Most Popular
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Korea, Japan finance chiefs vow to tame rampant FX market volatility
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K-pop group's manager dismissed for setting up spycam in theater dressing room
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Why is Apple Pay struggling to get purchase in Korea?
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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[Today’s K-pop] BTS pop-up event to come to Seoul
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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Fed: Elevated inflation will likely delay rate cuts this year
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Seoul honors 21 Korean War allies
Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se honored the 21 countries that fought in the Korean War at an event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the armistice on Wednesday. “We will be ever together,” read the plaque of appreciation that Yun offered the ambassadors and other diplomats from the U.S., Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, Ethiopia and other nations that together sent 2 million troops, supplies and aid as part the U.N. forces. “They sacrificed their youth to defend a country they never knew a
July 25, 2013
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Seoul, Washington start talks on sharing cost of USFK upkeep
South Korea and the U.S. opened tough negotiations Wednesday over how to share costs for the upkeep of American troops here as Washington calls for Seoul to increase its financial support amid North Korean threats and U.S. budget cuts. It is the second round of high-level talks to renew the Special Measures Agreement on burden-sharing for the some 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea due to expire at the end of this year. The two-day meeting was led by Hwang Joon-kook, former minister at the South Ko
July 24, 2013
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Obama‘s office says he will attend Korean War ceremony
The White House announced Monday that President Barack Obama will join a special ceremony to mark Korean War Armistice Day this weekend."On Saturday, July 27, President Obama will deliver remarks at the Korean War Veterans Memorial to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended the Korean War," the White House said in a press release.Obama would become the first U.S. president to take part in such a formal ceremony to commemorate Armistice Day.The three-year confl
July 23, 2013
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French prime minister due in S. Korea this week
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault plans to visit South Korea later this week for meetings with President Park Geun-hye and other top officials, the nation's embassy here said Monday.During his trip to Seoul on Thursday, Ayrault "will be received by Ms. Park Geun-hye, President of the Republic of Korea, and will meet with Mr. Chung Hong-won, Prime Minister," it said in a press release.The French prime minister will also deliver a speech at a business conference with the South Korean and Fre
July 23, 2013
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Cuba calls seized weapons on North Korean ship ‘obsolete’
PANAMA CITY (AP) ― Cuba said military equipment found buried under sacks of sugar on a North Korean ship seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal was obsolete weaponry from the mid-20th century that it had sent to be repaired.Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far they have only examined one of its five container sections. They have requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with Colombia and Britain, said Javier Carballo, Panama’s top nar
July 17, 2013
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Ex-president’s aide slams Blue House, state agencies
A loyalist of former President Lee Myung-bak lashed out at the current presidential office and state agencies Wednesday, accusing them of intervening too deeply in domestic political affairs.Lee Jae-oh, a five-term lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party, made the remarks at a meeting of senior party officials and lawmakers, referring to recent controversies surrounding the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI).He also expressed outrage at the strong statem
July 17, 2013
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First civilian diplomatic corps launched for public diplomacy
The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched diplomatic corps, comprising civilians with diverse backgrounds and non-Koreans as part of efforts to strengthen public diplomacy.The corps with five groups as well as 30 individual adolescents and 20 senior citizens plan to push for diverse projects with the government’s support to improve the national image abroad and to help increase its influence on the international arena.The first-ever civilian diplomatic corps is part of the government’s drive fo
July 17, 2013
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Body recovered from flooded waterworks construction site
Rescue workers on Wednesday retrieved the body of one of the six workers who went missing at a flooded underground waterworks construction site in Seoul two days ago, firefighting authorities said.The body was identified as that of a 48-year-old Chinese worker named Park Myeong-chun and was moved to a nearby hospital, they said.On Monday night, water from the swollen Han River swamped the construction site, killing one worker and leaving six others unaccounted for. Torrential monsoon rains have
July 17, 2013
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Korea’s vice foreign minister to visit Japan for talks
South Korea’s vice foreign minister is expected to visit Japan next week, during which he may possibly discuss a summit between the two countries, diplomatic sources said Saturday.Kim Kyou-hyun, Seoul’s first vice minister for foreign affairs, plans to visit Tokyo for the opening ceremony Thursday of a new building for the South Korean embassy there.Kim is expected to use the occasion to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Akitaka Saiki, and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said the sourc
July 14, 2013
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Iraq calls for greater Korean role reconstruction projects
BAGHDAD (Yonhap News) ― Iraq plans to launch reconstruction projects worth $300 billion in the next five years and hopes South Korean companies will take part in all of them, the country’s prime minister was quoted Sunday as saying.Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the remark during a meeting in Baghdad with South Korea’s visiting National Assembly speaker Kang Chang-hee on Saturday, according to Kang’s spokesman Bae Sung-rye.Should the Iraqi government give South Korea greater opportunities t
July 14, 2013
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S. Korea eyes drawing up road map for cooperation with China, Japan
South Korea is working on a plan to put together a specific road map for increasing trilateral cooperation with China and Japan in an effort to overcome history and territorial tensions weighing on the neighbors despite their high economic interdependence, government officials said Sunday.South Korea has proposed setting up a trilateral cooperation vision group (TCVG) that will be tasked with drawing up the cooperation road map by 2016. The foreign ministry is discussing the idea with its counte
July 14, 2013
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Post-grad students selected as British Chevening scholars
British Ambassador to Korea Scott Wightman congratulated 23 Koreans as they received the United Kingdom’s Chevening Scholarship for the 2013-2014 academic year in a reception at his residence on Wednesday.Among them, one North Korean settler in South Korea also received the prestigious scholarship that covers post-graduate study, including tuition fees, a monthly stipend and round-trip airfare.The embassy said that the Chevening program was created to support British foreign policy by creating l
July 14, 2013
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Yu named new dean of honorary consuls in South Korea
Yu Seung-pil, 67, chairman and CEO of Yuyu Pharma, Inc. and honorary consul of Haiti, was selected as dean of the corps of honorary consuls in South Korea during the group’s biannual general session at a hotel in Seoul on July 5.Yu takes over the position from Cho Hae-hyeong, chairman and CEO of Nara Holdings and honorary consul general of Iceland in South Korea, and who was dean of the corps for 10 years. Yu was one of three vice deans before becoming dean. Cho became an honorary consul in 1977
July 14, 2013
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Israeli envoy spotlights high points of posting in farewell
Israeli Ambassador to Korea Tuvia Israeli wrapped up his four-year posting here in a farewell reception at the Israel Culture Center in southern Seoul on Tuesday.Israeli returns to his home country in the first week of August to start his new posting there at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem. He will be replaced by Uri Gutman who arrives here in August. Gutman has experience as head of Israel’s consulate in Shanghai, China, and in shepherding Israel’s accession into the OECD
July 14, 2013
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Paraguayan envoy hosts send off for volunteers of Taekwondo Peace Corps
Paraguayan Ambassador Ceferino Valdez sent off four South Koreans on Monday to his home country for seven weeks as part of a South Korean government program to promote the martial art of taekwondo, as well as Korean culture and language.The youths are Taekwondo Peace Corps volunteers armed with the desire of promoting friendly relations between South Korea and the South American country. They are part of a program now in its fifth year that has dispatched hundreds of young people since its incep
July 14, 2013
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Mongolia’s ‘wolf economy’ wary of ‘resource curse’
The Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue tells plenty. The 131-foot stainless steel behemoth towers over the wind-swept Mongolian steppe 30 miles east of the capital city of Ulan Bator.Built and paid for by a private tour company, the statue honors the founder of a great transcontinental empire. It also exemplifies the newfound pride Mongolians feel about recent democratic and capitalist reforms that have transformed their country.The sparsely populated nation of 3.2 million discovered in recent years
July 14, 2013
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South Korea, Honduras launch high-level policy consultation
South Korea and Honduras signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a high-level policy consultative body between the two nations, as part of their efforts to strengthen bilateral cooperation, an official said Wednesday. The agreement was reached at a meeting in Seoul between Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero, who is on a six-day visit to South Korea, the foreign ministry official said.During the talks, Yun and Aguero discussed ways to strengthen bi
July 10, 2013
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Korea protests Japan’s claim to Dokdo in defense paper
Korea on Tuesday protested Japan’s renewed sovereignty claim to the islets of Dokdo in its new defense white paper.In the annual document, Tokyo identified the windswept islets in the East Sea as its territory and said the ownership issue “still remains unsolved.” The description has been rehashed since 2005.Seoul’s Foreign Ministry summoned Takashi Kurai, a minister and deputy chief of the Japanese Embassy, calling the claim “unacceptable” and urging an immediate rectification. The Defense Mini
July 9, 2013
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Asiana jet was flying far below target speed near runway: NTSB
SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON -- Asiana Flight 214 was flying significantly slower than its pilots had intended, and they made a failed attempt to abort landing just 1.5 seconds before smashing into a runway at a San Francisco airport, U.S. investigators said Sunday.The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced the preliminary results of its analysis of the so-called black box from the passenger jet, which crash-landed on Saturday.Two Chinese girls were killed and more than 180 people wer
July 8, 2013
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AP source: Kerry wife showed symptoms of seizure
BOSTON (AP) -- Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and heir to a ketchup company fortune, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition Monday, a day after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure, a person in close contact with the family said.Heinz Kerry was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Sunday night after doctors at a hospital on Massachusetts' Nantucket Island stabilized her, said Glen Johnson, a spokesman for Kerry. The secretary o
July 8, 2013