China’s chief nuclear envoy said Friday he plans to visit North Korea to coordinate efforts to revive six-party talks on the North, wrapping up a South Korean visit that coincided with a trip to Pyongyang by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.Speaking to Yonhap News Agency before departing for China, Wu Dawei, however, said he did not yet have a specific timetable for his visit to North Korea, the

The ruling party’s electoral defeat depressed President Lee Myung-bak’s chief of staff Yim Tae-hee enough for him to offer to resign Thursday, signaling another round of post-election reshuffling of presidential aides and Cabinet ministers.Yim told Lee that he and his staff are always ready to take “infinite responsibility” for anything to fully assist the president, a senior Cheong Wa Dae officia

By Kim So-hyunPresident Lee Myung-bak agreed with visiting Iraqi Prime minister Nouri Kamil Al-Maliki during summit talks Thursday to extend economic cooperation, hoping for greater participation of South Korean businesses in developing Iraqi oil.The two countries signed an agreement to promote economic and energy cooperation which is expected to provide a framework for increased two-way trade and

By Kim So-hyunDemocratic Party presidential hopeful Sohn Hak-kyu now has a good chance of becoming the strongest candidate of the entire opposition.Having won his ticket back to the National Assembly in Wednesday’s by-election, Sohn is set to regain his clout in the DP, which had fizzled out after the defector from the Grand National Party lost in the DP’s internal race for presidential candidacy

President Lee Myung-bak on Wednesday discussed with visiting U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke how to get the pending Korea-U.S. free trade deal approved by the parliaments of both countries.The bilateral free trade agreement, first signed in 2007 and supplemented last December, is yet to be ratified by the National Assembly and the U.S. Congress.Lee’s meeting with Locke Wednesday came a week

The Seoul government is set to receive a massive database from Berlin on the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany to prepare itself for “sudden changes” in North Korea. President Lee Myung-bak has assigned the Ministry of Unification, which he initially planned to merge into the Foreign Ministry, with two main jobs ― preparation for reunification with the North and taking care of the increa

South Korea’s prosecution is looking into whether North Korea was involved in the weeks-long paralysis of the South Korean farm cooperative’s banking system after finding some suspicious Internet protocol addresses originating from China, officials said Tuesday.Traces of break-ins into Nonghyup’s servers were discovered in a laptop owned by an employee of IBM Korea, the cooperative’s computer netw

South Korean prosecutors have summoned about a dozen employees of Deutsche Bank's New York and Hong Kong offices for questioning over alleged stock manipulation that forced the key index to nosedive last year, officials said Monday.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office believes that employees at the German bank's overseas bureaus gave orders to the Seoul unit to place massive sell orders

The ratification bill for South Korea's free trade agreement with the European Union is expected to pass the parliament's standing committee later this week, as the South Korean government has responded positively to rival parties' demand to offer transfer tax cuts to small livestock farms, removing the last remaining hurdle to the long-stalled free trade deal, officials and lawmakers said Monday.

South Korea's top financial regulator said Monday that it has launched a probe into SC First Bank, the local unit of British banking giant Standard Chartered Plc, on allegedly infringing domestic bank regulations by giving metal loans to corporate customers. "Investigators were dispatched to SC First Bank and if we find (the bank) violated local regulations, we will summon the bank officials and d

South Korea is extending its travel restriction to all parts of Syria amid escalating violence between the country's protesters and government forces, the foreign ministry said Monday.Earlier this month, Seoul restricted its people from traveling to Syria's western governorates of Daraa and Latakia after dozens of people were reported killed there in violent government crackdowns.The Level 3 trave

A group of North Korean defectors and civic activists on Monday urged South Korea's parliament to pass a bill aimed at improving the human rights situation in the reclusive communist state.In an opening ceremony for "North Korea Freedom Week," some 100 Seoul-based defectors, human rights advocates and lawmakers gathered in the National Assembly to discuss ways to abolish gulags in the North and pa

Large volumes of ancient Korean books stored in Japan, including key royal texts, could return to Seoul sometime next month, an official said Monday.Lee Sang-geun, a member of a committee dedicated to retrieving ancient archives, said at a press conference that 1,205 volumes of Korean books, including royal texts known as "Uigwe," could be shipped back by late May after Seoul and Tokyo finalize so

President Lee Myung-bak named Yu Bong-ha, chief of the Korean traditional medicine division at Kyung Hee Medical Center, as his second family doctor, Lee’s spokesperson Kim Hee-jung said Monday, upon lobbying by local practitioners of oriental medicine.Yu will be officially appointed to the vice ministerial position early next month.The president is allowed to appoint a physician and an oriental m

When South Korea’s first-ever female Supreme Court justice retired from the bench in August, she was surprised to learn how much she could earn in her first year if she practices law.“I heard that I could make up to 10 billion won ($9.2 million) in my first year as a lawyer, which is nearly 1 billion won a month,” said Kim Young-ran, 55, who now heads the government’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rig

Leaders agree to expedite negotiations, expand natural resources tiesPresident Lee Myung-bak and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed during summit talks here Monday to conclude bilateral free trade deal negotiations this year, Lee’s office said.“The leaders agreed that negotiations on an Australia-Korea free trade agreement were now in their final stage and reaffirmed their joint goal t

The Army’s college-based program to train officers is drawing keen attention among young women now that they are allowed to enroll in the Reserve Officer Training Corps as of last year, officials said Monday.South Korea’s Army picked 60 female ROTC cadets from seven selected universities last year as part of its efforts to secure more talented female officers and give more opportunities to women.F

Four teenagers have been charged with the gang rape of an English teacher in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province.The three university students and one unemployed man are accused of taking turns raping the 24-year-old hagwon teacher at a motel on April 12 after meeting her at a bar. The teacher, who is from the U.S., had been drinking with the men after friends she had been with left, according to Anyang pol

The planned return of Yu Woo-ik, President Lee Myung-bak’s first chief of staff who has served as Korea’s top envoy to China for the past 16 months, is expected to coincide with a Cabinet reshuffle early next month, offering a glimpse of what Lee’s vision for the remainder of his term.As one of Lee’s closest confidants, Yu is likely to get a new top post at home along with a handful of others with

The government and the ruling Grand National Party are at odds over how to minimize the damage that the pending free trade deal with the European Union would inflict on the domestic livestock farm business.The GNP said Saturday that the party and the government failed to close the gap on tax exemptions for the stockbreeders who shift to another trade.The government explained that it was set to dis