Police arrest actor suspected of raping production staff member

Actor Kang Ji-hwan was arrested Tuesday over suspected sexual assault. Gwangju Police Station said the actor was arrested without a warrant at around 10:50 p.m. at his home in Gwangju, a city southeast of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province.According to police, Kang is suspected of raping a staff member of a production company and molesting another at his home on Tuesday evening. Kang and the two women had gone to the actor’s place for a second round of drinks after a company dinner. One of the two

Social AffairsJuly 10, 2019

Rush-hour trains run on schedule on first day of Busan subway strike

Subway workers in Busan began an indefinite strike Wednesday at 5 a.m., but services during commuting hours will not be affected.State-run Busan Metro is required to keep at least 1,010 workers on duty even during a strike, per public service corporation laws.During daytime hours, the trains will run less frequently -- at 10- to 11-minute intervals, rather than the usual six minutes. The subway service is expected to operate at 70-75 percent capacity during non-commuting hours on weekdays a

Social AffairsJuly 10, 2019

China takes positive view of Trump-Kim meeting at Panmunjom: envoy

China has a positive view of the recent surprise meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea at the truce village of Panmunjom as it has created the momentum for positive change in the situation of the Korean Peninsula, Beijing's top envoy in Seoul said Wednesday.Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Qiu Guohong made the remarks as he delivered a lecture during a forum of lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party at the National Assembly, lawmaker Kim Han-jung told reporters afte

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

PM to visit Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon will visit Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Qatar from July 13-21, his office said Wednesday.Lee's travel to the four countries is aimed at strengthening diplomatic ties with Central Asia and Southwest Asia and pursuing a balanced diplomacy in the Middle East under Seoul's diplomatic diversification strategy, the Prime Minister's Office said. In particular, Lee's trip to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will complete South Korea's summit diplomacy with five

Foreign AffairsJuly 10, 2019

Australian student expelled from N. Korea denies spying

An Australian student who was expelled from North Korea denied on Tuesday that he had been spying on the authoritarian state while he lived there.Alek Sigley, 29, was released last week after being detained for several days, with Pyongyang later accusing him of promoting propaganda against the country online.“The allegation that I am a spy is (pretty obviously) false,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that he was “well both mentally and physically”.“I am still very inter

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

US wants North Korea freeze as beginning, not end, of denuclearization

The United States would hope to see a freeze in the North Korean nuclear program as the start of a process of denuclearization, the State Department said on Tuesday, ahead of fresh talks with Pyongyang supposed to take place this month.US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had a surprise meeting at the end of June in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to resume a working-level dialogue, stalled since a failed summitin Vietnam in Feb. US Secreta

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

[Newsmaker] Busan's subway workers go on strike over wage dispute

Unionized subway workers in Busan, a major southern port city, went on indefinite strike Wednesday over a pay dispute.The walkout by Busan Metro's labor union began at 5 a.m. after its last-minute wage hike negotiations with management fell through the previous night. The union said about 2,400 of its 3,402 members, including train drivers, station employees and technicians, were taking part in the strike. According to the law governing public service corporations, Busan Metro is required to kee

Social AffairsJuly 10, 2019

US envoy has no plans to meet NK officials in Europe this week: State Dept.

US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun has no plans to meet with North Korean officials during his trip to Europe this week, the State Department said Tuesday.Negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization are expected to resume in the coming days after US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to continue the talks at their impromptu meeting on the inter-Korean border on June 30. "There is no plan to meet with North Korean officials on this trip

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

Actor arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting, molesting his agency's employees

Actor Kang Ji-hwan has been arrested without a warrant on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman and molesting another, both employees of his agency, police said Wednesday.The Gwangju Police Station took the 41-year-old actor into custody at his residence in the city of Gwangju, just south of Seoul, around 10:50 p.m. Tuesday.  Kang was suspected of sexually abusing the women while they were sleeping in a room of his house following a drinking session with them. The three of them were drin

EntertainmentJuly 10, 2019

Jobless rate rises to 4% in June, 281,000 jobs created

South Korea's jobless rate rose to 4 percent in June from a year earlier, and job additions again exceeded the 200,000 mark, government data showed Wednesday.The unemployment rate increased 0.3 percentage point on-year.The jobless rate marked the highest level for any June since 1999, when the corresponding figure stood at 6.7 percent.The number of employed people reached 27.4 million in June, a rise of 281,000 from the same month in 2018, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The

EconomyJuly 10, 2019

US says Trump and Kim had meeting, not summit, in DMZ

The latest encounter between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the inter-Korean border was a meeting, not a summit or a negotiation, the State Department said Tuesday.The impromptu meeting in the Demilitarized Zone on June 30 had raised questions about whether it was a summit akin to the previous encounters in Singapore in June 2018 and in Vietnam in Feb. this year. "It wasn't a summit, it wasn't a negotiation; it was a meeting of two leaders," department

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

Seoul brings issue of Japan’s retaliatory action to WTO

The government said Tuesday it had raised the issue of Tokyo’s economic retaliatory measures against Seoul at a World Trade Organization meeting amid intensifying tensions between the two countries, stemming from a long-standing dispute regarding forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.During a meeting of the WTO’s Council for Trade in Goods held in Geneva, Ambassador to Geneva Paik Ji-ah said that that Japan’s restrictions on exports of key

North KoreaJuly 10, 2019

S. Korea, US hold talks on competition-related issues under FTA

South Korea and the United States on Tuesday held their first formal consultations on competition-related issues under their bilateral free trade agreement, the South Korean government said.The meeting in Seoul came at the request from the US Trade Representative, which claims that procedures of South Korea's Fair Trade Commission do not allow US parties a chance to review and rebut the evidence used against them in competition-related hearings. The USTR insists this violates the Korea-US FTA th

IndustryJuly 9, 2019

Labor, management leaders escalate feud over next year's minimum wage

Representatives of labor and management are escalating a feud over whether to increase the nation's legal minimum wage next year ahead of their final negotiations at the Minimum Wage Commission.The 27-member Minimum Wage Commission, a trilateral panel composed of nine representatives each from labor, management and the general public, was to begin its final round of negotiations at the Sejong Government Complex in Sejong on Tuesday before setting the hourly minimum wage for 2020 on Thursday. But

EconomyJuly 9, 2019

Kakao says its blockchain mining process is up to 15 times faster than Ethereum

After launching its blockchain platform for enterprise services last month, Kakao said Tuesday that its service can work up to 15 times faster than Ethereum.During a press conference in Seoul, Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary Ground X suggested that its blockchain platform Klaytn’s block mining took only one-fifteenth of the time Ethereum’s did. While Ethereum’s block mining time is 15 seconds, Klaytn completes the process in a single second.The reduced block mining time res

IndustryJuly 9, 2019

South Korean defected to North after decades of stigmatisation: friends

A South Korean man who made a rare defection to North Korea was partly driven by the stigma and financial hardship that followed his parents' own high-profile flight to Pyongyang more than three decades ago, friends said Tuesday.Choe In-guk, 72, arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday and announced he would live there in a video published by North Korean media, following in the footsteps of his parents who made a switch of allegiance in 1986.Such a move is highly unusual and is more frequently seen in

North KoreaJuly 9, 2019

Hyundai says little hold-up left for long-awaited US pickup

Hyundai Motor expects to enter the US pickup market soon with what’s likely to be an American-made vehicle aimed at luring buyers who aren’t traditional truck owners, an executive said Monday.“It’ll be a very versatile vehicle,” Michael O’Brien, vice president of product, corporate and digital planning for Hyundai’s US unit, said in an interview. “That has the promise of creating a whole new class of buyers.” The South Korean automaker won&rs

MobilityJuly 9, 2019

Delta's Hanjin KAL stake purchase is just "investment"

Delta Air Lines' recent purchase of a stake in Hanjin KAL, parent company of Korean Air Lines, was just an investment, not a ploy to help protect the airline's management rights, according to a local activist fund on Tuesday. In its reply to a letter sent by the Korea Corporate Governance Improvement fund, Delta Air Lines said its purchase of the 4.3 percent stake in Hanjin KAL was part of its investment plan, KCGI said in a statement. On June 20 (US time), Delta announced the stake investm

IndustryJuly 9, 2019

LG Display expects limited impact from Japan's exports curbs

Japan's tougher regulations on exports of key materials to South Korea will have a limited impact on LG Display's production of OLED panels, a senior company official said Tuesday, vowing to secure alternatives as part of its contingency plan.Last week, Japan began adopting a stringent approval process for exports to South Korea of high-tech materials, including fluorinated polyimides used to make flexible OLED displays, as well as resist and etching gas needed in the semiconductor fabrication p

TechnologyJuly 9, 2019

Seoul slams Japan's claim chemical exported to NK

South Korean Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo on Tuesday said Japan’s claim that its hi-tech materials were routed to North Korea was “completely groundless,” calling on Tokyo to stop making false accusations. South Korea and Japan will hold bilateral talks on Friday in Tokyo although the details are yet to be finalized, he added during a press conference.“We have abided by the responsibility of the international community for peace and security by exemplarily controlling ou

PoliticsJuly 9, 2019