Most Popular
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Seoul, Tokyo reboot joint maritime resource talks after 40-year freeze
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Host of Miss Korea apologizes for 'inappropriate question' about deepfake
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Korea to face another massive shortfall in tax revenue
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Who's lying? Hybe vs. Min conflict continues to intensify
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[Contribution] Turkmenistan celebrates the 33rd anniversary of its Independence
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[Photo news] Faker Mercedes
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SK hynix outpaces Samsung, Micron with more powerful AI chips
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Power of nostalgia brings K-pop legends back together
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Seoul should engage Kim Jong-un’s elites for change, ex-North Korean diplomat says
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North Korea unveiling uranium enrichment site a US election-conscious move: NIS
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Over 2,000 jobs disappeared at top 100 companies in Q1
Amid a wave of corporate restructuring and downsizing, Korea’s top 100 listed companies by revenue shed over 2,000 jobs in the first three months of this year, data showed Sunday. According to Chaebul.com, an online financial information provider, the 100 firms’ combined workforce reduced by 2,116 to 857,412 at the end of March compared to three months earlier. (123rf)Some 51 companies saw their workforce shrink, 17 of them by more than 100. Among some of the biggest losses, Samsung SDI shed 1,
May 22, 2016
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Shipyards eye downsizing, dock sales
Korea’s three major shipyards, which once swept 70 percent of global orders, are to take wide-scale restructuring and downsizing steps, the impact of which may alter their global market standing amid a worldwide industry shakeup. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries, the second and third largest of the three, are considering selling “floating docks,” which in boom times allowed them to increase production capacity beyond the physical limit of onshore facility, lo
May 22, 2016
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[Newsmaker] Taliban leader Mansour is man of war, not peace talks
Taliban leader Mansour: man of war, not peace talksKABUL -- Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who according to U.S. officials was probably killed in a drone strike, took over as head of the insurgent movement last July following the revelation that the group‘s founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.He was initially thought to favor peace talks with the government, but after becoming leader he repeatedly refused to come to the negotiating table.For some Mansour was the obvious
World NewsMay 22, 2016
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[Graphic News] Koreans’ overseas card spending hits record for Q1
Overseas card spending by South Koreans hit $3.3 billion in January-March, the highest figure recorded for the first quarter, government data showed Sunday.According to the Bank of Korea, overseas spending – using credit cards, debit cards and direct payment cards -- in the first three months this year rose 2.7 percent year-on-year from $3.2 billion a year earlier.The number of Koreans who traveled overseas jumped 18.3 percent to 5.56 million in the first quarter from a year earlier, according t
May 22, 2016
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Demand for camping cars growing in Korea
The demand for recreational vehicles is on the rise in Korea, with more young families seeking to enjoy convenient outdoor leisure activities during their holiday breaks. The local camping car market, which was initially formed with imported trailers from 2010, gained momentum in 2013 with the launch of the motorhome Starex camping car by the nation’s largest automaker Hyundai Motor.Airstream's Caravan (Bluebird Enterprise)Sales of recreational vehicles in the local auto market have jumped to ro
BusinessMay 22, 2016
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Hyundai Motor holds urban racing festival in Songdo
(Hyundai Motor)Hyundai Motor held its third urban racing event, the Brilliant Motor Festival, on a city circuit in Songdo International Business District, Incheon, over the weekend as part of its ongoing push for performance carsAccording to the carmaker, the annual event, the nation’s only in-city racing competition, attracted around 150,000 visitors this year, up from last year’s some 100,000 visitors.“We will continue to ramp up our efforts to create the nation’s motorsports culture that is s
MobilityMay 22, 2016
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Ihwa Mural Village continues its struggle with noisy tourists
On the night of April 15, a 55-year-old resident of the Ihwa Mural Village surnamed Park and two other accomplices took buckets of gray paint and painted away one of the village’s most famous, flower mosaic-tiled outdoor staircase murals. A week later on April 24, a 45-year-old resident surnamed Kwon and another person followed suit and went on to gray over another of the village’s most photographed 3-D koi fish painted staircase murals.However, this act of vandalism was not committed as a means
CultureMay 22, 2016
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‘Urban casino for locals will destroy Korea’
MACAU -- Amid heated debates on a second casino in Korea permitting the entry of locals, an international expert warned it would “destroy the country.” Citing the nature of Koreans and their emotional response toward gambling, David Jung, founder and CEO of Hero Poker, a Philippines-focused online poker program, said allowing a casino to open within urban areas in Korea is a dangerous idea, stressing that the people would never draw a clear line between their life and entertainment when it comes
IndustryMay 22, 2016
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[Editorial] Timely boost
One country after another is taking action to add pressure on North Korea which is under the toughest-yet international sanctions over its latest nuclear and missile provocations. Last week alone saw new actions taken by the European Union, Russia and Switzerland. They provide a timely boost to the international efforts to punish the rogue state, which -- through its Workers’ Party Congress earlier this month -- demonstrated its defiance against the U.N.-led sanctions. The latest action came
EditorialMay 22, 2016
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[Editorial] Greedy pigs
It is not rare for Korean tycoons -- especially those from family-run chaebol –- to be punished for their wrongdoings, ranging widely from embezzlement, operation of slush funds and tax evasion to bribery, offering illegal political funds and insider trading. Of these, the last one -- illegal stock trading utilizing insider information -- has come to the fore again recently in the wake of two prominent cases, which, once again, showed how greedy and shameless some of the wealthy in this country
EditorialMay 22, 2016
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[Jeffrey Robertson] South Korea’s diplomatic style on the world stage
At the end of this year, Ban Ki-moon will leave the office of United Nations secretary-general. Since January 2007, he has crossed the globe building support to address the challenges of development, climate change, conflict, and humanitarian crises. Despite early criticisms, he has dutifully fulfilled a role that the Second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld labeled “the most impossible job on earth”. As a career diplomat and former foreign minister, he has also broadcast to the world South Kor
ViewpointsMay 22, 2016
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[Mark Davis] Conservatives who oppose Trump need to wise up
In a hazardous year for political predictions, I’ll offer one confidently: if the Republicans currently freaking out over Donald Trump can redirect that energy toward beating Hillary Clinton, she’s toast. But that is a giant “if.” Many conservatives need to examine what keeps them mired in their objections to Trump now that the Republican primary race is over. During that race, it was proper to weigh his pluses and minuses versus the competition. Maybe his inconsistent conservatism made some peo
ViewpointsMay 22, 2016
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[James Gibney] Did bombing Hiroshima save Japanese lives?
“Yoshikado-sensei said, ‘They’re still there. Spear them! Spear them!’ and it was really fun. I was tired, but I realized that even one person can kill a lot of the enemy.”So wrote Mihoko Nakane, a 10-year-old Japanese girl, in her diary in July 1945. She was describing the hand-to-hand combat training she and her classmates were getting for the “decisive battle” to be fought if and when the U.S. and its allies invaded mainland Japan.It’s one of many sobering vignettes recounted in Samuel Yamash
ViewpointsMay 22, 2016
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[Seamus Hughes] The path to radicalization
As one father told me the story of his daughter’s radicalization, his every word was heavy with regret. He should have intervened earlier, he said, when he first noticed she was hiding her online conversations from him. When his daughter disappeared, he frantically tried to call her. But it was too late; she’d gone to Syria to join the Islamic State. Now she is among the 250 individuals who have attempted to or succeeded in traveling to Syria or Iraq to join terrorist organizations such as the I
ViewpointsMay 22, 2016
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[Ann McFeatters] How do tyrants rise? Ask Trump
It’s long been a tenet of this country that Americans believe in fair play. But millions are ready to elect a president who believes the rules do not apply to him. And millions more are willing to be convinced that if this man is elected, somehow he will change from a self-centered oligarch to a leader who will put the country first. It used to be that politics stopped at the water’s edge. That meant that unless a controversial vote on declaring war were involved, presidential candidates did not
ViewpointsMay 22, 2016
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Labor minister pledges to hold onto reform bills
Employment and Labor Minister Lee Ki-kweon said Sunday he will push to resubmit bills aimed to reform the labor sector once the next National Assembly opens.“It is incredibly heartbreaking that the labor reform bills failed to pass the 19th Assembly. It is lamentable to be unable to give the youths hopes for their employment,” Lee said during a meeting with the press. The outgoing Assembly held its last plenary session last week during which they shelved all the remaining bills of contention.“Th
Social AffairsMay 22, 2016
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Proactive diplomacy is key to Kuwait prosperity
KUWAIT CITY -- Fifteen years since the end of the Gulf War, it is hard to see any remnants of the devastation in Kuwait City, the capital of Kuwait that was invaded by Iraq in 1991 by its then-leader Saddam Hussein. But there is one place that provides a rare glimpse of the war. Located downtown, the Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait holds millions of documents found during the war -- including secret documents written by the Iraqi Force to order its army to march toward the border.An em
Foreign AffairsMay 22, 2016
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USFK’s Korean workers protest for job security
In light of the accelerating relocation of the U.S. Forces Korea’s Seoul base, its Korean workers staged a large-scale protest Saturday, demanding that military officials guarantee their job security.Members of the USFK Korean Employees Union gathered in front of the War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan, central Seoul, and demanded the USFK create a response team to ensure the Korean workers are not laid off or switched to nonguaranteed contracts in light of the move.USFK Korean Employees Union hold
DefenseMay 22, 2016
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Top N. Korean diplomat Kang Sok-ju dies of cancer: state media
Kang Sok-ju, a top North Korean diplomat who negotiated a now-defunct 1994 nuclear deal with the United States, has died, Pyongyang’s state media reported Saturday. Kang, a Workers’ Party secretary in charge of international affairs, died of esophagus cancer at 4:10 p.m. on Friday at age 76, the Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported.Kang has long been a top foreign policy brain of the North and negotiated the Agreed Framework deal with the U.S. that defused the 1994 nuclear crisis.The dea
North KoreaMay 22, 2016
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Disinfectant victims establish corporation
The victims of toxic humidifier disinfectants and their families have established a corporation to systematically speed up their action against the manufacturers and government, a civic group said Sunday. More than 100 victims and families held a general meeting and set up a board comprising 22 members, including 17 directors, three advisers and two auditors. So far, the group has worked as an unofficial unit without any legal basis. Victims and the families of victims of toxic humidifier disinf
Social AffairsMay 22, 2016