[Newsmaker] Maritime minister escapes the chop

Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Lee Ju-young, whose ministry was directly responsible for handling the Sewol ferry disaster, has managed to hang onto his post. The news came as a shock to many, as speculation was rife that he would be the first to be replaced in the government’s recent personnel shake-up aimed at repairing its image. It was more surprising because the seven ministers that President Park Geun-hye said would be replaced included two ― the education minister and security minister

PoliticsJune 15, 2014

[Newsmaker] Profiles of minister nominees

Park’s close aide set to take economic helmChoi Kyung-hwan, a third-term lawmaker from the ruling Saenuri Party, was nominated on Friday as South Korea’s new deputy prime minister and finance minister, a key post for the nation’s economic policy direction. The appointment of Choi, the floor leader of the ruling party who is considered a close aide of President Park Geun-hye, is seen as signaling a continuation in the administration’s economic reform efforts.Choi, 59, who served as minister of kn

June 13, 2014

[Newsmaker] Despite loss, Korea gets sets for World Cup

FOZ DO IGUACU, Brazil (Yonhap) ― Players on the South Korean national football team have put their recent big loss to Ghana behind them as they get ready for a more crucial task ahead.On Wednesday, head coach Hong Myung-bo and his 23-man team arrived in Foz do Iguacu, their base camp during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, after wrapping up an earlier camp in Miami.South Korea has struggled mightily in its preparation for the tournament. It lost to Tunisia 1-0 in Seoul on May 28 and fell to Ghana 4

SoccerJune 12, 2014

[Newsmaker] P.M.-nominee receives mixed reactions

Prime Minister-nominee Moon Chang-keuk took a single path as a newspaper journalist for 38 years. The 66-year-old former political correspondent never strayed from his job or attempted to cross over into politics or elsewhere. Even after his retirement in 2012, he stood in front of college students, offering lectures on the principles of journalism and its role of pursuing truth without favor.Moon was not a popular figure but was a journalist who wrote a series of columns highly critical of high

PoliticsJune 11, 2014

[Newsmaker] AI emulates teen to pass ‘Turing Test’

LONDON (AFP) ― A Russian supercomputer posing as a 13-year-old boy has convinced judges that it is human, becoming the first to pass the “Turing Test” in a historic moment in artificial intelligence, British scientists said.The computer became the first in the world to be mistaken for a real person more than 30 percent of the time, during a series of five-minute keyboard conversations with humans conducted at the Royal Society in London.The test was established in 1950 by Alan Turing, a World Wa

World NewsJune 10, 2014

[Newsmaker] Egypt’s el-Sissi: From general to strongman

CAIRO (AFP) ― Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who was sworn in Sunday as Egypt’s president, may have donned civilian clothes but his crackdown on opponents has raised fears he could herald a return to autocracy. Sissi was chosen as president in a May 26-28 election with 96.91 percent of the vote, nearly a year after toppling the country’s first freely elected leader, Islamist Mohamed Morsi.Taking the oath on Sunday, Sissi vowed “to respect the constitution and the law and to care for the in

World NewsJune 9, 2014

[Newsmaker] Korea real winner in new Eurasian union?

While Russia’s relationships with the United States and Europe are frayed over the conflict in Ukraine, the newly minted Eurasian Economic Union ― made official during a signing ceremony in Astana, Kazakhstan, on May 29 ― will surely tighten Russia’s ties with former Soviet republics.But that aspect of the newly minted EEU belies the pact’s real winner, Kazakhstan, how the pact could boost economic growth in the Central Asian nation and, by extension, the benefit to foreign investors, including

Foreign AffairsJune 8, 2014

[Newsmaker] Nam brings biggest win to Saenuri

Nam Kyung-pilNam Kyung-pil, the Gyeonggi governor-elect, is a seasoned politician and former journalist who was educated at Yale in the U.S. and Yonsei University in Seoul.The five-time lawmaker of the ruling party won one of the toughest races on Wednesday, beating his rival and NPAD candidate Kim Jin-pyo by a margin of less than 1 percent. The former deputy floor leader has been considered one of the few innovative members of the Saenuri Party, along with Won Hee-ryong, the newly elected gover

PoliticsJune 5, 2014

[Newsmaker] Park seals second term with clear election win

Park Won-soon of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy defeated conservative candidate Chung Mong-joon in the Seoul mayor election Wednesday.Turnout among Seoul’s 8.4 million voters was 58.6 percent. Chung’s defeat in a key battleground district deals a political blow to President Park Geun-hye and the Saenuri Party, but President Park’s past leadership in political crises has been resilient. NPAD Seoul Mayor Park talks to volunteer workers at his campaign office on Wednesday m

PoliticsJune 4, 2014

[Newsmaker] 25 years on, Tiananmen barely known to youth

BEIJING (AP) ― Born in 1989, Steve Wang sometimes wonders what happened in his hometown of Beijing that year. But his curiosity about pro-democracy protests and the crackdown on them passes quickly.“I was not part of it,” he said. “I know it could be important, but I cannot feel it.”A quarter century after the Communist Party’s attack on demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, it is little more than a distant tale to most young Chinese. The ruling party prohibits public disc

World NewsJune 3, 2014

[Newsmaker] Kim reemerges at center of security policy

After three and a half years at the helm of the Defense Ministry, the hawkish Kim Kwan-jin was expected to leave the government to pave the way for a more flexible, conciliatory policy toward North Korea.Yet, he has reemerged as the centerpiece of the Park Geun-hye administration’s security policy as Park seeks to maintain a robust deterrence posture amid Pyongyang’s saber-rattling and menacing rhetoric against Seoul.Park appointed him to head the presidential office of national security on Sund

DefenseJune 2, 2014

[Newsmaker] Fear mounts over net neutrality breakdown

The Internet, one of the world’s greatest inventions of the 20th century, faces a possible makeover as it is being threatened by a new U.S. rule that can overthrow its openness and indiscriminate accessibility.Concerns over the possible breakdown in net neutrality, in which all Internet data should be treated equally, have been rising especially since the U.S. Federal Communications Commission lost a court battle against Verizon early this year.The two sides have been duking it out over net neut

TechnologyJune 1, 2014

[Newsmaker] Park under pressure to sack chief of staff

Presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon is drawing yet more fire from opposition parties in the wake of Ahn Dae-hee withdrawing his nomination for prime minister. Since the Sewol ferry disaster, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has been stepping up pressure on President Park Geun-hye to remove Kim from office. The NPAD and other opposition parties accuse Kim of being responsible for Park’s long string of failed nominations for high-level government posts, which they refer

PoliticsMay 29, 2014

[Newsmaker] Park deeper in crisis over PM nominee

President Park Geun-hye’s reform efforts aimed at improving safety measures and ending corruption in offices were dealt with a serious blow on Thursday. Prime Minister nominee Ahn Dae-hee, who has been hailed as a corruption fighter, withdrew his nomination on Wednesday afternoon, saying he would be “a burden to the government” if he kept the nomination. Ahn’s abrupt announcement came amid a growing speculation that he made a fortune by using his connections with former colleagues to get prefere

PoliticsMay 28, 2014

[Newsmaker] Economist Piketty rejects FT’s claims of data flaws

Thomas Piketty rejected allegations that data behind his best-selling book on inequality are flawed as fellow economists spoke up in his defense.Piketty, the French economist whose book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has transformed the debate on the causes and consequences of disparities in income and wealth, called a Financial Times analysis of his statistics “just ridiculous.” He added in an email to Bloomberg News that “there’s no mistake or error” in his work. The newspaper’s economi

World NewsMay 27, 2014

[Newsmaker] Daum, Kakao merge to take on giant rivals

Watch out Naver, here comes Daum and Kakao.The merger between Daum, the nation’s second-largest search engine, and Kakao, the most-used mobile messaging service, surprised many observers, who said that it was a “game-changing move” that can potentially shake things up, at least here in Korea.But globally, they may find it challenging to stand out among heavyweights such as Naver, Facebook, Tencent and Google in this mobile age, or even win a foothold in the mobile messaging market dominated by W

TechnologyMay 26, 2014

[Newsmaker] Internal strife simmering at KB Financial

The falling credibility of KB Financial Group shows no sign of abating, even appearing to further deteriorate amid escalating internal troubles.The country’s largest banking group by assets struggled in 2013 after its flagship unit, KB Kookmin Bank, was rattled by a series of scandals involving illegal loans, and irregularities at its overseas branches. It suffered another serious blow earlier this year after its credit card unit was involved in a massive data leak scandal. And now, the group an

May 25, 2014

[Newsmaker] P.M. nomination raises hopes, doubts

Once known as the “people’s prosecutor,” Ahn Dae-hee is now set for the highest unelected government post with much riding on his shoulders. As a “star prosecutor” who made a point of defying political pressure to bring heavyweights on both sides to justice, Ahn has been hailed as the right man to spearhead President Park Geun-hye’s drive to root out corruption from civil service. As the prime minister, he will be in charge of a new government organization for reforming civil service aimed speci

PoliticsMay 23, 2014

[Newsmaker] Integrated emergency response system in need

Korea prides itself for being superfast at adopting and building new things like none other.It can make planes, trains and automobiles, and even ships, robots and telecommunication networks faster than most. This culture of “ppalli ppalli,” in which everything has to be taken care of in a matter of seconds, has paved the way for it to become one of Asia’s leading economies.But none of those fancy and fast things Korea likes to show off seem noteworthy when it comes to saving lives in the face of

TechnologyMay 22, 2014

[Newsmaker] Teachers hailed for sacrifices to save children on ferry

More than 30 days after the sinking of the ferry Sewol, teachers of Danwon High School ― which lost 250 students to the disaster ― are being recognized as heroes. Only three of the 14 teachers survived, making them the group with the lowest surviving rate among the passengers on board. Most of the teachers’ bodies, including those who were staying in the cabins on the fifth floor of the ship, were found on the fourth floor. It is assumed that they retreated to the lower deck in an attempt to res

Social AffairsMay 21, 2014