Thirteen Korean adoptees regained their South Korean citizenship on Tuesday but didn’t have to forfeit their foreign nationality in the first case of its kind to happen since a revised immigration law went into effect, the Justice Ministry said. Kim Dae-won, 43, who was adopted by a family in Switzerland when he was five, and 12 other adoptees were allowed to have double citizenship, the ministr...

Seoul National University will launch a think tank in May to work out a long-term strategy for the nation’s research and development sector, the school said Tuesday. Starting with the organization of its members, the tentatively named “Future R&D Committee” plans to hold the first meeting next month. The nation’s R&D policy has thus far been planned by government offices or research institutes ...

Seoul City said Tuesday that it will create art performance venues in 50 spots around the city for artists and citizens to show off their artistic talent. The “Open Art Theater” project will start on May 22, with “talent donations” by professional and amateur artists. Those who participate in the project will be given some financial support for their performances. A total of 50 locations were ...

The clause on parenticide, which places additional criminal penalty on murderers who have killed their parents, is to be deleted from the criminal law. The criminal law revision committee met in the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office on Monday and resolved to rid the criminal law of the special clause, according to the Justice Ministry on Tuesday. Under the present law, those who have murdered their o...

A hungry 6-year-old boy in Oregon was reportedly rescued after crashing his mother’s minivan which he had driven to buy food on Sunday. The boy, whose name has not been revealed, had managed to drive his mother’s vehicle to buy some food, according a local newspaper. Though he did not wear the seatbelt, the boy was not injured because the car was running very slowly. It crashed into some mailbo...

Six local administrations will receive subsidies of 2 billion won ($1.8 million) to boost medical tourism, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Monday. Gyeonggi Province is to invest in the field of minimally invasive surgery; Jeju in oncology treatment; Daegu in hair implantation and treatment; South Jeolla Province in joint treatment; North Jeolla Province in robot surgery and Daejeon in me...

After weeks of mild spring weather, thunder, storms and even snowfall are expected this week on the Korean Peninsula, the Korea Meteorological Administration said Monday. According to its weekly forecast, rain will pour across the nation by Tuesday, drawing up to 80 millimeters of rainfall in Gangwon and North Gyeongsang Provinces while smaller amounts are expected in other regions, including Se...

Donations for disaster relief in Japan surpassed 55 billion won amid an exceptional outpouring of sympathy toward Korea’s closest neighbor. According to major charities on Monday, the total donations made here amounted to about 55.6 billion won ($51 million) one month after the deadly earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11. The Korean Red Cross collected 39.2 b...

Korea’s Supreme Court suggested Monday that judges be allowed to discharge suspects on conditional bail as a way to bridge differences with the prosecution over the country’s controversial pre-trial warrant issuance system. The two legal sectors have long been at odds over what prosecutors claim is the court’s “much too strict” standard in issuing arrest and search warrants. The court argues suc...

A 12-year-old boy was reportedly handcuffed and detained by a U.S. school resource officer after an argument over milk he spilt. The sixth-grader at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Indiana was to face juvenile probation, according to a local newspaper. On Tuesday, the school staffer ordered him to clean up after he spilt milk on the table during lunch. The boy refused and shouted back at him...

A man planning to commit suicide decided not to die thanks to Twitter. On April 16, a man wrote that he was leaving a will on Twitter because he didn’t have paper. The message was directed to his parents and friends, as well as his brother serving in the military. Twitter users, shocked by the message, started retweeting the message along with a note saying that the man should be stopped from c...

The number of South Korean college graduates outside the labor force was close to 3 million in the first quarter due to the country's sluggish job market, a government report showed Monday. According to the report by Statistics Korea, 2.95 million people with two-year college degrees or higher were not in the labor force during the January-March period. The number accounted for roughly 18 percen...

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday called for tearing down prejudices about the disabled, saying that their physical challenges never mean they cannot be as competitive as the non-disabled. "I believe that the disabled can be competitive workers as much as they want, depending on the types of work and duties," Lee said in his biweekly radio address ahead of the April 20 Day for the Disabled, call...