Public safety has once again gripped the National Assembly with the recent ventilation shaft accident making the ruling and opposition parties hone in on related issues. On Friday, grates covering a ventilation shaft collapsed under the weight of people watching a K-pop performance in Techno Valley in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. The accident killed 16 people, and injured 11, eight of whom are s...

The innumerable ventilation shafts around the country may be accidents just waiting to happen, with no regulations to ensure their structural integrity. With thousands of ventilation shafts, covered by metal grates, located in Seoul alone, their construction is subject to almost no safety regulation, often leaving it up to the construction companies to build according to their internal regulatio...

The appearance of North Korea’s military spy chief Kim Yong-chol at rare inter-Korean military talks on Wednesday has left many observers wondering what message Pyongyang wanted to convey through sending the hawkish figure. Some analysts argued that the head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, well-known for spearheading provocations against the South, attended the talks to show Pyongyang’s re...

GENEVA ― The World Health Organization said Tuesday the Ebola infection rate could soon reach 10,000 a week as world leaders prepared to hold talks on the crisis at the United Nations. WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward, describing his figures as a working forecast, said the epidemic “could reach 5,000 to 10,000 cases per week by the first week of December.” The latest death toll is 4...

PARIS ― French economist Jean Tirole is a master of game theory and industrial organization, who on Monday added a Nobel prize to a gleaming heap of honors for his work. The 61-year-old was hailed by the Nobel Economics Prize jury as “one of the most influential economists of our time” for his analysis of big companies, market power and regulation. The professor at the Toulouse School of Econom...

Homeplus, one of South Korea’s largest grocery chains, will have to explain during a parliamentary inspection what seems like an intentional leakage of its customers’ private information to third parties. Its alleged wrongdoings come at a time when public criticism is growing against the country’s weak security protection systems, following a series of information theft, leaks and monitoring. H...

Steered by North Korean defectors and activists, civic groups and their anti-Pyongyang leaflets have long goaded the Kim regime into fury at what it calls an act of hostility. The two Koreas traded fire Friday after the North began shooting heavy machine guns, apparently aiming at balloons launched by two organizations which were filled with flyers denouncing the communist regime, $1 bills, mini...

When people think of Korea, many identify the country with K-pop, TV dramas and, to a lesser extent, films. As the Korean wave, or Hallyu, has been shaped around the popular Korean culture, the country is taking the chance to prove the excellence of other aspects of Korean culture. This time, young Korean writers and editors have gathered to introduce contemporary Korean literature. Under the t...

PARIS ― Just over 20 years ago, three physicists working in two laboratories in Japan cracked a problem that had stumped rivals for decades ― how to prise blue light from a semiconductor. The feat paved the way to a low-energy source of light for illuminating homes, buildings, computers and mobile phones. On Tuesday, it earned Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura the 2014 Nobel Physi...

PARIS ― Generations of scientists have pored over a seemingly basic but ultimately complex skill: how are humans able to find their way from one spot to another? Little by little, the fog of mystery is beginning to dissipate, thanks to work revealing the key areas in the brain that enable us to orientate ourselves and navigate. On Monday, the 2014 Nobel Prize for Medicine went to a trio of scie...

With Korean universities continuing with their early admission programs for 2015, the nonrefundable application fees for higher education institutes have become topic of discussion as the sky-high fees deal a significant financial blow to poor students. A total of 24 colleges across the country are currently charging 80,000 won ($74) or more for each applicant, according to Education Ministry da...

The 17th Asian Games Incheon 2014 that ended on Saturday surprised the world ― not just for its spectacular K-pop performances or medals dominated by China, but because of an unprecedented visit by top officials from North Korea. The North Korean delegation consisted of the three confidants to North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un. They are known as the secretive state’s political and militar...

Daum Communications and Kakao Corp. have joined forces and are looking ahead to an era in which everything is connected to the Internet. After five months of consolidating the two entities and their corporate cultures, the newly merged 12 trillion won ($11 billion) company will henceforth be called Daum Kakao. With a new black-and-white logo and the new slogan “Connect Everything,” Daum Kakao c...

On Oct. 1, South Korea will enforce a revised law governing the sales and subsidies of mobile devices such as smartphones in an effort to eradicate long-standing malpractices by telecommunications operators. Consumers will no longer be discriminated against on the basis of age, place of residence or monthly subscription plan when using their existing mobile phones, buying a new phone or switchin...

HONG KONG ― Pro-democracy protesters wearing surgical masks and holding up umbrellas to protect against tear gas expanded their rallies throughout Hong Kong on Monday, defying calls to disperse in a major pushback against Beijing’s decision to limit democratic reforms in the Asian financial hub. Police officers tried to negotiate with protesters camped out on a normally busy highway near the Hon...