The European Union Embassy kicked off its “EU Goes to Schools 2015” program, designed to promote awareness of Europe among Korean high school students, with the first lecture at the Kyungbok Business High School in western Seoul on Friday. EU Ambassador Tomasz Kozlowski and 20 other ambassadors from EU member states will visit 42 schools this year, and present European history, politics, economy and culture, as well as their career. The program started last year in collaboration with the Seoul E

May 10, 2015

The Indonesia Investment Board, in collaboration with the Indonesian Embassy, held a reception last week to woo Korean investors in infrastructure, manufacturing, maritime industries and tourism, while explaining the country’s latest regulatory changes. Franky Sibarani, the chairman of the board, gave a presentation on simplified investment license processing and new opportunities at the gala dinner “New Government and New Hope: Investment Plan 2015-19” at Conrad Hotel in Seoul last Thursday.Ind

May 10, 2015

Canadian Ambassador Eric Walsh had prior postings likely coming into his new position as Canada’s top envoy to Korea. Before being appointed in February, Walsh was the director of East and North Asia relations in the Canadian government in Ottawa, and had been posted in Berlin, Bucharest and Geneva.As relations between Canada and Korea become increasingly intertwined through free trade, immigration and education, Walsh said he had reason to be optimistic about the future. “Things are going well

May 10, 2015

Kazakhstan’s national holiday ― the Day of Unity of Kazakh People ― celebrates diverse nationalities and ethnicities that peacefully coexist in Kazakhstan. The country has more than 130 ethnic groups and nationalities ― Kazakh, Russian, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Tatar, Uyghur, German, Azeri and Belarusian ― including some 100,000 third- and fourth-generation ethnic Koreans who were deported to Central Asia from Soviet Union in the 1930s. They did not relocate based on their own will, but were driven by

May 10, 2015

In 1989, witnessing the fall of the Iron Curtain, U.S. political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared that history had ended, with Western liberal democracy representing the final form of government and mankind’s ideological evolution. The next 25 years proved to be more complicated than he anticipated: a plethora of regimes and ideologies have swept across the globe toward authoritarianism, away from his optimistic outlook. The pioneering thinker at Stanford University said he still resolutely s

May 6, 2015

It was sad to see U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe in Washington last week sashaying into a banquet wearing tuxedoes, alongside gracefully dressed first ladies. It was almost like a kid watching his best friend enter a party with the school bully.As melodramatic as it sounds, the resentment that prevailed South Korea during the eight-day-long Abe visit to the U.S. was very real.It was not about feeling left out. It was more about feeling let down, but not because the U

May 6, 2015

Japan said Monday it has secured a UNESCO advisory panel’s endorsement for the listing of major wartime industrial facilities as World Heritage sites, posing a threat to Seoul’s efforts to keep the move at bay amid unabated historical spats. The International Council on Monuments and Sites, or ICOMOS, has recommended the registration of 23 sites of “Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution,” built in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. They were credited with contributing to Japan’s rapid industri

May 5, 2015

President Park Geun-hye on Monday said that Japan failed to “face up to history,” with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe coming under international fire for not apologizing to Korean women who suffered from sexual enslavement by the Japanese military during the World War II.“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been under fire in the United States over his remarks on historic disputes,” Park said. “He lost a chance to build trust with neighboring countries by apologizing on their shared histo

May 4, 2015

Though the recent revision to an atomic energy pact with the U.S. allows South Korea’s study of pyroprocessing, the nascent technology will likely increase electricity costs while failing to reduce the stockpile of spent fuel here, a leading nuclear scientist has said. Under the amendment, Seoul secured Washington’s consent to carry out electroreduction, the first stage of pyroprocessing, which Korean experts have touted as a possible solution to deal with its mountain of used fuel rods. The tec

May 3, 2015

The Dominican Republic is a tourist paradise to those itching to escape an uptight life and heal their body and soul.The nation of tropical islands in the Caribbean Sea has 1,600 kilometers of coastlines and 400 kilometers of picturesque beaches. It also has a treasure trove of ecological attractions: national parks, mountain ranges, green fairways, waterfalls and rivers.Over five centuries of Caribbean, Latin American and African heritage have produced a melting pot of cultures, best represente

May 3, 2015

Classical music buffs in Korea had a rare opportunity to listen to a world-class performance by a Costa Rican pianist on Wednesday. Pianist Manuel Obregon, former Costa Rican culture and youth minister (2010-14), played his compositions as well as those of his countrymen ― Cesar Alceo, Ulpiano Duarte, Ray Tico and Justo Santos. The performance, at a traditional Korean house in Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, took place with the backdrop of the sunset. The combination of a unique stage, music and

May 3, 2015