[Newsmaker] Opposition parties 'not fundamentally opposed to THAAD'

South Korean National Assembly Speaker Chung Se-kyun on Tuesday said the country's opposition parties are "not fundamentally opposed" to the deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system to the country.Chung made the remark during a meeting with U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) after Ryan said THAAD's deployment is important for the sake of the solid alliance between the two countries, National Assembly spokesman Kim Young-soo said."Opposition parties are pointing out the way the govern

Sept. 14, 2016

National Assembly speaker Chung begins trip to US

South Korea's National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun will leave for the United States on Monday to strengthen cooperation between the legislatures of the two countries in promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula and beyond, his office said.Chung is to be accompanied by the floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party, the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea and the People's Party -- Chung Jin-suk, Woo Sang-ho and Park Jie-won, respectively.It is the first time that a parliamentary chief has trav

Sept. 12, 2016

Marrying technology and tradition in digital world

The Gothic Bead installation is a co-production by the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian Film Center Media Lab and Seneca College with 3-D scanning led by the AGO’s Lisa Ellis and the VR creative team led by French artist and designer Priam Givord. The medieval Christian sculpture with intricate inner engravings will be exhibited in this fall at the AGO in Toronto. (Ian Lefebvre / Art Gallery of Ontario)The work of Ana Serrano, chief digital officer of the Canadian Film Center, involves mergi

Sept. 12, 2016

Organic Irish food whets appetite

In Ireland, cows graze on unsoiled grass and feed on preserved hay in winter. Around the island on the western seaboard of Europe, oodles of salmon, crab, lobsters and mussels are netted to be consumed at home and shipped abroad. Under the initiative “Origin Green,” Irish seafood and agricultural products are increasingly marketed and sold worldwide as healthy edibles. A delegation of Irish trade mission representing the agri-food sector visited Korea last week to promote its industry and streng

Sept. 11, 2016

Novelist spells out joy and pain of storytelling

Tucked away in his seaside villa on the island of Ibiza off the eastern coast of Spain, Spanish writer Javier Moro toils eight hours a day in front of a computer screen, tortuously weaving words into sentences, paragraphs and chapters to perfect his novel.Sealed off from the rambunctious crowd outside, Moro withdraws into a “space of silence,” as he calls it, where he can let his imagination flourish. “I conceive literature as an intellectual and personal adventure,” he told The Korea Herald las

Sept. 11, 2016

Park, Abe hold summit over NK provocations, bilateral issues

President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday called for closer cooperation with Japan in countering North Korea's provocations and bringing about its denuclearization, saying the communist state's evolving nuclear and missile programs pose a "serious" threat to both countries. South Korean President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with her Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe ahead of a bilateral summit in the Laotian capital of Vientiane on Wednesday. (Yonhap)During a bilateral summit with Park, Japanese Prime M

Sept. 7, 2016

Park arrives in Laos to attend ASEAN, EAS summits

President Park Geun-hye arrived in Laos on Tuesday to attend a series of summits with the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where she is expected to call for stronger international unity against North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.Her four-day visit to the Laotian capital of Vientiane comes amid Pyongyang's continued provocations, including Monday's launch of three mid-range ballistic missiles. It is the third and last leg of her three-nation trip that also to

Sept. 6, 2016

Park, Obama to hold summit amid NK provocations

President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday will hold a summit with her US counterpart Barack Obama in Vientiane to discuss an array of issues, including North Korea's continued provocations, her office Cheong Wa Dae said.The summit will be held in the afternoon -- hours after Park arrives in the Laotian capital to attend a series of summits with the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cheong Wa Dae said. Their talks were arranged amid Pyongyang's continued provocations, incl

Sept. 6, 2016

Park, Xi reconfirm differences over THAAD

President Park Geun-hye and her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday reconfirmed their differences over the planned deployment of a US anti-missile system to South Korea, but agreed to strengthen their "strategic communication," Park's office Cheong Wa Dae said.During the summit on the sidelines of an economic forum in China's eastern city of Hangzhou, Park repeated that the need for a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system on the Korean Peninsula will disappear if North Korea's nuclear

Sept. 5, 2016

Turkey honors patriotism on 94th Victory Day

Marking the 94th anniversary of victory in the Battle of Dumlupinar, which spawned the creation of the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish embassy commemorated the country’s unwavering spirit of patriotism and democracy last week. Known as Armed Forces Day, or Victory Day, Turkish Forces at the behest of Mustafa Kemal Pasha (1881-1938) -- army commander, revolutionary and the first president of Turkey, referred to as “Ataturk,” the father of the Turks -- fought and defeated the Greek army in the fin

Sept. 5, 2016

Kazakhstan urges world to desert nuclear arms

On Aug. 29 1991, Kazakhstan voluntarily renounced its military nuclear capacity by closing down the Semipalatinsk test site, a primary experiment ground for the Soviet Union’s atomic weapons.By terminating the world’s fourth-largest atomic arsenal of more than 1,400 nuclear warheads at the time, the Central Asian nation was embarking on a path of disarmament and peace as a responsible member of the international community. Marking the 25th anniversary of the event, Astana held a two-day forum ti

Sept. 5, 2016

Treasures from Afghanistan unveiled in Korea

Exhibition titled “Treasures from Afghanistan” at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul has introduced the country’s ancient relics in Korea for the first time. (National Museum of Korea in Seoul)Timeworn relics from Afghanistan have been unveiled in Korea for the first time, through joint collaboration between the two countries’ national museums. Displaying artefacts of ancient civilizations between the 20th century B.C. and the seventh century, the exhibition titled “Treasures from Afghanistan

Sept. 5, 2016

Park arrives in Russia for economic forum, summit with Putin

Vladivostok (Yonhap) -- President Park Geun-hye arrived in Vladivostok, Russia, on Friday to attend an economic forum and a summit with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, as part of her eight-day trip that also includes visits to China and Laos.In the eastern Russian port city, Park will attend the annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), a venue to discuss ways to bolster regional cooperation in developing Russia's resource-rich Far East.President Park Geun-hye waves as she boards her plane at

Sept. 2, 2016

France finishes celebrating 130th year of ties with Korea

The France-based leg of the yearlong South Korea-France cultural exchange project has drawn the curtains with a colorful flourish, celebratory of the 130th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties.As of the end of August, the events of the "Years 2015-2016 of Korea-France Bilateral Exchanges" have hailed about 2.26 million visitors in France, which ran from September 2015, the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on Tuesday.Being the largest cultural project between the

Aug. 31, 2016

‘Diplomacy never too late to curb NK nuke’

With Pyongyang ratcheting up its nuclear brinksmanship and missile provocations, the international community has stood firm in sanctioning the regime through United Nations Security Council resolution 2270, considered the toughest in history. Predicting “North Korea will fall on a path of isolation and self-destruction through strengthened sanctions and pressure by the international community,” South Korean President Park Geun-hye has justified her preference for using sticks over carrots in dis

Aug. 28, 2016