Internal conflict within the ruling Saenuri Party is escalating over its choice for a candidate in the upcoming parliamentary by-election. On Thursday evening, Saenuri picked Suh Chung-won, its former chairman and President Park Geun-hye’s longtime confidant, as the party’s candidate for the Oct. 30 election. The announcement came a day after the 70-year-old politician declared his candidacy bi...

Park Moon-il, the dean of Hanyang University’s College of Medicine, is to be removed from office for allegedly committing academic fraud to aid his son in entering the institution’s graduate school of medicine. According to the findings of Hanyang University’s audit board, Park listed his son as the lead author of an academic paper while removing the name of an obstetrician who took part in the ...

The competition for jobs at Samsung companies in the second half of this year is expected to be the fiercest ever. The number of job seekers who applied for Samsung Group and its subsidiaries reached an all-time high during the regular recruiting session in the second half of this year, company officials said Tuesday. “We have some 100,000 applicants for 5,500 job vacancies although the exact n...

Financial investor and shaman Kim Won-hong is adding a new twist to the convoluted SK Group embezzlement case. Kim, a former financial aide of SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won and adviser for SK Shipping Co., was arrested on Sunday for his alleged involvement in Chey’s misappropriation scheme. Chey and his younger brother Chey Jae-won are alleged to have embezzled 45 billion won ($42 million) fro...

When Chin Young, one of the closest allies of President Park Geun-hye and a passionate advocate of broader welfare, was appointed to head the Ministry of Health and Welfare in March, it was considered an indication of her government’s greater commitment to caring for the poor and underprivileged. Six months later the minister is seeking to step down in what is seen as a symbol of the Park admini...

Author Choe In-ho, a literary legend whose works have been made into numerous movies and TV drama series, died of cancer on Wednesday, about seven months after the publication of his latest collection of essays, “Choe In-ho’s Life.” He was 68. Born in 1945 in Seoul, Choe is one of the very few Korean authors who started their writing careers as a teenager, along with Hwang Sok-yong. He made his ...

Park Byeong-yeop, founder and vice chairman of Korea’s third-largest mobile device maker Pantech Corp., decided to leave the firm to take responsibility for sluggish business. He is the latest casualty among a list of so-called legendary businessmen after Woongjin Group founder Yoon Seok-keum and STX Group founder Kang Duk-soo, who had once garnered respect from office workers for their dramatic...

Embattled Tong Yang Group is suffering through a liquidity crisis as creditors and its sister group refused to help the country’s 38th-largest conglomerate. Its condition is showing signs of improvement as the group founder‘s wife is determined to save her oldest daughter, who is the vice chairwoman of the group, after her younger daughter rejected the rescue request. But it remains yet to be se...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel cemented her position as Europe’s de facto leader on Sunday by cruising to election victory for a third term in office. Having presided over a robust economy in a region of sick-man peers, the center-right Christian Democratic Union and its sister Christian Social Union of Bavaria won more than 40 percent of the national vote, bringing Merkel to within five seats ...

Thousands of families were torn apart at the end of the Korean War (1950-1953) and their pain persists as the remaining members anxiously write the final chapters of their lives, still hoping to see their loved ones again. Of the 129,035 people originally registered in South Korea’s separated-family database since August 1988, 56,544 have passed away while most of the surviving 72,491 are in the...

Han Myeong-sook, former prime minister and ex-leader of the main opposition party, faces another long legal battle over bribery accusations which have dealt blow to her political career and reputation as an pro-democracy activist against the military-backed governments in the 1970s and 80s. A Seoul appellate court on Monday sentenced Han to two years in prison for bribery, overturning a lower co...

From cloaked alien tanks and jets in the computer game “Starcraft” to a transparent flying fortress in the movie “Avengers,” invisible structures have always been considered a product of imaginary science, whose rightful place is within the boundaries of fiction. That is until South Korea recently authorized the construction of “Tower Infinity,” a 450-meter-high skyscraper which is to use high-t...

In a letter posted on the Prosecutor’s Office’s intranet, Kim claimed that it was “extremely rare” for the ministry to inspect a prosecutor without prior consultation with his division. Alleging that the justice minister had been manipulated by “schemers,” Kim said, “I step down for the sake of not being shameful to my son and daughter.” SPO’s Office of Future Strategy and Mission chief Park Eun...

The Korea Electric Power Corp. is set to resume its stalled power-line project in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, after next week’s Chuseok holidays despite continued resistance from some residents. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won visited the county saying that resumption was an “unavoidable choice” and announced a revised 18.5 billion won ($17 million) compensation plan. The com...

An Olympic gold medalist has been elected president of the International Olympic Committee for the first time in its 119-year history. Thomas Bach, a 59-year-old vice president of the IOC, has ascended to the top post of Olympic leadership. He was elected the ninth president of the IOC in its 125th session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday. He will serve a four-year term and will be eligible...