The South Korean military has begun a seven-month project to excavate remains of fallen soldiers who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War, the defense ministry said Thursday.About 100,000 soldiers will dig out sites in 74 regions across the nation until the end of November to find remains of missing servicemembers, the ministry said.The excavation team will analyze the registry of missing soldiers and conduct DNA tests to trace their families after retrieving their remains, it said.Since 2000, the S

Defense April 17, 2014

South Korea will invest 15 billion won ($14.4 million) this year in fostering its Ultra HD industry to secure a competitive edge before the expected sales boom from global sports events, the telecom ministry said Thursday.The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning said it will inject 5.8 billion won to develop core devices needed in creating and transmitting UHD contents, such as cloud-based editing systems and a High Efficiency Video Coding encoder.It will also allocate 2.2 billion won t

Technology April 17, 2014

A passenger ship carrying more than 470 people, mostly high school students, sank off South Korea's southern coast on Wednesday, leaving at least two people, including one student, dead and about 290 others missing.The government had earlier announced that 368 people were rescued, but officials later acknowledged there was an error in tallying up figures. More than 290 people still remain unaccounted for, they said.Only about 180 have been rescued so far, more than five hours after the accident,

Social Affairs April 16, 2014

Large businesses in South Korea demand too much information from job applicants that violate privacy and can be used for discriminatory purposes, such as their religions, marital status and the academic backgrounds of their parents, a survey showed Wednesday.A team of four college students came up with the results after examining the job application forms of 95 large companies since February, the presidential committee on youth affairs said. The students are members of a policy recommendation te

Industry April 16, 2014

North Korea on Wednesday denounced Seoul's refusal of its demand for a joint investigation into three drones found in South Korea, saying a preliminary result that pointed at Pyongyang's involvement is a "malicious slander."South Korea's defense ministry last week said the drones recently discovered in inter-Korean border areas were produced and sent by North Korea for spying purposes, though the conclusive evidence has yet to be found.On Tuesday, the North's powerful National Defense Commission

North Korea April 16, 2014

South Korea's top fixed-line operator, KT Corp., said Tuesday it will raise $1 billion by selling bonds to overseas investors as it aims to raise cash for debt payments in the coming months.Of the amount, $650 million will mature in three years and the remaining $350 million in five years.The three-year bonds will carry an interest rate 100 basis points above the yield on three-year U.S. Treasurys. The rate of the five-year bonds will be 110 basis points higher than the government bonds of the s

Technology April 15, 2014

President Park Geun-hye apologized Tuesday for the spy agency's alleged forgery of evidence used in charging a North Korean defector with espionage, ordering the embattled agency to make thorough efforts to reform itself.Park issued the apology during a Cabinet meeting, a day after prosecutors indicted two officials of the National Intelligence Service for their alleged roles in the scandal. NIS Director Nam Jae-joon also offered an apology earlier in the day.The swift apology shows Park takes t

Politics April 15, 2014

South Korea and Japan will hold high-level talks in Seoul this week on the latter's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, with attention focused on Tokyo's stance on the emotive issue, officials said Tuesday.The director general-level meeting, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, will be the first venue reserved for addressing the wartime atrocity, which remains a cause of frayed bilateral ties.Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were coerced into sexual servitud

Foreign Affairs April 15, 2014

The South Korean government said Tuesday it will introduce an apprenticeship system similar to that of Switzerland where students can receive education or training while also working, a move aimed at boosting the country's youth employment rate.The measure is an effort to improve the country's youth employment rate that continues to drop despite rises in the overall employment in recent years, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance."An increase in youth unemployment rate not only mean

April 15, 2014

The U.S. government may return a set of Korean national treasures, apparently stolen by an American soldier during the Korean War, when President Barack Obama visits Seoul next week, diplomatic sources here said Monday."The two sides are in the final stage of consultations to complete relevant procedures," a source said.There is a possibility that the process will finish ahead of Obama's departure for Asia next Tuesday, added the source.Obama is expected to arrive in Seoul on Friday following a

Social Affairs April 15, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama will visit South Korea next week for talks with PresidentPark Geun-hye on the alliance between the two countries, North Korea and its nuclear program, and other regional and global issues, both sides announced.Obama will arrive on April 25 for a two-day visit, Seoul's presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook said. It will be Obama's first trip to Seoul since Park took office last year. Park made a state visit to Washington last year, and the two leaders have since met on

Foreign Affairs April 15, 2014

South Korea rejected on Tuesday North Korea's demand that the rival Koreas conduct a joint investigation into drones that Seoul said Pyongyang sent to the South for spying purposes.  South Korea said Friday that it believes North Korea was the origin of three unmanned aerial vehicles that crashed in the South, though conclusive evidence has yet to be found, adding it will continue investigations into the drones in a scientific manner to ensure that the drones belonged to North Korea."In no case

North Korea April 15, 2014