An ethnic Korean has been elected a mayor in Peru, a first in the 106-year history of Korean immigration to Latin America. The South Korean Embassy in Peru said Thursday that Jung Heung-won, 64, was sworn in as the mayor of Chanchamayo in central Peru, about 300 kilometers east of Lima, on Jan. 2. The term is four years. Jung Heung-won (sitting), newly elected mayor of Chanchamayo in Peru, poses w

People Jan. 16, 2011

Rhee Hang-bock, vice president of the Korea Scout Association, was elected chairman of the World Scout Committee at the 39th World Scout Conference in Brazil, Jan. 13, the association said.He is the first Korean chairman of the main executive body of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. His term is three years.  Rhee Hang-bockRhee succeeds Rick Kronk of the U.S., who served as chairman si

People Jan. 16, 2011

Chun fights U.S. visa discrimination, publishes books on immigration“Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.”So said the famous man of letters Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773).And when describing men of unwearied industry, Chun Jong-joon,

People Jan. 13, 2011

 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology President Suh Nam-pyo will receive a certificate of academic accomplishment from the Korea Economic Institute of America on Thursday.The presentation ceremony will take place during the 4th annual celebration of Korean-American Day 2011 hosted by KEI in The Willard InterContinental Hotel, Washington, D.C., on Jan. 13. KAIST President Suh Nam-pyoS

People Jan. 12, 2011

Korea Electric Power Corp. has broken the record for the most organ donors in one company, Korean Organ Donor Program announced on Tuesday.The program said that 8,138 KEPCO employees, 42.8 percent of the company’s total staff, have pledged to donate their corneas, beating the previous record of 6,217 donors at Hyundai Heavy Industries, set in 2007. KEPCO Pesident Kim Ssang-soo (second from right)

People Jan. 12, 2011

Human rights lawyer Lee Don-myung, who defended democratization and labor activists in the 1970s and 1980s, died of natural causes at his home Tuesday. He was 89.Born in Naju, South Jeolla Province in 1922, he graduated from Chosun University in Gwangju with a major in political science, passed the judicial examination in 1952 to be a judge, and began practicing law as an attorney in 1963. He took

People Jan. 12, 2011

Mike Kim also working on movie project on defectorsThe sight of North Korean refugees near the North Korea-China border changed Mike Kim’s life.Kim, then a financial planner, became an activist who risked his life to help North Koreans escape to freedom from 2003 to 2006.A 34-year-old second-generation Korean-American, Kim led hundreds of North Koreans out of the repressive regime through the 10,0

People Jan. 12, 2011

Korea’s biggest family buck the growing one-child national stereotypeAmid a backdrop of a looming demographic crisis in South Korea, due to one of the lowest birthrates in the world and an aging population, the country’s largest nuclear family ― with 13 children ― makes a welcome change. Attempts to boost the current rate of around 1 child per family have proved unsuccessful, with worries over cos

People Jan. 10, 2011

DALLAS, Texas (AFP) ― After spending more than 30 years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit, Cornelius Dupree Jr. became a free man when his conviction was overturned.Dupree, who was sentenced to 75 years for kidnapping, rape and robbery, had his conviction reversed in a Dallas courtroom Tuesday when State District Judge Don Adams declared him “free to go.”Dupree, 51, who had been rele

People Jan. 10, 2011

A shareholder of recently licensed Yonhap News Television has no stipulation regarding broadcast business in its articles of association. Critics note that Eulji General Hospital’s participation in television business is in violation of the law requiring a medical corporation to carry out business activities within the boundary of its articles of association.They also point out that the violation

Industry Jan. 6, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― Elvin Flynn is a dying man, but no one here is about to deprive him of his chances to live. He lies in a hospital bed on the seventh floor of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, a fungal infection threatening his central nervous system. He is already on a rigorous regimen of antibiotics. More surgery is an option but after three operations, he says he has had enough. There is the

People Jan. 5, 2011

Eulji Hospital’s participation in Yonhap consortium accused of violating lawThe eligibility of a shareholder in the recently licensed Yonhap News TV has emerged as a matter in dispute.Local news media has raised the possibility that the Eulji General Hospital may have violated laws to join the tentatively named consortium led by the Yonhap news agency to get a news television license. The hospital

Industry Jan. 4, 2011

Panel applies impractical rule too strictly in selecting new cable television operators The recent selection of successful applicants for general and news programming television licenses resulted from the application of ambiguous criteria which may be viewed as illegal. The ignorance over a criterion which restricts double investment by a stakeholder of an applicant in another applicant has led to

Industry Jan. 3, 2011

CHICAGO ― Adopted as an infant, Karen Mead says she has a special kinship with all the children she has encountered in Russian orphanages over the last decade ― dozens of them.“There’s something inside an orphan that’s broken that only God can fix,” Mead said. “There’s a feeling that no one can love you ― that there’s something wrong with me. I get these kids.”As she prepared to leave for yet anot

People Jan. 3, 2011