Shanghai scandal sparks dispute over how to manage non-career envoysSouth Korea’s foreign minister prompted his officials each to “feel heavier occupational and ethical responsibilities as a civil servant” this week, vowing continued reform efforts days after a sex scandal involving several Korean diplomats in Shanghai was made public.Four officials, including former Consul General Kim Jeong-ki, a

Despite an ongoing tug of war with North Korea, South Korea has begun the process of officially accepting the four North Koreans who have expressed the wish to defect, officials in Seoul said Wednesday. A North Korean boat carrying 31 people ― 11 men and 20 women ― drifted across the inter-Korean sea border in thick fog on Feb. 5. Of the passengers, 27 expressed a desire to return home while four,

North Korean officials are free to come and meet four nationals to verify whether they really wish to defect to the South, a senior official here said Wednesday, as Seoul repeated its demand for the prompt repatriation of the remaining 27 North Koreans.In a message to the North on Wednesday, South Korea made its fourth request for the communist state to immediately take back the 27, who were among

Nuclear envoys of South Korea and Japan discussed how to deal with North Korea’s renewed uranium enrichment activities and the terms of resuming multinational talks on Pyongyang’s denuclearization in Seoul on Tuesday. The meeting comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula continue to run high over the communist North’s ongoing nuclear ambitions as well as the issue of repatriating dozens of North K

President Lee Myung-bak urged his government Tuesday to ramp up efforts to alleviate public worries over inflation, saying the problem is something of "the inevitable" under the current economic situations at home and abroad, according to his office Cheong Wa Dae.   "The consumer price problem has an inevitable aspect due to climate change, hikes in international law material prices, and other fac

President Barack Obama reversed course Monday and ordered a resumption of military trials for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, making his once ironclad promise to close the isolated prison look even more distant.Guantanamo has been a major political and national security headache for the president since he took office promising to close the prison within a year; the deadline came and went

Elephants quickly learned to cooperate to solve a problem, researchers report in Monday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   The giant mammals are socially complex, explained lead researcher Joshua M. Plotnik.   ``They help others in distress,'' he said. ``They seem in some ways emotionally attached to each other, so you would expect there would be some level of cooperat

Volkswagen Korea, the local importer of German automaker Volkswagen, introduced the latest version of the Volkswagen CC sedan in South Korea Tuesday.   The new Volkswagen CC is Volkswagen's second vehicle introduced in South Korea with the BlueMotion technology, which automatically shuts down the engine when the vehicle is idling and restarts it when the car is ready to move again, significantly i

A new commander for U.S. troops in South Korea is on a two-day visit to Seoul for consultations with military leaders here on North Korean issues, officials said Tuesday. Gen. James Thurman, who was nominated early this month to replace Gen. Walter Sharp as commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), arrived in Seoul Monday, said a USFK official."Gen. Thurman visited Seoul as chief of Army Forces Comma

The South Korean female artistic gymnastics squad has hired a Chinese coach to prepare for next year's Summer Olympics, South Korean officials said Tuesday.   Chen Shijing will join South Korean gymnasts at the National Training Center in Taeneung, northern Seoul, later Tuesday, according to the Korea Gymnastics Association. Chen had been a coach at a Chinese national training center built by Li N

South Korean stocks started higher on Tuesday as retail and institutional investors picked up shares of shipyards, analysts said.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 4.13 points, or 0.21 percent, to 1,984.4 in the first 15 minutes of trading.   The world's largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries rose about 1.5 percent, helping the key index bounce back from a sharp

South Korea appeared wary Monday of the resignation of Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, an official who had taken a firm position against North Korea and sought strong cooperation with Seoul in dealing with the North’s nuclear ambitions. Maehara resigned late Sunday as the result of a growing political scandal over his acceptance of political donations from a Korean resident in Japan. Japa

Pyongyang proposes Red Cross talks over repatriationSouth Korea on Monday rejected North Korea’s demand to meet with the four boat passengers wishing to defect, escalating tensions as the communist state appears determined to have all 31 on board repatriated.In a message to the South, the North Korean Red Cross proposed that working-level officials meet Wednesday at their border village to determi

Four North Koreans who have expressed their wish to stay here after their boat accidentally drifted into South Korean waters are becoming the latest source of tension between the two Koreas. North Korea repeated over the weekend its demand for the return of all 31 nationals who strayed into South Korea on Feb. 5, refusing to accept Seoul’s decision to let four of them stay. While Seoul claims the

Prosecutors on Thursday raided the house of a disgraced former tax chief and a painting gallery in Seoul, as part of their investigation into allegations against him of bribery, lobbying and peddling influence in a tax probe, officials said.　Prosecutors earlier this week questioned Han Sang-ryule, who led the National Tax Service from November 2007 to January 2009. Han returned home on  Feb. 24, 

South Korean officials who had been involved in the inter-Korean defense talks last month were recently investigated for allegedly leaking too much information to the media and thereby offending the North Korean delegation, a source here said Tuesday. The government investigation into about 30 officials belonging to the defense and unification ministries here appears to have been conducted to prev

The ruling party’s leader has proposed setting up a private foundation to retrieve Korea’s hundreds of thousands of cultural items on a nongovernmental level. Korea is believed to have more than 117,000 ancient books, documents and other cultural assets scattered across about 20 different countries around the world as a result of national tragedies such as the 1950-53 Korean War and Japan’s 1910-4

President’s key supporter calls for parliamentary move on amendment to basic lawPresident Lee Myung-bak feels an urgent need to revise the country’s decades-old Constitution but believes the issue is up to the parliament and not his office, his spokesperson has said.The issue of redrawing the Constitution, created in 1987, has sparked political disputes here, especially as the move could change th

The U.S. is expected to replace its ambassador to Seoul, considering deputy assistant secretary of state Joseph Donovan as a strong candidate to take the position, reports have said. The reports come as President Barack Obama is conducting an extensive reshuffle of his White House staff in the third year of his presidency. According to the reports, Donovan will be taking over from incumbent Ambass

South Korea has no intention to achieve unification by absorbing the North and is keeping up efforts to resume inter-Korean dialogue, Seoul’s prime minister said Friday, as tensions linger after the breakdown of inter-Korean dialogue earlier this month. “The (South Korean) government does not regard North Korea as a target of absorption,” Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik said during the parliament’s q