Most Popular
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Seoul transit pass for travelers to be available starting July
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Controversy rekindled over when to name criminals, suspects
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[Weekender] Pet food makers bet big on ‘recession-free’ pet food market
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N. Korea says to deploy new multiple rocket launcher starting this year
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[Drama Tour] Romantic trip to ‘Queen of Tears’ filming spots
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Hybe-Ador CEO conflict gets messier
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Battery makers ramp up efforts to diversify graphite supply chain
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[LLG] Unseen inheritance: Trauma of transnational adoption 'trickles down' to adoptees' children
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‘Monk’ DJ spreading Buddhism goes global
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Prosecutors to summon pastor who allegedly gave Dior bag to first lady
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Chinese panda bears make S. Korean debut
A pair of Chinese panda bears that arrived in South Korea last month were unveiled to the public for the first time at an amusement park here Friday, as the city of Yongin hopes the animals will draw more tourists to the region. The pandas, named Ai Bao and Le Bao, were shown to the public for the first time at Everland, the country's largest amusement park in Gyeonggi Province, some 50 kilometers south of Seoul. They have been at the park since their arrival from the Chinese southwestern prov
April 8, 2016
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[Weekender] ‘Descendants of the Sun’: more fantasy than reality
Lee Soo-yeon, a 27-year-old office worker in Seoul, can’t get enough of “Descendants of the Sun,” the ongoing Korean drama series that features a military romance between a solider and a surgeon. “I think the series has many things that I can’t really see or achieve in my real life, such as the sense of justice, responsibility and altruism,” she told The Korea Herald. “And on top of all that, it is just very romantic.” The 16-episode series takes place in a fictional war-torn Mediterranean coun
April 8, 2016
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Injured Korean ex-sex slave in China to be treated in Seoul
South Korea will transfer a South Korean former sex slave in China, who has suffered serious injuries due to an accident, to her home country next week to receive treatment, government officials said Friday.Ha Sang-sook, 88, resides in the city of Wuhan, China's Hubei Province, and broke her rib and pelvis last month after falling down a staircase on Feb. 15 when having a quarrel with a neighbor.The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it has decided to have her transferred to Seoul on Su
April 8, 2016
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Seoul to bolster GPS signal protection amid Pyongyang threats
South Korea will beef up its system to protect GPS signals to counter North Korea's jamming attempts, a related ministry said Friday.The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning convened an inter-agency meeting of officials handling radio affairs and discussed ways to cope with the threat highlighted in recent days.The North sought to disrupt South Korea's GPS signals across the border for about a week, although the radio attack came to a halt on Wednesday, according to officials here. A num
April 8, 2016
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Seoul warns Pyongyang to stop slandering President Park
South Korea warned North Korea to stop slandering President Park Geun-hye on Friday after the communist country lashed out at her calls for more sanctions during her recent visit to Washington.North Korea's unification committee, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, said in a statement a day earlier that Park's actions will hasten her death, warning that the North is aiming for her presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae.The statement also called Park "a goblin" and "a demon of the era" who spoiled
April 8, 2016
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Korea to give Bangladesh 300 computers
The South Korean government agreed Friday to provide Bangladesh with hundreds of computers as part of efforts to help the Southeast Asia country narrow its digital divide.The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning inked an accord with the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on the provision of 300 "Green PCs of Love" over the coming three years.The move came at the suggestion of the World Bank, officials said.The Southeast Asian country aims to transform itself into a "digital" state by 2021.Anni
April 8, 2016
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Chinese couple to be deported after illegal entry
Two Chinese nationals who were indicted on charges of illegally sneaking into South Korea through the country's largest airport received a suspended jail term and were order to be deported, court records showed Friday.The Incheon District Court sentenced the husband and wife to a year and eight months in prison, respectively, on Thursday. The 31-year-old husband received a heavier punishment for orchestrating the scheme. Both the jail terms were suspended for two years.The couple, who did not ha
April 8, 2016
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Man arrested on charges of running illegal online gambling site
Police on Friday arrested a man on suspicion of running an illegal gambling website for overseas horse, dog and chariot racing.The Ulsan Regional Police Agency said the 31-year-old man has operated the website since February 2014 on a server based in Singapore. The site allows users access to on-the-spot broadcasts of races in South Africa, Macao and Japan.According to the police, he had taken 2 to 5 percent of the money deposited by customers after obtaining a local license from its overseas op
April 8, 2016
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Early voting begins for parliamentary election
Early voting for next week's parliamentary elections kicked off Friday for a two-day run, with scores of candidates casting their ballots in a bid to raise the voter turnout.The voting carries extra weight as a recent survey showed that more than a quarter of the electorate has yet to choose a candidate for the April 13 polls that are to elect 300 lawmakers for a four-year term.The early voting began at 3,511 polling stations across the country. Voting will take place between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. o
April 8, 2016
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Top court acquits 2 businessmen of espionage charges
The nation's top court has acquitted two men of charges they attempted to hand over military intelligence to the North Korean spy agency, court records showed Friday.The two men, aged 59 and 78 and both involved in business with North Korea, were indicted in June 2012 on charges of trying to hand over military secrets on equipment capable of disrupting global positioning system (GPS) signals. They were also accused of trying to provide details of other high-tech military equipment.The arrest at
April 8, 2016
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Police apologizes amid criticism over open letter to rape victim
The police on Thursday issued an apology for causing “unintended trouble” amid mounting criticism over an open letter to Aidre Mattner, an Australian who had taken issue with its misconduct and slipshod investigation in a rape case. Yongsan Police Station published a post on its Facebook page in both Korean and English at around 2 p.m., expressing regret over the “unintended troubles” caused by its public letter. (Facebook)“We do apologize the fact that we caused some unintended troubles resul
April 7, 2016
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Mixed-race adoptees seek to reunite families through DNA bank
An American non-profit organization has started to build a DNA database to help reconnect Korean adoptees with their birth families, but the task remains a daunting one as few people in Korea have heard about it, organization officials said Thursday.325Kamra was launched in September after a group of mixed-race adoptees found their own families through DNA testing and realized it could be a game-changer for adoptees wanting similar closure in their lives.So far, the group has only been able to t
April 7, 2016
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Abortion not violation of dignity: Seoul court
A firefighter’s appeal for nullification of his suspension was upheld by the Seoul Administrative Court, Thursday. The man had been given a month’s suspension by his fire station after it was made known that he and his girlfriend had two abortions. The man has been a firefighter for 10 years, and had been common-law married since 2014 with a woman he had met online following his divorce. Court reports say the woman became pregnant four months into their cohabitation, but the man decided they cou
April 7, 2016
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Appeals court orders Dongwha Pharm to pay penalty for illegal rebates
An appeals court on Thursday dismissed a suit filed by Dongwha Pharm Co., one of South Korea's major drug makers, asking for the cancellation of fines slapped on the company for giving billions of won in kickbacks to local hospitals.The drug maker filed the suit against the Fair Trade Commission after it handed down a fine of 898 million won to Dongwha Pharma in 2014 for bribing over 900 hospitals from 2010 to 2011.It was the largest rebate scandal since a law regulating such practices first too
April 7, 2016
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Park calls for thorough investigation into senior prosecutor over stock purchase
The presidential office on Thursday called for a thorough investigation into a senior prosecutor who has come under public scrutiny for the way he accumulated personal wealth.Jin Kyung-joon offered to quit five days ago, when it was discovered that he pocketed millions of dollars by selling stocks of Nexon Corp., a local online game developer.A presidential official said it's important to shed light on whether Jin may have broken the law when he bought and sold the stocks.Another official also s
April 7, 2016
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S. Korea declares war on excessive sugar intake
The government here on Thursday announced an unprecedented campaign to reduce sugar consumption by its people, designating sugar as the main culprit behind the rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases in Korean society.In the initial five-year phase of the anti-sugar campaign, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will make an intensive effort to keep the intake of sugar from processed foods, except for milk, below 10 percent of people's daily total energy.For instance, an adu
April 7, 2016
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Court orders gov't to cancel dismissal of acquitted energy ambassador
An appeals court on Thursday ordered the government to cancel its dismissal of a former energy and resources ambassador who was acquitted of the charge of manipulating stock prices.Overruling a lower court's decision, the Seoul High Court ruled in favor of Kim Eun-seok, who had been indicted on charges of colluding with a mine developer to reap massive profits from a stock price rigging scam linked to a diamond mining project in Cameroon.Ok Deok-gyun, the former head of CNK International, was fo
April 7, 2016
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Ministry to bolster security after break-in
The government vowed Thursday to overhaul the entire security system at government complexes in the wake of multiple break-ins by a civilian last month.The Interior Ministry announced it will fortify security levels by forming four separate task forces -- for security management, security personnel, computer security and service measures -- joined by private security experts. It also immediately blocked entrances at the basement floor of the Seoul Government Complex in central Seoul that are con
April 7, 2016
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Migrant workers call for end to government crackdown
A migrant workers advocacy group called for an end to the government’s “inhumane” crackdown on unregistered foreign workers in Seoul on Thursday, following the government’s announcement to reduce the rate of illegal migrants to below 10 percent by 2018. An association of some 60 lawyers, foreigners and labor rights groups urged the government to revise the Employment Permit System to curb illegal migration in a press conference held in front of the immigration building in western Seoul. Migrant
April 7, 2016
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Ministry to toughen watch on enrollments at international schools
YonhapInternational schools in South Korea will face suspensions in enrollment if they are caught illegally admitting Korean students four times, the Education Ministry said Thursday.The Education Ministry released revised regulations aimed to strengthen the control of illegal admissions at international schools here. There are currently 43 schools and three international kindergartens nationwide.This is the first time the government has specified punishments against schools in cases of illegal
April 7, 2016