as part of its fortified measures against child abuse. A survey of long-term absentee students is separately underway. Of nearly 7,600 children who wer
March 18, 2016
-
Gov't to expand youth internship program
The government will create 50,000 new internship positions annually for young adults as part of its package of measures to boost youth employment, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Friday."The government will increase the number of beneficiaries (of the youth internship program) from the current 35,000 to 50,000 starting this year," Hwang said during his visit to a local factory in Gwangju, a small city on the outskirts of Seoul.The program gives unemployed youths between 15 and 34 years of age
March 18, 2016
-
Police officer gets suspended jail term for leaking documents
A local appeals court on Friday released a police officer, accused of leaking presidential documents, after handing down a suspended jail term.The Seoul High Court sentenced the police inspector, identified only by his surname Han, to a year in prison suspended for one year for copying documents he found in an office and leaking them to another police officer, who was later found dead in an apparent suicide.A lower court had sentenced Han to a year in prison.While finding the 46-year-old guilty
March 18, 2016
-
Seoul issues protest against Tokyo's textbook authorization
South Korea issued a strong protest Friday after Japan authorized dozens of updated high school textbooks that renew territorial claims to the South's easternmost islets of Dokdo in a move sure to aggravate historical tensions between the two neighbors.The approval dampened the mood for bilateral cooperation, which has emerged in the wake of the North's latest provocations and a Dec. 28 deal to settle the decades-old issue of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, observers here not
March 18, 2016
-
School smoking test breaches students' rights, watchdog says
Schools should refrain from the excessive survey of students who are suspected of smoking to protect the human rights of teenagers, a local watchdog said Thursday.The National Human Rights Commission of Korea’s warning came after a high-school teacher in Incheon reportedly forced his male student to fill a paper cup with the teenager’s urine in front of the teacher in October last year to detect whether the student had smoked. The student later filed a complaint with the NHRCK. He claimed that i
March 17, 2016
-
Ministry fines Mercedes-Benz Korea W168m
Yonhap The Environment Ministry on Wednesday fined German automaker Mercedes-Benz Korea for selling its S350D model without approval for transmission changes.The government slapped the firm with a fine of 168 million won ($143,000), 1.5 percent of revenue from its sales of 98 S350D vehicles in January and February.“According to the Clean Air Conservation Act, all automakers must manufacture and sell a model after the ministry approves its transmission specifications,” said the ministry in a stat
March 17, 2016
-
WWF Korea to stage Earth Hour on Saturday
World Wide Fund for Nature said Wednesday it will host its Earth Hour 2016 campaign in Korea this weekend, inviting people to show commitment to save the planet. Individuals can participate in the campaign by switching off their lights for an hour on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.This year’s Earth Hour will be supported by mobile carrier KT and the Union Corporate Committee. The eight members – including Tyler Rasch, Guillaume Patry and Alberto Mondi -- of JTBC’s local TV show “Non Summit” will also part
March 17, 2016
-
Goyang, Changzhou boost economic cooperation
Goyang City Mayor Choi Sung visited Chinese city Changzhou on Wednesday and signed a memorandum of understanding to boost bilateral cooperation, the city government said.The memorandum calls for the two cities to strengthen their friendship by cooperating on the economic front, as well as in the areas of tourism, traffic technology and the floricultural industry.“(Through this opportunity) both cities will be able to step up as international cities by sharing policies and expanding development,”
March 17, 2016
-
Court upholds suspended jail term for man who threatened to blow up plane
An appeals court on Thursday sentenced a 34-year-old man to one year in prison for threatening to blow up a plane that took South Korea's former first lady took to Pyongyang.Upholding a lower court's decision, the Seoul High Court suspended the sentence for the man, identified only by his surname Park, for two years.He was accused of sending a one-page letter to local journalists, threatening to blow up the plane of Lee Hee-ho, the widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, when she tr
March 17, 2016
-
South Korean gender minister advocates children’s rights at U.N.
South Korea’s Gender Minister Kang Eun-hee expressed Seoul’s determination and “achievements” in eradicating violence against women and children at a United Nations meeting in New York on Tuesday, even as recent government statistics show otherwise. “The Korean government especially acknowledges that child abuse is an important social issue requiring keen social attention and thus endeavors to strengthen the legal and policy framework,” the minister said at the two-week annual session of the U.N
March 16, 2016
-
[From the scene] Gaesong firms, workers desperate for help
PAJU, Gyeonggi Province -- A month after the shutdown of Gaeseong industrial park in North Korea’s border city, business owners and employees took to the street on Wednesday, calling for compensation and restarting of operations at the complex. Led by the emergency council of the Gaeseong-based factory owners and workers, some 1,000 people who lost their jobs overnight gathered at Imjingak Pavilion near the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone in the afternoon.At the rally, the participants, consi
March 16, 2016
-
Museum etiquette a problem for some young visitors
Visitors viewing paintings at an art center in Jung-gu, Seoul. (Yonhap)An 11-year-old student Yang Jin-hee (not her real name) visited the Museum of Silhak in Gyeonggi Province with her friends last Saturday. But soon after they arrived at the entrance, all four students were denied access due to safety concerns.The museum said it was inevitable because its internal regulations state that children aged 13 or below must be accompanied by a guardian. More state and city museums are presenting art
March 16, 2016
-
Gender minister vows to eradicate child abuse in Korea
South Korea's Gender Minister Kang Eun-hee stressed Seoul's intent to work towards eradicating child abuse in the country at a United Nations meeting, the ministry said Wednesday.Kang vowed to implement a comprehensive policy to lower incidents of violence against children, which has been a nagging issue in South Korea, in her speech before the 60th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said.The number of child abuse incidents in the co
March 16, 2016
-
Korea seen as resembling Japan in youth unemployment
South Korea's high youth unemployment could persist for a while, as Japan's did, a local think tank warned Tuesday.Asia's fourth-biggest economy seems to be following in Japan's footsteps when it comes to the growth trend and demographics, according to a report authored by Ryu Sang-yoon, a senior analyst at LG Economic Research Institute in Seoul.The current economic circumstances in South Korea are similar to those of Japan two decades ago, he noted.Unless the potential growth rate rebounds, ch
March 15, 2016
-
3 out of 10 Korean households own bicycles
Three out of 10 households in South Korea owned bicycles in 2015, with the new administrative city of Sejong showing the highest ownership thanks to the bike-friendly urban environment, data showed Tuesday.The total number of bikes reached 10.22 million in 2015, up 64 percent from 2010, with 18.75 million households having 1.48 bikes on average, according to the data compiled by the Korea Transport Institute. Among them, electric bikes accounted for 1.5 percent of total, the institute said.Sejo
March 15, 2016
-
Korea confirms 2 additional FMD outbreaks
Two additional outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed in South Korea, the government said Tuesday, stirring up fears that the livestock disease is rapidly spreading in the country's central area.Pigs at two swine farms in Nonsan in the central region of South Chungcheong Province tested positive for the highly contagious disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.The quarantine authorities have culled affected ani
March 15, 2016
-
Disinfectant-maker accused of skipping toxicity test
Oxy Reckitt Benckiser, the manufacturer of the toxic humidifier disinfectant blamed for the loss of over 140 lives, allegedly skipped toxicity tests on the product in question, local media reported Tuesday.According to news reports, the special probe team of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office found that the disinfectant-maker intentionally did away with some toxicity tests on its humidifier disinfectant since 2001. This was when the firm started to add PHMG in their product, one of 1
March 15, 2016
-
Scandals highlight blind spots in international school regulations
A series of irregularities discovered at international schools recently have raised concerns about the need to tighten the monitoring of such schools, which have ascended to the top echelons of private education in the country and become attractive sources for foreign investment.YonhapSeoul Metropolitan Office of Education on Tuesday launched an audit of British international school Dulwich College over allegations of accounting fraud. The school is suspected of embezzling 7.5 billion won ($6.3
March 15, 2016
-
Unusual problems with Korean public toilets
When Jen Kim, a Korean-American in her 20s, went to use a public restroom inside a local cafe franchise in Ilsan two years ago, she couldn’t help but notice a trash can that was overflowing with used toilet paper that emitted an unbearable odor. “I left the stall immediately, telling myself I would rather hold it in and risk getting a urinary tract syndrome than use that bathroom,” she told The Korea Herald.On the door of the stall, there was a sign that asked users not to flush toilet paper do
March 15, 2016