President Park Geun-hye named South Korea's chief nuclear envoy as the first vice foreign minister Thursday in a minor government reshuffle that also affected two other vice ministerial posts, her spokesman said.Cho Tae-yong, Seoul's top envoy to the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea, replaces former Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun, who was appointed first deputy chief of the presidential office of national security early this month.Cho, a career diplomat of 34 years, was chosen

The nation's top court on Thursday upheld a four-year jail sentence against the head of the country's third-largest conglomerate, SK Group, for embezzling company funds.Chey Tae-won was convicted of embezzling 46.5 billion won ($43.6 million) from two SK Group affiliates, including top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co., and funneling the funds into personal investments in stock futures and options in 2008.The Supreme Court rejected the 53-year-old tycoon's final appeal against a verdict handed down

South Korea's financial watchdog is probing a major local construction firm over whether it has intentionally hidden applicable risk factors in selling bonds to investors while being fully aware of such risks, informed sources said Thursday.According to the sources, the Financial Supervisory Service is looking into GS Engineering & Construction Co.'s sale of corporate bonds totaling 380 billion won ($356 million) in February of last year, which came just two months ahead of its announcement of i

South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. solidified its position as the No. 1 TV seller last year with a strong market share for its products across the board, data showed Thursday.Samsung took up 40 percent of the world's market for 60-inch and wider TVs in the fourth quarter of 2013, up from 34.7 percent a quarter earlier, the data by market researcher DisplaySearch said.The number beats the combined market shares of rival players such as Japan's Sharp and Sony and the U.S.'s Vizio, wh

The government has recouped 63.2 percent of the public funds it spent to bail out troubled financial firms during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Thursday.The government has retrieved 106.7 trillion won ($100.1 billion) of 168.6 trillion won used from the public funds as of the end of December, according to the Financial Services Commission.The recovery rate was up from 62.5 percent recorded at the end of 2012, it added.The South Korean government poured massiv

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry described North Korea as an "evil place," urging the international community to pay more attention to what's happening in the secretive communist nation."North Korea is one of the most closed and cruel places on earth. There's no question about it. There's evil that is taking place there that all of us ought to be deeply and are deeply concerned about," he said in an interview with MSNBC television that aired Wednesday.He cited human rights abuses prevalent in

Taiwan-based Yuanta Securities was provisionally selected as the preferred bidder for the brokerage arm of the embattled Tong Yang Group, industry sources said Wednesday.Yuanta Securities, Taiwan's No. 1 brokerage house, had submitted a bid Tuesday for Tongyang Securities Inc., whose parent group has been suffering from a severe liquidity crunch.Tong Yang Group requested a local court to approve preferred bidder status for the Taiwanese brokerage house, according to the sources.The stake up for

Police said Wednesday that they will announce this week the tentative results of their investigation into a gymnasium collapse that killed 10 people and injured 105 others.The roof of the gymnasium at the Mauna Ocean Resort in Gyeongju, a historic tourist city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, caved in on Feb. 17 while some 560 incoming freshmen from the Busan University of Foreign Studies were holding a welcome party inside the building."The tentative results of the investigation will be relea

The elder brother of Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Kun-hee will not appeal an appellate court decision that rejected his demand for a 940 billion won ($850 million) share of his sibling's inherited wealth, the brother's lawyers said Wednesday.Upholding a lower court's decision, the Seoul High Court earlier this month ruled against the chairman's eldest brother, Lee Maeng-hee, and allowed the chairman to keep his holdings in Samsung Group's key subsidiaries."(Lee Maeng-hee) decided to give

The South Korean government signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. multinational conglomerate General Electric for increased cooperation in the heavy industry sector and with small-sized companies, the industry ministry said Wednesday.Under the deal signed with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, GE will carry out bilateral projects that entail increased investment and joint research, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement.The deal follows a meeting between President Park Geu

Kumho Tire Co., South Korea's second-largest tiremaker, said Wednesday it has become the official sponsor of the National Basketball Association.The company said Kumho will sponsor both the NBA and the NBA Development League until 2016, as part of efforts to expand its sports marketing and raise brand awareness among consumers."In the past, other tire companies set up sponsorship arrangements with individual basketball teams, but Kumho is the first to do so with the governing basketball associat

A local Catholic rights group lodged a complaint against an official of the state intelligence agency and the prosecution on Wednesday for allegedly fabricating evidence to charge a North Korean defector with espionage.The case of Yoo Woo-seong, a 34-year-old former civil servant for the Seoul municipal government, has raised a political storm in South Korea amid mounting suspicions that the National Intelligence Service helped the prosecution obtain fake evidence, including documents purporting

The average annual salary of South Korean professional baseball players has surpassed the 100 million won mark in 2014 for the first time in history, the baseball governing body said Wednesday.  According to the report released by the Korea Baseball Organization, a total of 477 South Korean players, excluding rookies and foreign players, will receive a record high of 106.4 million won ($99,198) on average for the 2014 season, up 11.8 percent from the previous record of 95.17 million won last yea

South Korea's economic activity stayed on a recovery trend in January and February on rising exports and consumption, the central bank said Wednesday.Asia's fourth-largest economy has been on a modest recovery track since the fourth quarter of 2012, and the upward momentum is seen as being extended, the Bank of Korea said in its "BOK Golden Book" report.The BOK released the Korean version of the U.S. Federal Reserve's Beige Book for the first time in late August, which monitors economic activiti

The U.S. Federal Reserve's move to taper off its stimulus program could have an impact on South Korea's housing market, a state-run think tank said Wednesday, calling for the government's stepped-up market monitoring."Despite continued rise in home prices in the U.S. and China, concerns are still being raised that the Fed's tapering of quantitative easing could result in contraction of the housing market," the Korea Development Institute said in a quarterly report that analyzed the latest real e

한 이태리 시각장애인 청년의 러시아 횡단 배낭여행 계획이 SNS를 통해 확산되면서 또다시 전세계에 뜨거운 감동을 선사했다고 이태리 언론과 외신이 보도했다.이 미담의 주인공은 알렉산드로 보르디니(28)로, 지난 25일 베로나에서 자신의 배낭여행 계획을 테드 토크에 올려 세간의 화제가 됐다. 이 계획은 페이스북과 트위터 등 SNS를 통해 빠르게 확산되며 국제적 지지를 얻고 있다.보르디니는 2009년 낙하산 사고로 시력을 잃은 후에도 아시아, 오세아니아와 동유럽 배낭여행을 성공적으로 강행하는 등  투혼과 열정을 간직했다.  계속된 그의 행보는 인터넷과 SNS를 통해 전세계 장애인과 비장애인 모두에게 희망의 메시지를 전해왔다.화제의 테드 토크 중 보르디니는 "(장애를 극복하고 성공한) 비결은 자신과 다른 사람을 향한 신뢰"이며, "미소 띤 얼굴은 언제나 도움이 되고, 낙관적인 사고방식이 있다면 그 어떤 시련도 이겨낼 수 있을 것"이라고 강조했다.(코리아헤럴드 정주원 기자 joowonc@he

North Korea appears to have recently reinstated two key officials in charge of economic projects with China, a diplomatic source said Wednesday, in a sign Pyongyang may try to restore business partnership with Beijing following the purge of leader Kim Jong-un's uncle.Kim Ki-sok and Kim Chol-jin, chief and deputy chief of the North's State Economic Development Commission, had been sacked in connection with the purge and execution of leader's uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December last year, but have

South Korea will tackle the country's vexing household debt problem as a major agenda under the recently unveiled three-year economic innovation plan, the finance minister said Wednesday.On Tuesday, the government announced a package of policy directions along with detailed measures to be carried out over the next three years aimed mostly at raising the country's growth potential.They include easing regulations, reforming public organizations and solving other problems hampering the country's ec

The brand rankings of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister Kia Motors Corp. slipped compared with the year before in the latest automakers assessment released by Consumer Reports magazine on Tuesday.The U.S. magazine said Hyundai, which received 60 points, placed 16th among the 23 high-volume car brands appraised. Kia came in at 15th by earning 61 points in the latest Car Brand Report Cards.The numbers reflect a drop for both South Korean carmakers, which finished 14th and 11th, respec

The Chinese city of Nanjing plans to transform buildings used by Japan's Imperial Army as a military brothel during World War II into a historical monument, state media said Wednesday, in the latest move by the country calling attention to Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of women.The announcement came a day after China said it was considering designating two national remembrance days to mark China's victory over Japan in the war and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.Nanjing city "drafted preliminary