Most Popular
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[Exclusive] Democratic Party of Korea forms US election task force
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NewJeans has few options after Ador rejects group's request to reinstate Min Hee-jin as CEO
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Seoul seeks to improve foreign nanny program after two abscond
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[Grace Kao] NewJeans fights Hybe for their survival
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Samsung, top banks to create W2tr green growth fund for SMEs
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Malnutrition cases nearly triple in last 5 years
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An increasing number of K-pop idols are breaking free from big agencies. Why?
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KFA Chair denies unfair hiring of national coach
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Couple welcoming quintuplets to receive over W170m in childbirth grants
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College is expensive? In S. Korea, English preschools cost much more
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Minjoo chief emphasizes economic democracy
The main opposition party leader pledged Tuesday to enact a strict law on South Korean conglomerates’ illegal business activities, pushing his agenda for “economic democratization” in an address to the National Assembly.The Minjoo Party of Korea’s chairman Rep. Kim Chong-in said that his party will seek to revise the Commercial Act in order to prevent large businesses from abusing their power and engaging in unfair business practices. “The job of a legislative body is to keep the activities of b
PoliticsJune 21, 2016
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Dispute boils over court hearing on defectors
About two months after fleeing their oppressive homeland, 12 former workers of a North Korean restaurant in China on Tuesday faced a legal debate over the legitimacy of their stay here under state protection. The Seoul Central District Court opened a hearing to review a request by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, better known as Minbyun, to determine whether the 12 had defected on their own free will and thus whether the government’s current holding of them is lawful. The liberal lawyers’ a
North KoreaJune 21, 2016
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Investment funds reach record on low interest
Funds deposited in investment accounts reached a record 26.2 trillion won ($22.7 billion) as of last Friday on the back of low interest rates, according to the Korea Financial Investment Association on Tuesday.With the central bank slashing its key base rate to a historic low of 1.25 percent, investors have been either reallocating their money from bank deposits to investment accounts or parking their funds in securities accounts to invest in equities.Previous record deposit holdings in investme
June 21, 2016
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Lotte suspected of using shell company in Vietnam for slush funds
The owner family of Lotte Group is suspected of using a paper company in Vietnam to try to funnel money into a slush fund.The allegation surfaced amid an ever-widening probe by Korean prosecutors into the Korean-Japanese conglomerate for suspected corruption, illegal intragroup deals and embezzlement. According to local reports citing sources at the prosecution, the paper company is the Luxembourg-based Coralis SA, which was previously used for offshore tax evasion by Kim Seon-yong, the third so
IndustryJune 21, 2016
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Korea scraps southeast airport project
Amid fierce rivalry growing over a new airport in the nation’s southeast region, the government dropped the multitrillion won project on Tuesday and said it would extend the facilities of Gimhae Airport in Busan instead.After conducting a feasibility study on candidate cities in South Gyeongsang Province, the government has reached a conclusion that extension of the existing Gimhae Airport is “the optimal choice,” rather than choosing to build a new airport on Gadeokdo Island or in Miryang, Sout
IndustryJune 21, 2016
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[Eric Planey] Korea needs road map for clean cars
It was simply great to have spent the last two weeks in Korea, my wife Jakyung and I splitting our time between her native Seoul and the beauty of the PyeongChang region. In the many years that I have been coming to Seoul, primarily for work, I have always found the combination of industriousness and warmth of the Korean people to be infectious. Yet I had a profound sense of happiness to return to New York City at the end of this trip, for the reason that many New Yorkers would have laughed at s
ViewpointsJune 21, 2016
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[Kim Seong-kon] Catching up with rapid social change
We now live in a time when rapid and radical social change is taking place in every nook and cranny of our society. In fact, the changes are so dazzlingly swift and drastic that we cannot possibly catch up with them at the same speed. Thus, we often end up being lost in this whirlpool of change and as a result are frequently embarrassed when the assumptions we inherited from the past turn out to no longer fit the present reality. When I lived in the States about 40 years ago, a Korean-American
ViewpointsJune 21, 2016
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[Newsmaker] [DECODED] Lotte’s ownership enigma
Cobweb, computer circuit board and maze. These are some of the words that Koreans use to describe the baffling complexity of the share ownership structure at Lotte Group, a conglomerate whose roots are in Japan but whose mainstay of business is in Korea. By any standard, whether in Korea or Japan, where poor corporate governance is considered a major drag on corporate value, Lotte’s setup looks opaque, antiquated and subpar. The image, prepared by professor Jang Ha-sung of Korea University, show
IndustryJune 21, 2016
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[Marlene Zuk] How humans help spread Zika virus
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which carry the Zika virus, are kind of like dogs. OK, the analogy isn’t perfect. Dogs don’t fly, and they don’t suck blood, and they don’t lay eggs. But like our canine pals, Aedes aegypti started out wild and got domesticated.With dogs, it took thousands of years. With these mosquitoes, the time frame has been much shorter. We humans happily joined in the process that changed wolves into dogs. With Aedes aegypti, we’ve been not-so-innocent and increasingly unhappy bys
ViewpointsJune 21, 2016
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[Robert J. Fouser] A Museum of Korean Democracy?
On a long walk through the center of Seoul a few weeks ago, my thoughts drifted back to June 1987. Demonstrations in favor of a direct presidential election and other democratic reforms raged for days in central Seoul after the Democratic Justice Party convention nominated Roh Tae-woo as a presidential candidate on June 10. The demonstrations eventually forced then-president Chun Doo-hwan to accept a direct election and a series of democratic reforms on June 29, which set Korea on the path towar
ViewpointsJune 21, 2016
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[Matt Welch] TIps for U.S. citizens escaping to Canada
Even before our two-party system coughed up the most disliked presidential nominees in modern polling history, Canada had firmly established itself as America’s favorite backup plan. Air Canada is already goofing on our quadrennial -- “How do I move to Canada?” Google searches with a new ad campaign called “Test Drive Canada,” in which Americans are encouraged to “Make it a long weekend! Take a look around. Try your hand with the metric system.” As the Quebecois might say, “ouaf ouaf.”But would-
ViewpointsJune 21, 2016
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Prosecutor's house, office raided over alleged bribery
A prosecutor's house and office were raided Tuesday over allegations he received bribes from the former chief of a local cosmetics brand as part of a snowballing corruption scandal that is rocking the country's legal sector.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office sent officials to the house and office of the prosecutor, identified only by his surname Park, and confiscated computer hard drives and other related documents.Park is suspected of receiving 100 million won ($86,400) from the for
Social AffairsJune 21, 2016
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[DECODED] Lotte crisis revolves around family affairs
It all started from one man. A young native of Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province, was brave enough to start a business in Japan in 1941 with only 83 yen in his pocket. Seven years later, he established the Lotte confectionery business to sell chewing gum and cake in postwar Japan.The huge subsequent success of the business led him to expand more. After a diplomatic normalization pact signed in 1965, Shin Kyuk-ho returned to his home country with 30 million won to launch a Korean confectionery bus
IndustryJune 21, 2016
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Deposits at brokerages soar amid low rates
[THE INVESTOR] Customer deposits at Korean securities companies have surged to a new high, data showed on June 21, as investors seek high-yielding vehicles amid record-low interest rates. On June 9, the Bank of Korea slashed its key interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to 1.25 percent in an apparent bid to cushion any fallout from the ongoing corporate restructuring drive and bolster the sputtering economy.It was the first rate cut in 12 months.According to data by the Korea Exchange and
June 21, 2016
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Koreans' average marriage age rises: report
The average ages of both South Korean men and women at the time of their first marriages have reached record highs, a market report said Tuesday, suggesting economic issues as a possible reason.According to the report from local matchmaking firm Duo, the average age of men who met their wives through matchmaking companies and tied the knot for the first time came to 35.8 years between June 2014 and May 2016. (123RF)The two-year average marked an increase of 33.4 years tallied 10 years earlier, a
Social AffairsJune 21, 2016