Most Popular
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Opposition mulls delay of financial investment income tax
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Immigration policy must go beyond labor supply: experts
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‘Korea crossed the line too far’ disgraced singer’s lawyer cries foul after 3rd visa denial
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S. Korea to showcase Hyunmoo-5 ballistic missile on Armed Forces Day ceremony for 1st time
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Nasrallah's killing reveals depth of Israel's Hezbollah penetration
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Park Zi-a, the actor who played 'The Glory' heroine's mother, dies
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Psy's touch or new trend in music? P Nation’s solo stars lose their shine
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Korean American documentary ‘Free Chol Soo Lee' wins Emmy
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KMA chief under pressure after surveyed doctors refuse to back him
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Meditation brings calm to Gwanghwamun
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[Graphic News] Skyscrapers change Seoul skyline
Seoul’s skyline is rapidly changing with the skyscrapers -- already built or under construction -- in major commercial and residential districts.According to a report by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the tallest building in Seoul is the International Finance Center in Yeouido, the capital’s financial district, at 279 meters. But the title will be transferred to Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, southeastern Seoul, when its construction is completed next year.IFC is followed by Tower Palace in Do
Feb. 21, 2016
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Samsung Pay hits 5m subscribers
Samsung Electronics’ mobile payments service Samsung Pay has hit 5 million subscribers, with combined transactions exceeding $500 million in Korea and the U.S. since its debut in August. The Korean tech giant said Saturday it will start the service in China in March and other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Spain, the U.K. and Canada in phases later this year. Detailed plans for its future launches and partnerships with local banks and card issuers are expected to be revealed du
TechnologyFeb. 21, 2016
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Media watchdog to uphold ‘right to be forgotten’ in Korea
South Korea’s state-appointed media monitoring agency said Sunday that it will set out guidelines to enable Web users to request for deletion of personal data online. Under the administrative guidelines to be proposed by the Korea Communications Commission, Web users will be able to demand that Web portals remove personal information that they do not want online. “We have studied the rights to be forgotten for more than a year through a group composed of legal, academic and industry experts,”
Social AffairsFeb. 21, 2016
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Government to scrap password-based authentication for online banking
Korean bank customers will soon be able to make online transactions without using security cards or one-time passwords as the government is seeking ways to make online payments easier so as to drive innovation in the sector, financial authorities said Sunday. (123rf)“As a part of financial reforms, we plan to abolish the mandatory use of password-based authentication system by revising online financial transaction regulations during the first half of this year,” said an official from the Financi
Feb. 21, 2016
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Samsung relocation highlights finance units
Samsung Electronics is expected to complete the relocation of its Seoul offices to Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, next month, a move that is widely considered part of Samsung Group’s ongoing business restructuring. Even though the tech giant has been headquartered in Suwon where its production facilities are based since 1973, the Seoul office has played a control tower role together with Samsung Corporate Strategy Office that oversees all group companies. Samsung Group has created the so-called “Sams
TechnologyFeb. 21, 2016
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Korean-Japanese Haru Nomura beats Lydia Ko for maiden U.S. LPGA win
Japan's Haru Nomura, an ethnic Korean, won on the U.S. Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour for the first time on Sunday.Nomura won the ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open in Grange, South Australia at 16-under 272, beating reigning champion Lydia Ko of New Zealand by three strokes.Nomura, who was born to a Japanese father and a Korean mother, has competed in the LPGA since 2011.Born in Japan and based in Hawaii, she moved to South Korea at the age of 7 and attended middle and high school in
GolfFeb. 21, 2016
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Seoul district court creates child abuse division
A Seoul district court said Sunday it will become the first court in the country to create a division solely dedicated to trying child abuse cases after a series of extreme cases of violence against children surfaced around the country.The Seoul Central District Court said three of its criminal justice panels will be changed to try only child abuse cases starting Monday. The three will be comprised of a single-justice panel, a group panel and an appeals panel.The move has been taken to reflect t
Social AffairsFeb. 21, 2016
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Conan O'Brien sings on K-pop track yet to be released
American talk show host Conan O'Brien said Sunday he has sung on a new track produced by the prolific South Korean musician Park Jin-young.O'Brien shared a photo of him with Park, Korean-American actor Steven Yeun, the South Korean girl group TWICE and backup dancers on Instagram with the comment: "@SteveYeun and I got to sing on a brand new track by #Kpop king.... Get ready, #Korea!"The photo was presumably taken after shooting the music video for Park's upcoming song Thursday. Park is the foun
PerformanceFeb. 21, 2016
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Police, court move to tackle child abuse
The Seoul Central District Court said Sunday that three criminal departments will be dedicated to child abuse cases. This is the first time for the district court to exclusively operate benches for child abuse crimes.All municipal police stations will also start having forces dedicated to tackling child abuse cases nationwide this year in light of several high-profile murder cases involving children with parents being the offenders.Police said Sunday 350 such forces will be assigned to the job t
Social AffairsFeb. 21, 2016
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Half of Koreans believe child not safe
Half of South Koreans believe that children are not provided sufficient protection from accidents, a survey showed Sunday.The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs said they surveyed 2,005 adults nationwide and that 40 percent of them had cited improving the dangerous environment of children as the most imminent task.Respondents included 1,005 households with children and 1,000 without children. (Yonhap)On a scale of 1 (least safe) to 5 (safest) in terms of children exposed to safety ac
Social AffairsFeb. 21, 2016
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SK Group seeks M&As to bolster pharma business
South Korea’s SK Group is pushing forward strategic mergers and acquisitions to bolster its pharmaceutical business, considered one of the key industries to lead the conglomerate’s future growth. SK Holdings is close to finalizing its selection of at least two global contract manufacturers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) used in pharmaceutical production, presumably midsized firms from Europe and North America, for acquisitions, according to news reports and industry sources on Sunday
IndustryFeb. 21, 2016
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Hyundai Motor likely to debut Ioniq EV in Jeju
South Korea’s leading automaker Hyundai Motor is set to debut the pure electric version of the Ioniq next month at the International Electric Vehicle Expo 2016 in Jejudo Island, following the launch of the Ioniq hybrid in January.The green car expo is scheduled to take place at the International Convention Center Jeju from March 18-24. Hyundai has also begun receiving preorders of its new electric vehicle in Jeju, as part of a government-led program to subsidize some 4,000 electric vehicles tha
MobilityFeb. 21, 2016
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[Editorial] Military lip service
The South Korean military is reportedly planning retaliatory countermeasures to the forewarned North Korean terror attacks. The administration’s recent hawkish position, no doubt, is in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test and missile launch early this year. Over the weekend, a senior military official’s remarks drew wide attention on social media. A senior defense-related official was quoted by the Herald Business, our sister news daily, as saying that “this time would be different from the pas
EditorialFeb. 21, 2016
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[Editorial] BOK and household debt
The market is focusing on the latest data of outstanding loans to households as of December 2015, to be released by the Bank of Korea on Wednesday. The nation’s combined household debt set an all-time high of 1.16 quadrillion won ($943 billion) as of September 2015, and is estimated to have reached a fresh record during the fourth quarter of last year. Some analysts are interested in seeing whether household debt has surpassed the 1.2-quadrillion won mark on the back of active, last-ditch bank m
EditorialFeb. 21, 2016
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Trump wins SC, Clinton takes Nevada
Donald Trump widened his lead over the Republican party’s presidential field claiming a big victory on Saturday as the contest moved into the South. Out West, Hillary Clinton beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for a crucial win in Nevada’s Democratic caucuses.Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who had done poorly in the first three early Republican contests, suspended his campaign after a disappointing fourth place finish in South Carolina.Clinton and Trump’s victories put them in strong positions as t
World NewsFeb. 21, 2016
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[Park Sang-seek] Greatest internal threats to Korean society
The greatest external threat to South Korea is North Korea. In dealing with this threat, citizens of the South should unite, but they are not quite united. In a democratic state diverse views and opinions are inevitable and can make positive contributions to deal with threats to national security. But if the people are divided to the extent that they undermine the very foundation of the state, the North Korean threat can’t be countered. The state is founded on three pillars: political, economi
ViewpointsFeb. 21, 2016
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[Adam Minter] China's empty malls get weirder
The Printemps department store outlet in Shanghai’s Pudong District would seem to have all the amenities necessary to succeed in modern Chinese retail: luxury brands, a venerable 150-year Parisian retailing history and an exclusive location.Despite these advantages, however, the store‘s management thought it was still missing something to attract customers. So next week they’re unveiling a gigantic, twisting, dragon-shaped slide that shoppers can use to drop from fifth-floor luxury boutiques to
ViewpointsFeb. 21, 2016
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[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Closing developing countries’ capital drain
Developing countries are bracing for a major slowdown this year. According to the U.N. report World Economic Situation and Prospects 2016, their growth will average only 3.8 percent this year -- the lowest rate since the global financial crisis in 2009 and matched in this century only by the recessionary year of 2001. And what is important to bear in mind is that the slowdown in China and the deep recessions in the Russian Federation and Brazil only explain part of the broad falloff in growth. T
ViewpointsFeb. 21, 2016
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[Fred Grimm] Conspiracy theories on Scalia’s death and Zika virus
You know -- because anyone with access to social media knows -- that it was Obama’s secret hit squad of pillow-wielding assassins who took out Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The timing of the “murder” seems a bit curious, so late in his second term that the president has little chance of getting a successor past the Senate. And, of course, Scalia was 79 years old with a history of serious heart problems. No matter. Rational thinking hardly keeps lunatic conspiracy theories like this from
ViewpointsFeb. 21, 2016
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[Gareth Evans] The Anglosphere illusion
One of the most bizarre arguments made by the people who support Britain’s exit from the European Union is the notion that a self-exiled U.K. will find a new global relevance, and indeed leadership role, as the center of the “Anglosphere.” The idea is that there are a group of countries -- with the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing community of the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand at its core -- who share so much of a common heritage in language, history, law, democratic institutions
ViewpointsFeb. 21, 2016