All South Korean high schools will offer free education by 2017, the government said Tuesday, in line with President Park Geun-hye's pledge to tackle education issues ahead of her inauguration.Under the plan, the government will gradually increase the number of local high schools providing free education starting next year, making all schools offer expense-free education by 2017, according to the presidential office and the ruling Saenuri Party.The move came as Park said her government will incr

Social Affairs July 30, 2013

Nagano Prefecture, Japan (Yonhap) -- Four South Korean climbers who went missing in inclement weather during a group mountaineering trip in Japan were found dead Tuesday in the mountain range, officials said.Local police earlier found the bodies of the four near mountain trails connecting Mount Hinokio and Mount Hoken in the Nagano prefecture, officials at the South Korean consulate general in Niigata said.The area is part of a mountain range commonly known as the Central Alps.The four, who are

Social Affairs July 30, 2013

A detective who blew the whistle on the alleged police attempt to cover up a widening spy agency scandal appeared for questioning by prosecutors Wednesday.The scandal centers around allegations that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) systemically and extensively meddled in the presidential election by using its agents to illegally post a slew of politically sensitive comments against the opposition candidate on the Internet to sway public opinion ahead of the December vote.Wrapping up a fou

Social Affairs May 8, 2013

SEJONG (Yonhap News) -- South Korea is closely watching financial market conditions amid worries that market volatility could intensify down the road, the finance ministry said Wednesday.The ministry also worried that there is a possibility that the market could see a repeat of the so-called "herd behavior" similar to what was witnessed late last year."The level of alert has been rising recently against foreign capital flow in and out of bond markets and movements in foreign exchange rates," the

May 8, 2013

 More South Korean workers returned home from North Korea Saturday, a day after their government decided to pull all of them out of a troubled joint industrial complex in the communist country following Pyongyang's rejection ofan offer for dialogue.    A total of 175 South Koreans were staying at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name when the Seoul government announced its decision to pull them out on Friday. Of them, 125 returned home on Saturday together wi

North Korea April 27, 2013

North Korea said Saturday it will try a Korean-American detained in Pyongyang for unspecified "crimes" he has admitted to committing.In a short dispatch, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), monitored in Seoul, said Pae Jun-ho will soon be taken to the North's Supreme Court to face trial.The report said the preliminary inquiry into Pae's crimes has been closed. It said Pae entered Rason City in the North on Nov. 3 of last year and was arrested "for committing crimes" against the commun

North Korea April 27, 2013

Choo Shin-soo, Cincinnati Reds' starting center fielder and leadoff man, said Friday he was more disheartened by his team's loss than an end to his on-base streak.  Choo failed to get on base in Friday's game here against the Washington Nationals at the Nationals Park, and his streak of reaching safely, dating back to Sept. 21 last year, was snapped at 35 games.  Despit going 0-for-4 at the plate, however, Choo is still batting a robust .360 on the season, good for fourth in the National League

Baseball April 27, 2013

MOSCOW (Yonhap) -- South Korea and Russia have failed to reach an agreement to determine the quota for Korean fishing boats operating in Russian waters, a source familiar with the matter said Saturday.After the fourth round of bilateral negotiations held between Tuesday and Thursday in Moscow came to an end, the two sides agreed to resume the discussion on May 13 in the same city."During the talks, both sides narrowed significantly their differences on the quota for Korean fishing boats, but Rus

Foreign Affairs April 27, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a "game changer," but he cautioned that the United States needs more evidence that President Bashar Assad has used the deadly agents against his people."We cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations," Obama said in his first comments since the White House disclosed that U.S. intelligence indicates Syria probably has used chemical weap

World News April 27, 2013

The Securities and Futures Commission said Wednesday that it reported Daehan Real Estate Trust Co. to the prosecution on charges of fabricating its financial statements.Daehan Real Estate Trust -- a financial company fully invested by a quasi-governmental agency under the wing of the Ministry of National Defense -- engaged in irregular accounting practice from 2008 to 2010, according to the SFC.As the main malfeasance, the company allegedly rigged its statements from transactions for a land proj

April 24, 2013

North Korea's recent threat to shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex is ratcheting up tensions and making it difficult to maintain the crucial, cooperative link between the two Koreas, South Korea's unification minister said Tuesday.Ryoo Kihl-jae said in an informal meeting with reporters, that both South and North Korea have done their part to steadily build up the complex over the past 10 years."Having maintained it for so long, the proper next step should be to worry about how best to expa

North Korea April 2, 2013

North Korea is expected to spend 16 percent of its budget on national defense in 2013, up 0.2 percentage point from the year before, the country's state media said Tuesday.According to the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the North's ruling Workers' Party, Finance Minister Choe Kwang-jin reported to a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang on Monday that the money is needed to effectively cope with "indiscriminate" provocations by the United States and its followers.The paper, however,

North Korea April 2, 2013