[Graphic News] As men’s waists widen, women’s legs get longer

Korean men are getting fatter and women’s legs are getting longer, according to a survey on Korean body size and obesity released Monday.The poll of 6,413 people, which was conducted by the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards under the Industry Ministry, showed that nearly half of Korean men in their 30s are obese. It said some 52 percent of those aged between 35 and 39 had a body mass index of 25, a measure of body fat based on height and weight. A BMI of 25 or over is regarded as obese

March 15, 2016

[Graphic News] Reported child abuse sees on-year spike

The increasing number of reported child abuse cases in South Korea, with many of them resulting in brutal deaths, have raised awareness of the need to tackle the problem more systematically.While statistics vary, the Health and Welfare Ministry’s numbers show that more cases of child abuse are being reported each year. An alarming factor has been that 81 percent of the offenders are parents.By type, 48 percent involved multiple forms of abuse, including negligence, emotional abuse, physical abus

Social AffairsMarch 14, 2016

[Graphic News] Not forgetting sex slavery victims

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday in New York met with an elderly South Korean victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery. It was the first such meeting since Ban took the post in 2006.Ban met with 89-year-old Kil Won-ok at the U.N. headquarters, saying he respects her efforts to raise awareness of the wartime crime to make sure there will be no recurrence.The meeting came amid persistent protest over the landmark agreement in December between South Korea and Japan on resolving the sexu

Foreign AffairsMarch 13, 2016

[Graphic News] Number of multicultural children reach more than 200,000

 The number of multicultural children in South Korea has gone up more than eight fold from 2006 to 2015, showed a report released by the Gender Ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination. A multicultural child mainly refers to a child born in Korea to a Korean national and his or her foreign-born spouse. As of last year, more than 85 percent of all marriage migrants in Korea were women. The report showed that there are 208,000 individuals born to multicultural families living in

Social AffairsMarch 10, 2016

[Graphic News] Single-person households face malnutrition: survey

One out of three Korean people living alone skip breakfast, indicating they have abnormal eating habits and are vulnerable to malnutrition, a survey showed Wednesday.According to a survey of 500 single-person households and 500 households with more than two members by the state-run Korea Rural Economic Institute, 33.5 percent of those living alone eat no breakfast, nearly double the 18.1 percent of the other group. In particular, 44.2 percent of the singles aged 30 or younger skip breakfast.They

March 9, 2016

[Graphic News] Korea tops emerging market household debt list

 Korea has one of the highest levels of household debt relative to gross domestic product among advanced and newly emerging economies, a report showed Tuesday. According to a quarterly report by the Bank for International Settlements, Korea had the eighth-highest household debt-to-GDP ratio among 41 rich and emerging countries.Out of the 17 emerging countries in the list, Korea came top for the 13th consecutive year, with 87.2 percent, followed by Thailand with 70.8 percent and Malaysia with 70.

March 8, 2016

[Graphic News] Glass ceiling still thick in Korea

Korea has the thickest glass ceiling in the corporate world, out of the 30 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to an OECD report released on Monday.The report showed that the proportion of male executives to all employees was 2.4 percent in 2014 while the proportion of female executives stood at 0.4 percent.Among the nation’s 348 major companies, there were 273 (2.3 percent) female executives as of June last year. On the other hand, there were 11,447 (

March 7, 2016

[Graphic News] Asylum seekers in EU doubled in 2015

The number of people seeking asylum in the European Union in 2015 reached 1,255,640 -- more than double that of the previous year, new figures suggest.Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans topped the list of applicants, with more than a third going to Germany, Eurostat says.In 2015, the highest number was registered in Germany, with 441,800 first-time applicants, followed by Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Italy and France. Compared to the previous year, the number of first-time asylum applicants in 2015 increa

World NewsMarch 6, 2016

[Graphic News] North Korea’s trade deficit widens

The U.N. Security Council’s tougher economic sanctions against North Korea is expected to deal a serious blow to North Korea’s economy as they include a ban on the North’s major export items like coal and iron ore.According to a report released by South Korea’s Trade-Investment Promotion Agency on Thursday, North Korea’s external trade amounted to $7.6 billion in 2014 but its deficit widened to $1.29 billion, a 41 percent increase from a year earlier.North Korea’s major export goods included min

March 3, 2016

[Graphic News] Bill Gates tops world’s billionaires list: Forbes

Microsoft founder Bill Gates took the crown as the world’s richest person for three straight years, according to Forbes 2016 World’s Billionaires list released on Tuesday.Despite the worth of his net assets decreasing by $4.2 billion to $75 billion due to weak stock markets and plunging oil price, Gates ranked first in the list of 1,810 billionaires in the world. Fashion retailer Zara founder Amancio Ortega ranked second with $67 billion, up two places from last year, and investment genius Warre

March 2, 2016

[Graphic News] Jobs in electric, waterworks paid most, food services paid least

The average monthly nominal wage of laborers in South Korea increased slightly by 3.5 percent last year over the year before, statistics by the Employment and Labor Ministry showed.The highest paid jobs were those in electric, gas and waterworks businesses, threefold the lowest paying jobs in the lodging and food industries. The ministry surveyed the wages of about 25,000 sample businesses in all fields excluding agriculture.Other high-paying jobs included those in finance, insurance, science an

Social AffairsMarch 1, 2016

[Graphic News] Debts dominate spending of households in deficit

Debt-to-income ratio of deficit households, whose spending is higher than their disposable income, reached 42 percent 2014, according to a report released by the LG Economic Research Institute on Monday. The proportion of income spent on debt repayments is far higher than the overall figure for all households of 28.3 percent.The ratio for households in deficit has risen steeply since it exceeded 30 percent for the first time in 2009, peaking in 2013, when their DTI ratio hit 42.7 percent. “Consi

Feb. 29, 2016

[Graphic News] North Korea’s trade volume with China decreases

With a new set of unprecedented sanctions against North Korea by the U.N. Security Council looming, North Korea is expected to suffer a major setback in its trade, the majority of which depends on China.According to the Korea International Trade Association, the amount of exports from North Korea to China reached $2.48 billion last year, marking a 12.6 percent decline from the year before. The volume of imports also showed a decrease of 16.4 percent to $2.95 billion.The officials said those are

North KoreaFeb. 28, 2016

[Graphic News] About 3 percent of salaried workers are high-wage earners: report

About three out of 100 wage earners in Korea receive an annual salary of more than 100 million won (about $80,000), according to a report by Rep. Lee No-geun of the ruling Saenuri Party on Thursday.The report, which was based on tax authorities’ year-end tax adjustment, showed that high-wage earners number at 526,689 out of the total 16.68 million salaried people here. By region, Ulsan, the nation’s southeastern industrial city, topped the proportion of high-wage earners at 8.5 percent. There we

Feb. 25, 2016

[Graphic News] Coffee can reduce risk of osteoporosis: study

Drinking up to two cups of coffee a day can significantly reduce the risk of osteoporosis, a bone disease that can lead to higher risk of fractures, a South Korean study showed Wednesday. Organized and published by the Seoul National University Hospital, the research only analyzed symptoms among menopausal women. It conducted research on 4,066 menopausal women who had been tested for bone density between 2008 and 2011. According to the study, those who drank less than a single cup of coffee dail

Social AffairsFeb. 24, 2016

[Graphic News] AI takes on human in Go

Anticipation is growing as the showdown between top Korean Go player Lee Se-dol and artificial intelligence software AlphaGo will take place in Seoul early next month. The Go match, consisting of five games scheduled between March 9 and 15, has been garnering attention from the public, enthusiasts of the game and the technology sector.Jung Jae-seung, a bio and brain engineering professor of KAIST, said, “The match between Lee Se-dol and AlphaGo is more than just a challenge posed by an AI progra

TechnologyFeb. 23, 2016

[Graphic News] Domestic beef prices surge on falling supply

Prices of beef produced in Korea soared 7.3 percent last year, the highest growth rate in five years, due to a reduced supply of cattle, according to government data released Monday.Statistics Korea said last year’s increase was the largest annual gain since 2010 when prices surged 10.5 percent on-year.In particular, the fourth-quarter of last year saw a double-digit rate of increase with growth of 12.7 percent in December.Industry watchers said rising beef prices were due to the 2012 government

IndustryFeb. 22, 2016

[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

[Graphic News] Government to give 15,000 nonregular workers to regular positions by 2017

The government plans to additionally transform about 15,000 nonregular employees working at the public sector into by next year, according to its task force team on labor reform.Under the plans released Wednesday, the status of a total of 15,262 nonregular workers in the central government, local governments, state-run corporations and other public workplaces will be changed into regular positions.The Park Geun-hye administration has pushed for the gradual transformation of nonregular workers to

Feb. 18, 2016

[Graphic News] Most gifted children learning math, science

Of all elementary, middle and high school students in South Korea, 1.8 percent of have been deemed gifted children and are receiving specialized education, the Education Ministry said Wednesday. Of 110,053 gifted children nationwide, 81.2 percent of them are receiving specialized education in the fields of mathematics and science, the ministry said. Others included invention (4.0 percent), humanities and social sciences (3.5 percent), information-related studies (2.9 percent) and various foreign

Social AffairsFeb. 17, 2016