British Ambassador to Korea Scott Wightman congratulated 23 Koreans as they received the United Kingdom’s Chevening Scholarship for the 2013-2014 academic year in a reception at his residence on Wednesday.Among them, one North Korean settler in South Korea also received the prestigious scholarship that covers post-graduate study, including tuition fees, a monthly stipend and round-trip airfare.The embassy said that the Chevening program was created to support British foreign policy by creating l

July 14, 2013

Yu Seung-pil, 67, chairman and CEO of Yuyu Pharma, Inc. and honorary consul of Haiti, was selected as dean of the corps of honorary consuls in South Korea during the group’s biannual general session at a hotel in Seoul on July 5.Yu takes over the position from Cho Hae-hyeong, chairman and CEO of Nara Holdings and honorary consul general of Iceland in South Korea, and who was dean of the corps for 10 years. Yu was one of three vice deans before becoming dean. Cho became an honorary consul in 1977

July 14, 2013

Paraguayan Ambassador Ceferino Valdez sent off four South Koreans on Monday to his home country for seven weeks as part of a South Korean government program to promote the martial art of taekwondo, as well as Korean culture and language.The youths are Taekwondo Peace Corps volunteers armed with the desire of promoting friendly relations between South Korea and the South American country. They are part of a program now in its fifth year that has dispatched hundreds of young people since its incep

July 14, 2013

The Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue tells plenty. The 131-foot stainless steel behemoth towers over the wind-swept Mongolian steppe 30 miles east of the capital city of Ulan Bator.Built and paid for by a private tour company, the statue honors the founder of a great transcontinental empire. It also exemplifies the newfound pride Mongolians feel about recent democratic and capitalist reforms that have transformed their country.The sparsely populated nation of 3.2 million discovered in recent years

July 14, 2013

South Korea and Honduras signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a high-level policy consultative body between the two nations, as part of their efforts to strengthen bilateral cooperation, an official said Wednesday. The agreement was reached at a meeting in Seoul between Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero, who is on a six-day visit to South Korea, the foreign ministry official said.During the talks, Yun and Aguero discussed ways to strengthen bi

July 10, 2013

Korea on Tuesday protested Japan’s renewed sovereignty claim to the islets of Dokdo in its new defense white paper.In the annual document, Tokyo identified the windswept islets in the East Sea as its territory and said the ownership issue “still remains unsolved.” The description has been rehashed since 2005.Seoul’s Foreign Ministry summoned Takashi Kurai, a minister and deputy chief of the Japanese Embassy, calling the claim “unacceptable” and urging an immediate rectification. The Defense Mini

July 9, 2013

The Turkish Embassy in Korea and Suwon City in Gyeonggi Province inaugurated a new park in memory of a school and orphanage established some 60 years ago during the Korean War by Turkish soldiers.Called “Ankara School” by the soldiers, the orphanage grew rapidly and accommodated some 100 children at a time, ranging in age from 5 to 15. It was said to have taught them music, Turkish and English. A total of 800 Korean children passed through the school.The orphanage cared for children through the

July 7, 2013

Venezuela’s Independence Day celebration took on special significance during a reception in Seoul on Friday in the wake of the diplomatic raucous caused when some European nations closed their airspace to Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane. Charge d’Affaires Yadira Hidalgo de Ortiz, the South American country’s top diplomatic representative in South Korea, repeatedly underscored her country’s sovereignty and national independence in a thinly veiled reference to the international incident duri

July 7, 2013

Facing down the snarled traffic that is an everyday headache in Kabul will be crucial for President Hamid Karzai to win the peace after the U.S.’ planned withdrawal in December 2014, according to the country’s transport minister.Afghan Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Daoud Ali Najafi was in Seoul last week to ink an MOU with his South Korean counterpart, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation Suh Seoung-hwan.“One way to help Afghanistan win the peace is by better providing

July 7, 2013

Charles de Gaulle underscored the French trend of marking itself out from its European neighbors ― not to mention the United States ― by recognizing Maoist China in 1964, the first major Western European country to do so.As France and China now look to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of those ties next year, France continues to stand apart from Europe, this time in its diplomatic approach to North Korea.“What we want is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We do not

July 7, 2013