Days after allegations emerged that the chief prosecutor had been hiding a son born from an extramarital affair, the child's mother on Tuesday denied the report and claimed she used the influential official's name to protect her son. The Chosun Ilbo, the largest-circulation daily, reported on Friday that Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook met a woman in 1999 and they gave birth to a son in 2002. Chae, who has a daughter and a wife, denied the report as "groundless" and demanded the daily issue a

A local court ordered actor-singer Ryu Si-won Tuesday to pay 7 million won ($6,450) in fines for assaulting his wife and tracking her whereabouts with a GPS device.Ryu, 40, was charged with planting a GPS tracking device on his wife's car and tracking her whereabouts for eight months starting in May 2011. He was also indicted on charges of slapping his 29-year-old wife in the face several times when she protested the surveillance."Based on the sound of flesh clashing with flesh in the recording

Syria has accepted a Russian proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for dismantling, the Syrian foreign minister said Tuesday, amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at averting Western military action.   Speaking in Moscow, Walid al-Moallem said his government quickly agreed to the plan to “derail U.S. aggression” _ an allusion to possible U.S.-led strikes over a deadly Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus that Western powers blame on the Syrian regime.

The generator room of the Navy's 14,000-ton ship caught fire while the ship was sailing off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula Tuesday, causing a duty officer to suffer second-degree burns. Restoration work is currently underway. A fire broke in the engine room of the Dokdo-class amphibious assault ship which was sailing near the western port of Gunsan around 10:45 a.m. Crew members immediately put out the fire, but a 23-year-old petty officer first class, who was on duty in the engine room,

A vice culture minister offered to resign Tuesday over suspicions of document forgery, the culture ministry said.The resignation, if accepted, comes only six months after Park Jong-gil, the vice minister in charge of sports at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, assumed the post in March.The move came after local media raised suspicions that he forged a public document in the process of handing over the ownership of a shooting range in Seoul's western residential area to his wife."I'm r

전두환 전 대통령 일가가 10일 대국민 사과를 하고 미납 추징금 1천672억원을 모두 납부하겠다고 밝혔다. 전 씨의 장남 전재국씨는 이날 오후 3시 서울 서초동 서울중앙지검에서 이와 같은 뜻을 밝히며 “추징금 환수 문제와 관련해 그간 국민 여러분께 심려를 끼쳐 드린 데 대해 가족을 대표해 머리 숙여 사죄드린다”고 말했다.이어 그는 “부친은 저희가 할 수 있는 한 당국 조치에 최대한 협조하라고 말씀하셨고 저희도 그 뜻에 부응하고자 했으나 저희의 부족함과 현실적 난관이 있어 해결이 늦어진 데 대해 대단히 송구스럽게 생각한다”고 덧붙였다. 이와 같은 결정에 따라 검찰이 확보한 전씨 일가의 재산은 1천703억원으로 부동산과 금융자산 등을 포함하고 있다. 이 금액에는 지난 4주간 검찰이 압류한 연희동 사저 정원과 경기 오산땅 등 일가의 부동산과 미술품 등이 포함되어 있으며, 이들은 이에 대한 재산권을 포기하기로 하였다.전씨 일가는 전씨 부인 이순자씨의 명의로 되어 있는 연희동 사저 본채도 납

A former vice commerce minister has been indicted on charges of accepting bribes in return for favoring a local builder in its bid to win a nuclear reactor contract, prosecutors said Tuesday.Park Young-june allegedly received 50 million won (US$46,099) in March 2010 from a broker in exchange for peddling his influence for Hankook Jungsoo Industries Co., a local water treatment firm, in its bid to take part in the government's project to build nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirate (UAE).Sou

The family of disgraced former President Chun Doo-hwan pledged Tuesday to pay off a huge amount of unpaid fines, making a public apology for "causing public concern."In 1997, the nation's top court convicted the former president of mutiny and treason and ordered him to return to state coffers around 220 billion won ($202.15 million) he illegally received in bribes during his iron-fisted rule. Chun has yet to pay some 167.2 billion won he owes. Chun seized power through a coup in 1979 and ruled u

 베스트셀러 “지선아 사랑해”의 작가 이지선 씨가 9일 SBS 힐링캠프에 출연해 끔찍한 사고를 극복하고 살아온 이야기를 나눴다.이지선 씨는 이날 13년전 교통사고 이후 양쪽 엄지를 제외한 여덟 손가락을 자를수 밖에 없었던 상황에 대해 설명했다. 그는 “당시까지는 오른손만 절단하는 줄 알았는데 왼손도 안 된다는 것에 절망했다”면서 “수술실에 들어가기 전 엄마에게 ‘더 많이 자르지 않아서 감사하지?’라고 말했다”고 말했다.이어 이지선 씨는 “이 때부터 하루 한가지씩 감사할 것을 찾았다. 내 힘으로 숟가락질 하는 날에 감사하고 환자복 단추 구멍 채울 수 있는 것에 감사하고 계단 올라가서 감사하고, 습관처럼 그렇게 했다”라고 말했다.이지선 씨는 이화여대에 재학 중이던 2000년 7월 3일, 오빠 이정근 씨의 차에 타고 귀가하던 중, 음주운전자의 과실로 인한 7종 추돌사고에 휘말렸다고 한다. 이로 인해 이지선 씨는 몸의 55%에 3도 화상을 입고 마흔번이 넘는 수술을 해야했다.당시 차 속에서

Looking fit as can be and maybe even better than ever, the No. 2-ranked Rafael Nadal pulled away from No. 1 Novak Djokovic 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 on Monday in a taut, tense U.S. Open final for his 13th Grand Slam title.“This is probably the most emotional one in my career,” Nadal said. “I know I had to be almost perfect to win.”They started in sunlight and finished at night, a 3-hour, 21-minute match epic punctuated by cliffhangers and plot twists and a pair of protagonists who inspired standing ova

The number of suicides among the youth in South Korea has increased by 57 percent since 2001, data showed Tuesday, growing at a faster pace than that of adults. The number of suicides per 100,000 people aged 10 to 19 rose 57.2 percent to 5.58 in 2011 from 3.19 in 2001, according to the data by the state-run Korea Health Promotion Foundation (KHPF) on the occasion of World Suicide Prevention Day, which falls on Sept. 10. The suicide rate for adults in the 20-64 age group increased 50.5 percent fr

A possible diplomatic solution to avoid a U.S. military strike arose Monday when Syria swiftly welcomed a suggestion to turn over all of its chemical weapons for destruction under international control. President Barack Obama said the proposal could be “potentially a significant breakthrough” but he remained skeptical that Syria would follow through.The White House pressed ahead with efforts to persuade Congress to authorize a military strike, and Obama said the day's developments were doubtless

Many would call Dennis Rodman a propaganda proxy for North Korea. But some may describe the retired NBA player as a potential pioneer for sports diplomacy between the authoritarian country and the United States.Rodman's news conference in Manhattan apparently reflected both those aspects.He reiterated that the North's young dictator, Kim Jong-un, is a "very good guy.""The marshal told me, 'We want people to come here, because we are not a bad country,'" Rodman said. On his second trip to Pyongya

The union of South Korea's largest carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. said Tuesday that its members have endorsed a tentative wage deal reached last week.The agreement was approved by 55.1 percent of the more than 42,300 union members who voted on Monday, the union said. About 4,000 other union members did not vote."It is fortunate that we concluded a deal without anymore disruption," union spokesman Kwon Oh-il said by phone from Ulsan, home to Hyundai's main production facility, located some 410 kilome

Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg _ nicknamed “Iron Erna” _ will become Norway's new prime minister as the leader of a center-right coalition government likely including an anti-immigration party.  Preliminary results from the oil-rich Nordic country's parliamentary elections shows the Conservative Party got 26.8 percent of votes, the best result for the party in 28 years. Solberg, who will be Norway's second female prime minister after Gro Harlem Brundtland, thanked the voters Monday for a

Several thousand supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny rallied Monday in central Moscow as he disputed the results of mayoral polls in which he narrowly failed to push a Kremlin ally into a run-off, claiming fraud.Around 10,000 people gathered for a peaceful rally in the city centre after the Moscow election commission released the final tally showing that an ally of President Vladimir Putin, incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin, had scraped through in the first round with 51.3 perce

An overcrowded bus plunged into a deep river canyon in northwestern Guatemala on Monday, killing at least 44 people commuting to the capital, officials said.Grieving families gathered outside a recreation center near the accident site where authorities set up an improvised morgue to identify the bodies of the passengers, including children and at least three babies. The spokesman for the volunteer fire department, Mario Cruz, said 46 people were taken to regional hospitals for treatment of injur

South Korean stocks opened higher Tuesday on better-than-expected data from China, analyst said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) moved up 7.03 points, or 0.36 percent, to 1,981.70 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Shares gathered ground across the board, with No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor rising 0.81 percent and leading steelmaker POSCO adding 1.66 percent. Top chipmaker SK hyinx climbed 0.35 percent.Logistics shares also traded bullish, with Hyundai Glovis rising 0.25 per

새누리당과 민주당이 서로에 대한 공세 수위를 높이면서 대립하는 가운데, 정기국회 파행이 장기화될 가능성이 보이고 있다.여야는 9일, 각각 이석기 통합진보당 의원의 내란 음모 의혹과 국정원의 대선 개입 의혹을 놓고 서로를 비판하며 거친 설전을 이어갔다.새누리당은 이번 내란 의혹에 대한 책임을 민주당에 돌리며 종북의 ‘숙주’로 지칭했고, 반면 민주당은 역사적 과오를 책임지고 사과한 독일 앙겔라 메르켈 총리에 예를 들며 박근혜 대통령이 국가정보원 대선 개입 의혹에 대해 사과할 것을 촉구했다.여당 황우여 대표는 이날 최고위원회의에서 “민주당은 민주주의 훼손세력과 무분별하게 연대해 자유민주주의에 기생한 종북세력의 숙주노력을 하지 않았는지, 또 지금도 비호하고 있지 않은지 반성해야 한다”면서 통합진보당 이석기 의원 사건과 관련해 민주당을 비판했다.이에 민주당 김한길 대표는 “(독일의) 메르켈 총리가 나치 만행에 거듭 사죄하는 이 유는 그가 독일의 국가수반이기 때문”이라면서 “메르켈 총리는 ‘나

수원보호관찰소 성남지소 (성남보호관찰소)이 지난 4일 서현동으로 기습 이전한 것에 반발하는 분당지역 학보모들이 9일 대규모 농성을 벌였다.성남보호관찰소 이전 반대를 위한 학부모 범대책위원회는 이날 오전 경기도 성남시 분당구 서현동 성남보호관찰소 입주 건물 앞에서 1천여명의 학부모들은 농성을 벌이면서 보호관찰소 직원 출근을 막았으며.이날 농성에 참여한 학부모들은 인근 서현, 이매동 뿐 이날 분당 지역에서 온 이들로 인원이 1천명을 넘어섰으며 이로 인해 보호관찰소 업무가 사실상 중단되기에 이르렀다. 또한 분당지역 학부모 1천600여명은 이날 오전에 전세버스 33대를 타고 정부 과천청사로 가 법무부를 상대로 보호관찰소 이전을 촉구하는 집회를 벌이기도 했다.학부모들은 보호관찰소가 사전 협의나 공지 없이 청소년 문화공간에에 “도둑이사”해 아이들이 범죄에 노출되었다면서 이전을 무효화할 것을 주장했다. 전과자들이 보호관찰서를 드나다는 과정에서 범죄가 자주 일어날 수 있다는 것이다.이와 같은 우려