President Moon Jae-in will formally appoint two new ministers Friday, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said, nearly completing the list of his first Cabinet.Paik Un-gyu will be appointed the new minister of trade, industry and energy, with Park Neung-hoo appointed the new health and welfare minister.A ceremony also involving new Justice Minister Park Sang-ki was set to be held later in the day, according to Cheong Wa Dae. (Yonhap)Park took office Wednesday when he was appointed without a ce

Politics July 21, 2017

A disgraced former ranking prosecutor was given a longer sentence by an appeals court on Friday, as the court found him partially guilty on bribery charges that were dismissed in the earlier verdict. The Seoul High Court sentenced Jin Kyung-joon, an ex-senior official of the Justice Ministry, to seven years behind bars, ordering him to forfeit 500 million won ($445,593) and pay a fine of 600 million won. He was given a four-year jail term by the lower court in December.The court also overturned

Social Affairs July 21, 2017

North Korea's economy grew 3.9 percent last year, the fastest pace in more than a decade, South Korea's central bank said Friday, despite tough UN sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.The estimated expansion of the gross domestic product represents a sharp turnaround from 2015 when the economy of one of the world's most isolated countries shrank 1.1 percent due mainly to a drought.Last year's growth is the highest since 1999 when North Korea's economy expanded 6.1 percent, acc

North Korea July 21, 2017

Global smartphone giants are expected to compete fiercely in the second half of 2017, industry watchers said Friday, as South Korea's top two players are fixing the release dates of their latest flagship smartphones next month.Samsung Electronics Co. said it will showcase the presumed Galaxy Note 8 in the United States on Aug. 23, with LG Electronics Inc. also planning to unveil the presumed V30 smartphone in Germany on Aug. 31.US smartphone behemoth Apple Inc. is also seeking to release the iPh

Technology July 21, 2017

South Korea's unification ministry called on North Korea to accept its dialogue offer, vowing to make efforts to improve inter-Korean ties without being swayed by the North's silence.The government also said that it has no plan to make another dialogue proposal as Pyongyang has remained mum toward Seoul's offer for military talks on easing border tensions on Friday and family reunions talks on Aug. 1."The government believes that there is the need to make step-by-step efforts (to improve inter-K

North Korea July 21, 2017

The South Korean government has dropped a plan to conduct an on-site survey this week on THAAD electromagnetic radiation joined by local residents, an official said Friday.There have been public concerns here about electromagnetic radiation in areas near the US military base in Seongju, some 300 km southeast of Seoul, where a THAAD missile defense battery is in partial operation to help counter North Korea's ballistic missile threats.The THAAD system uses AN/TPY-2 radar, also known as X-band rad

Defense July 21, 2017

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating dropped this week amid local businesses' worries over a recent decision to raise next year's minimum wage and a political dispute over his personnel choices, a survey showed Friday.In the weekly survey conducted from Tuesday to Thursday by local pollster Gallup Korea, Moon's rating was tallied at 74 percent, down 6 percentage points from a week earlier.Those who disapproved of his job performance made up 16 percent, up 4 percentage points from the previous

Politics July 21, 2017

A Seoul appellate court on Friday retained the hefty sentence for a judge-turned-lawyer charged with taking bribes worth 10 billion won ($8.92 million) for favors from her clients. Upholding the lower court's ruling, the Seoul High Court sentenced Choi You-jeong to six years in prison. The court ordered her to forfeit 4.3 billion won, reducing the amount from 4.5 billion won initially ordered by the lower court. Choi You-jeong, a judge-turned-lawyer convicted of bribery charges in a high-profile

Social Affairs July 21, 2017

A parliamentary committee on Friday adopted a report on the outcome of its confirmation hearing for Health and Welfare Minister-nominee Park Neung-hoo, clearing the way for his official appointment. Park Neung-hoo (Yonhap)The National Assembly's health and welfare committee made the publication, a crucial procedure before President Moon Jae-in formally appoints him.During his hearing on Tuesday, Park, a social welfare professor at Gyonggi University, vowed to pay keen policy attention to buildin

Politics July 21, 2017

South Korea's defense ministry on Friday pressed North Korea to hold bilateral military talks on easing border tension, as Pyongyang remained unresponsive to Seoul's latest dialogue offer.The meeting was proposed for the day at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone in what would be their first military dialogue in almost three years.But the North has kept mum on it, since the South delivered the overture Monday through media, with all formal inter-Korean hotlines severed."

North Korea July 21, 2017

A group of scientists have greatly improved the capacity and performance of lithium ion batteries based on the Nobel Prize-winning concept called "mechanical bond," the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Friday.The team led by Choi Jang-wook and Ali Coskun integrated molecular pulleys, called polyrotaxanes, into the battery -- a breakthrough in battery technology -- South Korea's top engineering and technology university said.In 2016, Fraser Stoddart of Northwestern Universi

Technology July 21, 2017

The new policy objectives and tasks of the new government with a clear focus on welfare and economic equality, if not justice, will inevitably lead to a tax hike, officials noted Friday.Setting the five key policy objectives and 100 tasks for the new government Wednesday, the State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee said the policy tasks will require an additional 178 trillion won ($158.8 billion) over a five-year period from 2018.The policy tasks include creating 810,000 new government paid jo

Politics July 21, 2017

Undereducated and unprivileged individuals are more vulnerable to the risks of death from heat waves, a study by a local research team said Friday.In an article carried in the latest edition of the British journal Science of the Total Environment, the team led by Kim Ho of Seoul National University's Graduate School of Public Health said that people with low levels of education and the economically needy were 18 percent more susceptible to death from heat.  (Yonhap)The level of vulnerability was

Social Affairs July 21, 2017

South Korean stocks opened lower Friday, tracking overnight losses on Wall Street.  The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 1.15 points, or 0.05 percent, to 2,440.69 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The main index hit a record high of 2,441.84 points in the previous session. On Thursday (US time), the Dow Jones industrial average ended down 0.13 percent at 21,611.78. Tech and auto stocks led declines, with market bellwether Samsung Electronics Co. falling 0.94 percent a

Market July 21, 2017

Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday released the Galaxy J7 smartphone through South Korea's No. 2 mobile carrier KT Corp., expanding its budget portfolio for mobile devices.The 5.5-inch J7 comes with a Super AMOLED display with a built-in 3,600 mAh battery.  (Yonhap)As the device has 13-megapixel cameras in the front and back, users can take better selfies compared with other smartphones, the mobile carrier said.The Galaxy J7 also supports key features from flagship devices, including a fingerprin

Technology July 21, 2017