The Seoul city government is offering rent-free offices for six months to foreign entrepreneurs here in Korea, officials said Tuesday. The four incubation facilities for foreign business startups will provide basic office equipment, internet support and business management resources. Three offices, each 5.75 square meters, are located in the Global Business Support Center in Gangnam COEX, and a 25.9-square-meter office is in the new Seoul International Finance Center in Yeouido. The city will se

Social Affairs Nov. 8, 2011

300 students including Chinese and Japanese expected to join program every yearMajor universities in South Korea, China and Japan will launch a joint degree program next year as part of efforts to expand academic exchanges, the Education Ministry said Sunday.The Education Ministry and the Korean Council for University Education announced 10 South Korean colleges and universities chosen to partner with Chinese and Japanese universities under the Campus Asia program.The program is an Asian version

Social Affairs Oct. 30, 2011

The International Awards for Liveable Communities (LivCom), given to local communities to recognize the best management of environment, kicked off its five-day event at Lotte Hotel in the Seoul district of Songpa, Thursday.It is the first time for Songpa to host the event in Korea since the award was launched in 1997 in partnership with the U.N. Environment Program.About 80 countries selected from 330 applicants will compete for the award this year and share their environment practices with othe

Social Affairs Oct. 27, 2011

The Education Ministry has authorized five new online universities, which are expected to open next year, officials said Wednesday. Konyang University in South Chungcheong Province has been approved by the ministry to provide undergraduate online courses, which will be available next March. For graduate courses, four universities, Daegu, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Sejong and Hanyang, were given permission to open special purpose online graduate schools.The Konyang online university wi

Social Affairs Oct. 26, 2011

The government and businesses have stepped up efforts to create job opportunities for vocational high school students in a country where too many college graduates compete for too few jobs. The education, labor and economy ministries signed a memorandum of understanding Monday with five major business organizations including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Federation of Korean Industries and Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business to make efforts to provide more job opportu

Social Affairs Oct. 25, 2011

Foreigners in Seoul think samgyeopsal, or Korean pork belly meat, is the most delicious food in the city, followed by kimchi and tteokbokki, a survey by the Seoul Metropolitan Government showed Monday. The city government polled 1,984 foreigners about their favorite Korean dishes in Seoul via the city government website, social networking sites such as Facebook, Japanese blog websites and the Chinese microblogging site Weibo for five weeks from Sept. 3 to Oct. 2.Samgyeopsal ranked first with vot

Social Affairs Oct. 24, 2011