Recent explosions at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan will have no serious impact in Korea, experts said in a conference Thursday. The Korea Green Foundation, a leading environmental group here, held an academic conference on the impact of the deepening nuclear crisis in earthquake-hit Japan. “Considering the long distance from here and the radiation level is dilu

The Korean government installed two radiation-detecting gates at Incheon International Airport on Thursday amid the widening nuclear crisis in earthquake-hit Japan. According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, travelers coming from Japan, if they want, are to pass between two poles after immigration checks. A flight passenger from Japan

By Lee Ji-yoonFrail-looking grandmothers gathered again Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. They were former “comfort women,” who were forced to provide sex to the Japanese army during World War II. However, there were no chants denouncing the Japanese government, which has yet to issue an official apology to them.This time a silent tribute for 10 minutes was followed after a brie

Concerns are growing here about the safety of nuclear power plants in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami that was followed by a series of explosions at atomic facilities.Another reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 240 kilometers north of Tokyo. Japanese officials cautioned the residents to stay indoors to avoid radiation sickness.

Mother of a group member found dead with no traces of robbery: policeA conservative group that has flown anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border said Friday that its senior member’s mother had been killed a day earlier, and possibly by terrorists.The group, Korea Parent Federation, cancelled its leaflet-sending event at Imjingak scheduled for Saturday, claiming she was likely to hav

Aluin, a Filipino immigrant worker, learns espresso coffee making at a center for foreign workers in Yangcheon, southwestern Seoul. “I attend the barista class every weekend. I’ll make a career in Seoul after completing the program, then set up my own coffee shop in my home country,” he said. Another immigrant worker, Tiron from Sri Lanka, lost his right leg in an industrial accident. It was also

Asian tourists have picked Seoul as their favorite destination for the third consecutive year, a recent survey found Wednesday. The survey, commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, questioned 3,200 people in China, Japan and Thailand and 600 others visiting Seoul last year.Of 1,050 Chinese surveyed, 16.4 percent picked Seoul as the city which they wanted to visit within a year, followed

Chief state auditor nominee Yang Kun faced tough questions about his moral standards and professional independence on the first day of his parliamentary confirmation hearing Tuesday.President Lee Myung-bak last month nominated the law professor of Hanyang University to be chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, which has been vacant for five months. The former audit chief Kim Hwang-sik was

New York-based elite academy Dwight School on Monday held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of its Seoul branch, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said. The Dwight International School Seoul, a 29.2 billion won ($26 million) five-story school building, is expected to open in September next year within the Sangam Digital Media City, western Seoul. It will be the fourth overseas branch

Survey shows youths here have higher sense of gender equality than in China, Japan (The Korea Herald)Korean students were less happy than their peers in China and Japan, while they had the highest sense of gender equality, a three-nation survey found Sunday. According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the survey ― the third of its kind ― questioned on Oct. 4, 597 middle and high schoo

The application process for the F-2 spouse visa will have stricter rules from Monday, the Ministry of Justice said Sunday. The latest revision to the immigration law came after several cases of abuse and fraud in international marriages.In July last year, a 20-year-old Vietnamese bride was murdered by her Korean husband, just eight days after arriving in Korea. Her husband had a history of mental

Defector groups Wednesday pledged to continue flying propaganda leaflets across the border despite North Korea’s recent threat of “direct firing” at the South’s psychological warfare sites.“The empty threats from the North have repeated over the past four years. There is nothing special this time as well,” said Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of the Fighters for Free North Korea. “

Most see families less than once a weekAlmost eight out of 10 elderly people living alone in Seoul are women, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday.The city conducted a census on senior citizens aged 65 or older who lived alone without family over the past three months, aimed at assessing their welfare needs.According to the survey on 214,506 citizens registered as single family household

Gangnam-gu Office has selected a group of foreign nationals as honorary publicity ambassadors to promote the district around the world, officials said Tuesday.The 29 expats from 14 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Britain, the Philippines and Thailand, will introduce Gangnam’s tourist attractions to their home countries using social media such as Twitter and Facebook. They will also contribu

South Korean and U.S. troops launched their annual joint drills on Monday, officials said,following North Korea's threats of militaryretaliation.The Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercises are the first regularly scheduled joint drills between Seoul and Washington since the North's deadly artillery strike on Yeonpyeong Island last November, which left four people dead.South Korea and U.S. start Monday th

The international community should not expect North Korea to collapse soon through popular uprisings but instead seek an incremental approach to build trust with the nuclear-armed communist state, an expert said Sunday.Andray Abrahamian, a freelance writer on Korea issues who teaches at Social Science College of the University of Ulsan, South Korea, dismissed chances of any collapse of the North K

GM Korea Co., the South Korean unit of U.S. automaker General Motors Co., will officially launch the Chevrolet brand in South Korea this week, saying goodbye to Daewoo, a name that has endured in South Korea for the past 28 years, the company said Monday.The name of the company will officially be changed to GM Korea from GM Daewoo also from Tuesday, it added."The change of the company name is an e

The number of Seoul citizens holding master’s or doctoral degrees has tripled over the past 20 years, a study found Sunday. There were 39,538 master’s and 5,043 doctoral graduates last year, almost triple the 14,049 in 1990, according to the study conducted jointly by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Statistics Korea.Women with higher education showed a five-fold increase in two decades, with

An opposition lawmaker has recently changed her family’s permanent address of origin to Dokdo in protest against Japan’s sovereignty claim over the rocky islets in the East Sea.Rep. Park Sun-young, the spokeswoman for the Liberty Forward Party, said Sunday that her family transferred their domicile from Gyeonggi Province to Dokdo on Feb. 22.It was the first time for a lawmaker to have their family

Lee stresses lower difficulty in written tests and development of new ways to find talented studentsThe government will keep trying to make the college entrance exam easier, while encouraging schools to accept students with different talents, Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said Thursday.“It’s not appropriate that one or two points make a difference in college admission. Along with easier questions,