A North Korean defector was arrested after he attempted to rob a house stark naked, a local media report said Tuesday. The man, 24, entered the house of a female resident at an apartment complex after dark. The man had a weapon with the intentions of carrying out a robbery, YTN said. (123RF)He was caught in the act by the police who came to the scene after receiving a distress call.He told the police that he had shed all of his clothes in the hopes of thwarting any police search based on his clo

Prosecutors on Tuesday raided the house of a senior prosecutor who has come under public scrutiny for suspicious stock transactions.An ad hoc probe team investigating the case said it raided the house of Jin Kyung-joon, as well as the home and offices of Kim Jung-ju, founder of South Korea's leading online game maker Nexon Co., and the incumbent chairman of its holding firm NXC Corp.The case involving Jin came to light early this year as the senior prosecutor reported a whopping increase in his

Two South Korean men have been indicted on charges of contacting North Korean agents and producing reports to send information on domestic affairs to Pyongyang, prosecutors said Tuesday.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said the suspects, identified only by their surnames Lee and Kim, are accused of meeting with North Korean intelligence agents in Vietnam in March 2014 and August 2015 and returning home with instructions.They allegedly made reports on South Korea's key affairs and w

The South Korean government plans to pick a relocation site for an airport that can serve Daegu in one or two months, with some provincial governments expressing their interest in hosting the new transportation hub, a source said Tuesday.The project to relocate the airport whose runway has been used by both military and civilian aircraft has been put on a fast track since President Park Geun-hye called on her government on Monday to forge ahead with the move.The project has been long-cherished b

German TV maker Loewe Technologies GmbH will roll out its first organic light-emitting diode TV later this year to tap into the premium market dominated by South Korea's LG Electronics Co.Loewe's OLED TV, called "bild 7," will be available in the European market starting September in 55 and 65 inches for 4,990 and 6,990 euros ($7,740)), respectively, industry sources said Tuesday.The sources said the German TV manufacturer made no mention of the High Dynamic Range technology but that it is likel

Major hospitals in South Korea's second largest city of Busan will stage presentations in Russia later this week as part of their efforts to enter the Russian medical market and entice Russian patients, a Busan city official said Tuesday. "A medical delegation from Busan-based Dong-a University Hospital, Kangdong Hospital and CMS Korea will visit Moscow and Saint Petersburg for eight days from Wednesday," the official said.The city government co-organized the event to bolster the city's foreign

South Korean shares managed to stay in positive terrain late Tuesday morning on cautious optimism about the U.S. economy and Japan's move toward a new stimulus package.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 2.1 points, or 0.11 percent, to 1,990.64 as of 11:20 a.m.The market was apparently encouraged by strong U.S. job data and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for a new round of fiscal stimulus spending. The KOSPI remained in a tight range as its gains were limited amid geo

The King Sejong Institute, South Korea's state-supported Korean language training organization, hosted the 8th World Korean Educators Conference on Tuesday to further promote overseas understanding of the Northeast Asian country.  A total of 300 attendees are in Seoul to attend the four-day conference that runs till Friday and is designed to educate Korean teachers and improve global cooperation in Korean education, said the institute and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. In the openi

South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group said Tuesday that its future technology will center on artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.Of 32 research projects spearheaded by the group between 2014 and 2016 which are aimed at accelerating technology innovation, six were related to AI, the company said. The move comes amid heightened public interest in AI following the high-profile matches between Google's AI program AlphaGo and South Korean Go champ Lee Se-dol earlier this year. S

Nexon Corp., a game developer being investigated for alleged stock gifts, had visibly increased its entertainment expenses at about the same time that the reported gifts were first given, a corporate analyzer said Tuesday.The expenses increased from 92 million won ($80,000) in 2004 to 200 million won in 2005 and to 887 million won in the following year, according to the analysis by Chaebul.com, which tracks activities of South Korea's major companies. The figures were derived from the consolidat

Financially troubled Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. proposes to sell stocks worth 2.49 trillion won ($2.16 billion) this month, which includes 1.9 trillion won worth of debt-for-equity swap, industry sources said Tuesday.According to the sources, Hyundai Merchant, the country's No. 2 shipping line, is seeking to sell stocks at 8,890 won per share to creditors, bondholders, owners of chartered ships and even retail investors this month.Of the proposed amount, some 1.9 trillion won, or 76 percent, is

 South Korea said Tuesday it will hold talks with Switzerland in Seoul this week on promoting bilateral cooperation in three main fields - basic science, industrial technology and life science.The fourth meeting of a related joint committee, slated for Wednesday, coincides with a Seoul trip by Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann for a summit with President Park Geun-hye.The two nations signed an accord on science and technology partnerships in 2008 and launched the committee a year later.Pho

The chief of Lotte Homeshopping, the TV channel of retail giant Lotte, was summoned by prosecutors Tuesday to face questioning over irregularities the company committed to renew its business license last year.Kang Hyeon-gu appeared before the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office as a suspect on charges of violating the Broadcasting Act, becoming the first chief of Lotte affiliates to be openly summoned after prosecutors launched a full-fledged investigation into the country's fifth-largest

Majority of yet-to-marry men and women are against virtually all traditionally accepted notions about marriage, from financial arrangements to having children and divorcing, according to a survey released on Tuesday.Seventy-nine percent of the men and 72.3 percent of the women disagreed with the conventional idea that men finance the housing and the women all the things that go in it. The survey found 60.4 percent of the men and 74.3 percent of the women believe it's better to get divorced if th

The state-run Korea Development Bank will finalize a self-rescue plan proposed by Samsung Heavy Industries Co., a major South Korean shipyard, this week, which includes a capital increase and workforce layoffs, industry sources said Tuesday.According to the sources, the policy lender, the main creditor for the shipbuilder, will decide whether to approve the proposed self-restructuring plan, after reviewing it along with a consulting firm.Earlier, Samsung Heavy proposed a 1.45 trillion won self-r

North Korea is believed to have closed more than 30 restaurants in foreign countries due to toughened international sanctions, a source familiar with the matter said Tuesday.The North's move indicates that the regime faces difficulties in earning dollars as the U.N. Security Council's sanctions on Pyongyang are aimed at curbing the source of hard currency suspected of bankrolling the North's nuclear and missile programs.The source said that since the imposition of the sanctions in March, the Nor

한 결혼정보회사의 지난 9일 설문조사에 따르면 미혼남성은 ‘꿍한’ 여성, 미혼여성은 ‘잘 따지는’ 남성을 배우자 감으로 기피한다고 한다. (123RF)결혼정보회사 비에나래와 결혼정보업체 온리-유가 공동으로 4일 ∼ 9일 사이 전국의 결혼희망 미혼 남녀 508명(남녀 각 254명)를 대상으로 “평생 함께 살기에 가장 ‘피곤한’ 배우자는 어떤 성격, 성향의 보유자일까요?”를 묻자 남성은 21.7%가 ‘꿍한 성격’이라고 답했고, 여성은 23.6%가 ‘잘 따지는 유형’으로 답해 각각 가장 높은 비중을 차지했다. 이어 남성은 ‘임기응변식’(18.5%) - ‘의존적’(17.3%) - ‘부정적’(13.4%) 등의 순으로 답했고, 여성은 ‘일방통행식’(19.3%) - ‘깔끔한’(16.5%) - ‘욱하는’(14.6%) 등의 순이다. (비에나래)한 32세 여교사는 “이것저것 잘 따지는 남자는 소개하지 마세요! 평생 피곤할 것 같아서요”라고 말했고, 한 35세 남성 변호사는 “한번 토라지면 몇 일간 꿍

Some 75 percent of female public workers and public schoolteachers used childcare leave after having their first child, but less than half of their counterparts working at private companies did so, a study said Tuesday. The gap was even wider between female workers hired in permanent positions (46.9 percent) and those working on temporary basis (1.9 percent), according to the study by the Korea institute for Health and Social Affairs.The institute surveyed 788 women aged 15 to 49 who had their f

South Korean shares opened slightly higher Tuesday, following overnight gains on Wall Street boosted by strong U.S. jobs data and cautious optimism about the world's No. 1 economy.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 3.08 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,991.62 in the first 15 minutes of trading.The KOSPI's advance, however, was limited due to a burden from a 0.83 percent rise a day earlier. Institutional investors were net sellers, while foreigners and individuals were net buyers.I

South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. basked in a record share of the global NAND flash market in the first quarter of the year, data showed Tuesday.Samsung's share came to 42.6 percent of the global DRAM market in terms of sales during the January-March period, up 0.6 percentage point from the previous quarter, according to the data compiled by industry tracker IHS Inc. The company logged $2.61 billion in global sales, also up 3.1 percent from the same period a year earlier.NAND flas