The government and the ruling Saenuri Party are accelerating moves to introduce state history textbooks for secondary education despite burgeoning opposition from academics, teachers and progressive voters.The Saenuri Party held a discussion with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Hwang Woo-yea on Sunday afternoon and mapped out plans of unifying the history textbook publication under the government’s direct watch. Earlier this month, the party also launched a special committee aime

National Oct. 11, 2015

Former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun shared a hotline with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, a former spy chief said in an interview with a local newspaper on Friday.In the article published in JoongAng Ilbo, former National Intelligence chief Kim Man-bok said, “While arranging for the second inter-Korean summit in October 2007, there was no need to activate the back channels.Kim, who was quoted as saying that the hotline was in operation 24 hours a day, later explained that while

National Oct. 2, 2015

RIYADH (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition denied Tuesday its warplanes were behind the bombing of a wedding in southwestern Yemen in which 131 people were killed."The coalition did not conduct any air strikes in the area over the past three days," coalition spokesman Brigadier-General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP, referring to the deadly bombing Monday near the Red Sea city of Mokha."This is completely false," he said.Residents accused the Arab coalition, which launched an air war on the Huthi Shiite r

World Sept. 29, 2015

SANAA (AFP) - A suspected Saudi-led coalition air strike has killed at least 131 civilians, including many women and children, at a wedding in Yemen, medical officials said Tuesday.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Monday's air raid, saying intentional attacks on civilians were considered a "serious violation of international humanitarian law".Residents said the Arab coalition, which launched an air war on the Huthi Shiite rebels in late March, was behind the attack on the wedding hall

World Sept. 29, 2015

South Korean President Park Geun-hye pledged Monday to dispatch additional military engineers to conflict zones at the U.N. leaders’ summit on peacekeeping, joining other countries’ promises to boost their contributions for missions under growing strain.“They will be assisting reconstruction and humanitarian activities in conflict zones,” Park said at the event attended by some 50 heads of state and cochaired by U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.“Korean peacekeep

National Sept. 29, 2015

South Korea said Tuesday it will ban foreigners and overseas Koreans entering the country to seek work from joining its health insurance program immediately upon arrival, in a bid to revise a legal loophole that had allowed some nonpermanent residents to exploit the system.The current National Health Insurance Act allows foreign nationals and Koreans living in other countries to qualify for the self-backed national health insurance scheme after residing here for at least three months.Those who t

National Sept. 29, 2015

The head of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission attended an international ombudsman meeting to share South Korea’s policies for handling civil complaints, the state-run anticorruption body said Wednesday.ACRC chairman Lee Sung-bo introduced the organization’s e-People system at the board of directors meeting of the International Ombudsman Institute in Windhoek, Namibia, where representatives of ombudsman institutions in 91 countries across the world were present. The e-People system,

National Sept. 23, 2015

Three out of four buildings in Seoul that are required to be earthquake-proof do not have proper aseismic designs to prepare against such natural disasters, a report showed Thursday.A large number of public facilities, such as schools and public offices, also were not equipped with earthquake plans, making them vulnerable in the case of a disaster, according to the report submitted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to Rep. Park Nam-choon of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.As of June t

National Sept. 17, 2015

Unionized workers at Kia Motors Corp., South Korea's second-largest automaker, voted Wednesday in favor of a strike over pay, lending support to their leaders in wage negotiations down the road.In a vote asking some 34,000 unionists whether to go on strike,72.8 percent, or 22,700 out of 31,163 who cast ballots, voted yes, according to the labor union. It was held Wednesday afternoon at each office and plant located throughout the country. The vote came after the labor and management could not pr

Business Sept. 16, 2015

Eight cabin crew members who were on board the Asiana Airline Flight 214 Boeing 777-200ER that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport in 2013 were revealed to have filed damage suits against Korea’s second largest carrier and the plane manufacturer Boeing.The eight were among 12 flight attendants aboard at the time and filed the suits in a U.S. district court rather than in Seoul.  According to reports, one of workers had her backbone broken in the accident and filed a suit in Janua

Business Sept. 16, 2015

The body of another passenger missing from a capsized fishing boat was recovered Wednesday on an island off South Korea's southern coast near the site of the accident, raising the death toll to 13, Coast Guard officials said.The body, which was found washed up on the coast of Chuja Island at around 7:20 a.m. by a local resident, was identified as that of a 44-year-old man surnamed Lee, according to the Korea Coast Guard. The island is located about halfway between the mainland and the southern r

National Sept. 16, 2015