Model warns of legal action against rumors over video with Kangta

Racing model Woo Joo-ahn will take legal measures against people spreading false rumors about her on the internet following a recent incident involving her ex-boyfriend, singer-songwriter Kangta.“I will take legal action against those spreading false stories, libelous comments, insulting rumors,” Woo said on Instagram on Sunday.“(The legal action) will cover the three main portals, Instagram and major online communities,” Woo added. On Thursday, Woo, 29, mistakenly upload

PerformanceAug. 4, 2019

Japan’s auto parts makers fined W92b over price fixing, reported to prosecutors

Japan’s four-largest automobile parts makers were fined a combined total of 92 billion won ($76 million) by South Korea’s antitrust watchdog for fixing the prices of auto parts, officials said Sunday. According to the Fair Trade Commission, four Japanese car parts firms had fixed prices in collusion when selling alternators and ignition coils to local automakers for 10 years. The four companies included Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi Automotive Systems, which were fined 80 billion w

IndustryAug. 4, 2019

Repeat sex offender sentenced to life for rape, murder of neighbor

A 41-year-old man surnamed Kang was sentenced to life in prison for rape and murder of a neighborhood woman.The Supreme Court on Sunday confirmed the life sentence and 200 hours of sex offender treatment program given by lower courts.Kang was arrested in May last year for forcibly taking a 59-year-old woman he met in an elevator to his home, then sexually assaulting and strangling her to death.“The defendant previously served over 10 years in prison for three different sex offenses. In vie

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

Beauty store chain fined over unfair biz practice

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Sunday that it has fined CJ Olive Networks Co. 1 billion won ($837,000) for violating the fair transactions law.The operator of Olive Young, a leading health and beauty store chain, is accused of returning goods worth about 4.1 billion won to its suppliers without justifiable reasons between January 2014 and July 2017, according to the Fair Trade Commission. The law stipulates that a large franchise and retail business operator should not return goods witho

IndustryAug. 4, 2019

Adopted Koreans return for international conference

Over 550 international adoptees and family members attended the International Korean Adoptee Association’s 15th anniversary gathering last week at Lotte Hotel Seoul. The first official IKAA Gathering in Seoul was held in 2004 following IKAA’s establishment that same year. However, the gathering itself has earlier foundations, with the International Gathering of the First Generation of Korean Adoptees held in Washington in 1999. This year, three generations of adult Korean adoptees fr

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

Typhoon Francisco forecast to pass through Korean peninsula

Typhoon Francisco, the season's eighth typhoon, is forecast to land on South Korea's southern coast on Tuesday night, the weather agency said Sunday. The typhoon was moving northwest at a speed of 25 kilometers per hour from about 1,310 kilometers east-southeast of Kagoshima, Japan, as of 9 a.m., the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said.Francisco was classified as "small" with a central pressure of 990 hectopascals (hPa). The maximum sustained wind speed near its center was 8

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

40% of listed firms' share prices hit 52-week low on Japan's export curb

Nearly 40 percent of South Korea's shares listed on the main and secondary markets saw their share prices hit a 52-week low after Japan announced an export curb against Asia's No. 4 economy in July, data showed Sunday.The number of companies whose share prices hit a 52-week low since July until Friday reached 975 from both markets, making up 43.3 percent of the combined listed firms, according to the figure compiled by the bourse operator Korea Exchange (KRX). From the 900 firms listed on the ma

EconomyAug. 4, 2019

Teenager poisoned by toxic gas unconscious for six days

A teenager has been unconscious for six days after she inhaled toxic gas at a restroom in a fish market in Busan.According to local police on Saturday, the 18-year-old was found unconscious around 3 a.m. Monday in the bathroom of the fish market near Gwangan Beach in Busan.  She was discovered by her friend, who was waiting for her outside the restroom. “She had not come out for 20 minutes,” the friend told police. “I also almost passed out twice and vomited a lot because

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

Gunman kills 20 in rampage at Walmart store in Texas

A gunman armed with a rifle killed 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday and wounded more than two dozen before being arrested, authorities said, after the latest US mass shooting sent panicked shoppers fleeing.Many of those in the busy store were buying back-to-school supplies when they were caught up in the rampage, which came just six days after a teenage gunman killed three people at a food festival in Northern California.“On a day that would have been a normal day for

World NewsAug. 4, 2019

[Newsmaker] 72-year-old man dies from self-immolation in apparent protest of Japan's trade curbs

A 72-year-old South Korean man died on Saturday three days after setting himself on fire in Seoul, police said, in apparent protest against Japan's trade curbs against Korea.The man, whose identity was withheld, set himself ablaze near the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in the heart of Seoul on Thursday morning. He died at 5:41 p.m. on Saturday while being treated at a hospital, police said. Police found a bag that appears to belong to the man near the location of his self-immolation. The

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

S. Koreans censure Japan's Abe for expanded trade curbs

Thousands of South Korean demonstrators staged a rally on Saturday for the third straight weekly demonstration to censure Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for expanding trade curbs against Seoul, demanding Abe apologize for Tokyo's wartime forced labor."Apologize!" shouted the protesters in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, waving banners reading "Censure the Abe regime" and "Apologize for wartime forced labor." Japan, which tightened exports of key material

Social AffairsAug. 4, 2019

ARF ministers welcome DMZ Trump-Kim meeting, look forward to resumption of nuke talks

The foreign ministers who participated in a regional forum in Thailand this week welcomed the impromptu summit between Washington and Pyongyang in June and looked forward to the resumption of their nuclear talks, its chair's statement showed.The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) took place in Bangkok on Friday and brought together top diplomats from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 17 other countries. "The ministers welcomed the meeting between US President Donald T

InternationalAug. 4, 2019

N. Korea apparently not ready yet for nuke talks with US: Seoul official

North Korea does not appear ready yet for the resumption of its working-level nuclear talks with the United States, a senior Seoul official has said, amid concerns that its recent saber-rattling could dampen the mood for dialogue.The foreign ministry official made the remarks on Friday when Pyongyang fired off two short-range projectiles in the third such launch in about a week. On Saturday, the regime claimed to have tested a "newly-developed large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket sys

North KoreaAug. 4, 2019

S. Korean minister demands Japan withdraw trade curbs at 16-nation trade talks

South Korea's trade minister said Saturday that she demanded Japan "immediately withdraw" trade curbs against Seoul at a meeting aimed at forging a 16-nation free trade deal. Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee told reporters that she raised the matter at the two-day meeting in Beijing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a proposed 16-nation free trade bloc."I called on Japan to immediately withdraw the export curbs," Yoo told reporters.Yoo also emphasized tha

IndustryAug. 4, 2019

Japan orders removal of sex slave statue on display at arts festival

A statue of a girl representing victims of Japan's World War II-era sexual slavery, which has been on display at an international arts festival in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, was ordered by Japanese officials to be removed, the festival's organizers said Saturday.The statue, which symbolizes Korean women who were forced to serve as sexual slaves for front-line Japanese soldiers during the war, was created by a South Korean artist and has been on display at the Aichi Triennale international

Foreign AffairsAug. 4, 2019

FM Kang says Japan's export curbs could pose 'serious threat' to regional prosperity

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Saturday that Japan's recent export restrictions, including its removal of South Korea from a list of trusted trade partners, could pose a "serious threat" to regional prosperity.Kang made the remarks during a meeting with her counterparts from five countries around the Mekong River -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- on the last day of her four-day trip to Bangkok for multilateral talks involving the Association of Southeast Asian N

Foreign AffairsAug. 4, 2019

S. Korean conglomerates' H1 profits down 40%

South Korea's top business groups saw their operating profits dip a whopping 40 percent in the January-June period from a year earlier, market data showed Sunday, due mainly to weak performances of major tech brands such as Samsung and SK.The combined operating profit of 55 of the top 100 listed firms that announced their first-half operating profits came to 42.8 trillion won ($35.6 billion), falling sharply from 71.1 trillion won posted a year earlier, according to the data compiled by industry

IndustryAug. 4, 2019

S. Korea mulling conducting defense drills on Dokdo this month: sources

South Korea is considering carrying out a combined maritime defense drill on and around its easternmost islets of Dokdo as early as this month, military and government sources said Sunday.The military exercise, if conducted, would come amid an escalating row with Japan over shared history that has spilled into the economic realm after Japan last month imposed a tougher approval process for exports of some chemicals to South Korea.  The row intensified on Friday as Tokyo approved a plan to r

DefenseAug. 4, 2019

Dismissing missile tests, Trump says Kim won't want to 'disappoint me'

      US President Donald Trump downplayed on Friday North Korea's missile tests, saying that while they may violate a UN resolution, Kim Jong Un will not want to "disappoint" him because he has "too much to lose."   Underlining his intense personal support for the North Korean leader, Trump fired off three tweets brushing aside the short-range missile launches.   "There may be a United Nations violation, but Chairman Kim

Foreign AffairsAug. 3, 2019

PM says Japan 'crossed line' with removal of S. Korea from whitelist

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon on Saturday blasted Japan for its decision to remove South Korea from a whitelist of trusted trading partners, saying that it "crossed a line it should not have." "(The decision), is the second retaliation after the country imposed export restrictions on key chip materials," Lee said at a Cabinet meeting. He also said such moves could "jeopardize bilateral relations between South Korea and Japan, international free trade and interdepe

PoliticsAug. 3, 2019