Four months after the Queensland flood and cyclone disasters, the state government told Korean authorities and business leaders that the Australian state is open for business. The series of disasters that hit Queensland, including the capital city Brisbane, forced the evacuation of thousands of people from towns and cities. “Our estimate for the flood damage is in the order of ($6 billion),” Qu...

The World Food Program will increase its personnel residing in North Korea to tighten monitoring of the distribution of donated food, a U.S.-funded radio station reported Tuesday. The plan comes as the U.N. agency prepares to launch an emergency operation to help feed 3.5 million starving North Koreans by providing 310,000 tons of food within the next year. The WFP plans to keep 59 agents in th...

In the run-up to the Nuclear Security Summit next year, South Korea and the U.S. agreed that “nuclear safety” should top the agenda of the multinational conference scheduled for Seoul, the Foreign Ministry here said Tuesday. As the host of the international conference usually plays an important role in setting the agenda, the North Korean nuclear issue was expected by analysts to be the main foc...

A South Korean diplomat has been caught allegedly attempting to smuggle expensive elephant tusks into the country upon his return from a post in Africa, the Foreign Ministry said Monday. Some 16 pieces of ivory, which is among the nation’s contraband goods, were found in the shipment of the diplomat who returned to the country in March and currently holds a high-ranking post at the central gover...

South Korea’s recent offer to simultaneously use the “East Sea” and the “Sea of Japan” to name the waters between the peninsula and Japan is drawing criticism from people here, who fear the decision will give the international community the wrong idea. The appellation for the body of waters, called the “East Sea” by Koreans and the “Sea of Japan” by the Japanese, has long been a source of tensio...

Daewon University College in Jecheon City, in cooperation with the Philippines Embassy, is providing scholarship opportunities for Filipino students interested in pursuing a two-year associate degree. The scholarship is open to Filipino high school graduates and college undergraduates, aged 15 to 25. Programs covered by the scheme are engineering, natural sciences and social service. The schol...

The German Chamber of Commerce elected Friedrich Stockinger, president of Trumpf Korea, as its new president during the annual meeting earlier this month. Stockinger succeeds Josef Meilinger, president & CEO of Siemens, Seoul, who will leave Korea in the middle of the year. Korea-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Cho Hae-hyeong and Meilinger thanked the chamber team for their per...

The British government has streamlined visa applications for students from countries whose nationals pose a low immigration risk to the United Kingdom. South Korea has been identified as one of the countries that will benefit from this streamlined process, which will be put in place starting this summer. “International students not only make a vital contribution to the U.K. economy but they als...