More than 60 percent of domestic violence offenders in South Korea are parents of the victims, Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission data shows. The data also showed that the most common form of abuse was locking up their children. Among 1,036 people involved in a total of 961 domestic violence cases reported, 63.8 percent were carried out by parents who cooperated in their abusive behavior toward their children, according to the ACRC.(123RF)The watchdog said the number of husbands who ind

When Jeong Nam-gyu was first arrested for housebreaking and attempted murder in 2006, few imagined that the diminutive, 37-year-old man would turn out to be the perpetrator of a string of murders that shook the country for years. The man, showing no remorse, signs of being intimidated or fear for his own fate, confessed to killing two boys in 2004 and more. His cool-headed confession made investigators shudder. It was then that criminal profiler Kwon Il-yong was brought in.  Kwon Il-yong (Park H

When Jeong Nam-kyu was first arrested for housebreaking and attempted murder in 2006, few imagined that the diminuitive, 37-year-old man would turn out to have been the perpetrator of a string of murders that shook the country for years. The man, showing no remorse, signs of being intimidated or fear for his own fate, confessed to killing two boys in 2004 and more. His cool-headed confession made investigators shudder. It was then that criminal profiler Kwon Il-yong was brought in.  Former crimi

Incidents of scarlet fever are on a sharp rise here, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. According to the KCDC, 11,911 suspected cases were reported in 2016. The figure is an increase of more than 112-fold from 2010, when 106 cases were reported.(Courtesy of H Plus Yangji Hospital)So far this year, at least 9,179 cases, about 80 percent of last year’s figure, have been reported to the KCDC. Symptoms of the illness, caused by group A streptococcal infection, inclu

Former President Park Geun-hye is to make her first court appearance on Tuesday, since being indicted on a total of 18 charges mid-April. She is obliged to show up at the Seoul Central District Court at 2 p.m. in southern Seoul for the first hearing of the high-profile case. The court held two preliminary hearings earlier, but she was not obliged to attend. Park, who was ejected from power in March with less than a year left in her five-year term, is accused of abuse of power, government secret

The obesity rate for South Korean adults (aged 15 and over) came in at 5.3 percent, one of the lowest among 35 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the latest data shows.According to the OECD’s Obesity Update 2017, published last week, the county’s overall estimated obesity rate is the second lowest, following Japan which recorded 3.7 percent. (photo credit: 123rf)But the rate here is expected to increase, the data predicts, marking 6 percent in 2020 and 9

Two high-ranking officials of the Justice Ministry and the prosecution offered to resign Thursday, a day after President Moon Jae-in ordered an internal investigation into allegations that they gave money to subordinates who investigated the corruption scandal of former President Park Geun-hye. The resignations of Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office head Lee Yeong-ryeol and Justice Ministry senior official Ahn Tae-geun, however, will not be considered until the audit is complete, a Cheong

The independent counsel that investigated the scandal surrounding former President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday requested her as a witness in the trial of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.The Counsel’s investigation team, which indicted Lee and 29 others in connection with the scandal, said Park should take the stand in order to shed light on links between the two.This file photo shows former President Park Geun-hye entering the Seoul Central District Court on March 30, 2017, to atte

The South Korean search team looking into the salvaged Sewol ferry found a total of 13 human bone fragments from the wreck of the ferry Tuesday. According to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, nine fragments were found inside a passenger cabin on the third deck of the ferry, while four others were later recovered from mud collected from the third and fourth deck. A search team checks the wreck of the Sewol ferry in the port of Mokpo, 410 km south of Seoul. (Yonhap)The National Forensic Servic

Four in 10 North Koreans are considered “food-insecure,” according to a report from Radio Free Asia on Tuesday, a nonprofit international broadcaster. It cited Food Security Information Network‘s “Global Report on Food Crises 2017,” released in March.By the United Nations agency’s report, 4.4 million, or 17 percent, of the isolated country’s 25.3 million population were suffering from food insecurity in 2016, requiring massive levels of assistance due to food shortage.(Yonhap)Around 5.6 million

A South Korean father who hung his 5-year-old son by the wrists from an electric wire for secretly watching television was sentenced to 18 months in prison, a local court said on Tuesday.  (Herald DB)According to court records, the man tied up his son by the wrists and hung him on the electric cable in the back yard of their house because the boy was watching television at night without permission. He told the child not to move for two hours, warning he could be electrified. The Daegu District C

Women take up only 7.2 percent of the top jobs at over 300 state-run organizations and corporations in South Korea, governmental data showed Monday. Out of the 332 heads of state agencies, only 24 are women, with four of them working in organizations under the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, according to data from Public Information in One, a government-run portal on public entities.(123RF)Female chiefs are even more scarce in the judicial sector. Only two out of 14 Supreme Court justice

The age-old tradition of giving gifts to teachers on Teachers Day on May 15 is now against the law in South Korea, but many parents still have no clue as to what extent the laws goes. A series of questions bombarded the anti-graft watchdog’s official website Friday, asking whether giving a handmade carnation flower or a small gift valued at less than 50,000 won ($44.50) would be illegal under the anti-graft law.The Kim Young-ran Act, named after the former Supreme Court justice who first drafted

President Moon Jae-in ordered the scrapping of the controversial state-published history textbooks, a signature project of impeached former President Park Geun-hye, Cheong Wa Dae said Friday. 　The newly elected president has also issued a directive to allow a song, banned under the previous conservative administrations, to be sung at the upcoming event that marks the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju. With the presidential order, “March for the Beloved” will likely be sung for the first tim

President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday named a former veteran intelligence officer who worked on two inter-Korean summits as the chief of the country’s spy agency.The nomination of Suh Hoon for the job at the National Intelligence Service is widely seen as a sign the incoming liberal administration will take a different approach to the communist North and seek to improve inter-Korean ties that have strained under the past two conservative presidents.Suh Hoon (Yonhap)Moon’s appointment for the top po

With Moon Jae-in’s victory Tuesday night, Kim Jung-sook, 62, became Korea’s new first lady.Kim and Moon were college sweethearts at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. The first couple’s love story has captivated the people, although theirs was not an easy romance.President-elect Moon Jae-in and his wife Kim Jung-sook enter the National Assembly to attend the inauguration ceremony in Seoul on Wednesday. (Joint Press Corps)Moon, then a pro-democracy student activist, was detained several times for lea

Nearly 8 in 10 eligible South Koreans voted to elect a new president on Tuesday, following the ouster of Park Geun-hye in a corruption scandal that has gripped the country for half a year.According to the National Election Commission, final turnout reached 77.2 percent, or 32.8 million out of 42.5 million eligible voters. It is a preliminary tally. A final figure is expected on Wednesday.  (Yonhap)Although the turnout did not reach 80 percent as widely anticipated, it was still 1.4 percent highe

In April 1975, a group of students were met with plumes of tear gas near Kyung Hee University in Seoul. They were trying to march in protest against then-President Park Chung-hee, father of former President Park Geun-hye, who had controlled the country under an iron-fisted rule since 1972.Moon Jae-in, then in the third year of law school, was standing at the front line, when he was struck down by a tear gas canister.After blacking out for a moment, Moon recalled he felt somebody was sitting clos

South Koreans went to the polls Tuesday to pick their new president, who will lead the country for the next five years. And voter turnout is likely to hit 80 percent when voting closes at 8 p.m., the election watchdog said.“We are expecting the final turnout to be around or over 80 percent, with record-high turnouts from previous overseas and early voting,” an official from the National Election Commission told The Korea Herald. “Also, this year, the polls will be open two hours longer than the

More than half of South Koreans have voted in Wednesday’s presidential election, as of 2 p.m., according to the National Election Committee.Voters cast ballots at a polling station in Gangnam district, southern Seoul, on May 9, 2017. (Yonhap)Since polls opened at 6 a.m., voter turnout has hit 59.9 percent across 13,964 polling stations and the figure might reach a record 80 percent at this rate, the election watchdog said. The nearly 60 percent turnout so far represents a figure combined with la