WASHINGTON -- President Park Geun-hye kicked off her official four-day visit to Washington on Tuesday to seek fresh momentum in reinforcing the alliance with the U.S., and bringing the focus back on North Korea’s nuclear ambition. Expectations are high for the South Korean leader as her trip to Washington comes at a critical juncture in dealing with North Korea amid looming provocations from the North, such as a long-range missile launch, and subtle tensions following Seoul’s closer relations wi

Labor unions of the two Koreas have settled on the schedule for a friendly football competition in Pyongyang, officials in Seoul said Monday.The football event for labor workers from the Koreas will take place from Oct. 28 to 31 in the North Korean capital, officials from the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said.The dates were agreed upon at a working-level meeting in Gaeseong, north of the border, between the two sides. Workers from the two sides p

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Angus Deaton of Britain and the United States won the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for his work on consumption, poverty and welfare, the jury said."By emphasising the links between individual consumption decisions and outcomes for the whole economy, his work has helped transform modern microeconomics, macroeconomics and development economics," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said."To design economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty, we must first unders

The government and the ruling Saenuri Party are accelerating moves to introduce state history textbooks for secondary education despite burgeoning opposition from academics, teachers and progressive voters.The Saenuri Party held a discussion with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Hwang Woo-yea on Sunday afternoon and mapped out plans of unifying the history textbook publication under the government’s direct watch. Earlier this month, the party also launched a special committee aime

Former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun shared a hotline with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, a former spy chief said in an interview with a local newspaper on Friday.In the article published in JoongAng Ilbo, former National Intelligence chief Kim Man-bok said, “While arranging for the second inter-Korean summit in October 2007, there was no need to activate the back channels.Kim, who was quoted as saying that the hotline was in operation 24 hours a day, later explained that while

RIYADH (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition denied Tuesday its warplanes were behind the bombing of a wedding in southwestern Yemen in which 131 people were killed."The coalition did not conduct any air strikes in the area over the past three days," coalition spokesman Brigadier-General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP, referring to the deadly bombing Monday near the Red Sea city of Mokha."This is completely false," he said.Residents accused the Arab coalition, which launched an air war on the Huthi Shiite r

SANAA (AFP) - A suspected Saudi-led coalition air strike has killed at least 131 civilians, including many women and children, at a wedding in Yemen, medical officials said Tuesday.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Monday's air raid, saying intentional attacks on civilians were considered a "serious violation of international humanitarian law".Residents said the Arab coalition, which launched an air war on the Huthi Shiite rebels in late March, was behind the attack on the wedding hall

South Korean President Park Geun-hye pledged Monday to dispatch additional military engineers to conflict zones at the U.N. leaders’ summit on peacekeeping, joining other countries’ promises to boost their contributions for missions under growing strain.“They will be assisting reconstruction and humanitarian activities in conflict zones,” Park said at the event attended by some 50 heads of state and cochaired by U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.“Korean peacekeep

South Korea said Tuesday it will ban foreigners and overseas Koreans entering the country to seek work from joining its health insurance program immediately upon arrival, in a bid to revise a legal loophole that had allowed some nonpermanent residents to exploit the system.The current National Health Insurance Act allows foreign nationals and Koreans living in other countries to qualify for the self-backed national health insurance scheme after residing here for at least three months.Those who t

Nearly 70 percent of foreign workers in South Korea receive less than 2 million won ($1,700) in monthly wages with the intragroup salary disparity being as wide as 53-fold, a report showed Wednesday.Statistics submitted by the National Tax Service to Rep. Lee In-young showed that of the 479,527 reported foreign workers, 323,100 were subject to taxation. The total payroll reached 9.45 trillion won. The number of those subject to taxes had increased by 138 percent since 2008, while the total wages

The head of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission attended an international ombudsman meeting to share South Korea’s policies for handling civil complaints, the state-run anticorruption body said Wednesday.ACRC chairman Lee Sung-bo introduced the organization’s e-People system at the board of directors meeting of the International Ombudsman Institute in Windhoek, Namibia, where representatives of ombudsman institutions in 91 countries across the world were present. The e-People system,

Third-term Rep. Park Joo-sun bolted from the main opposition party to create a new one Tuesday, claiming the New Political Alliance for Democracy had run its course under the current leadership.The prosecutor-turned-politician said at a press conference that he would move to reorganize the opposition bloc and build an alternative political force, dealing yet another blow to NPAD chairman Rep. Moon Jae-in. Rep. Park Joo-sun answers reporters` questions at the National Assembly on Tuesday. YonhapP

The political dynamics in the beleaguered main opposition party took a new twist Sunday as Ahn Cheol-soo, former cochairman of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, proposed alternative ways to fight corruption to reform the party.At a separate news conference, former NPAD member Rep. Chun Jung-bae announced the launch of a new opposition party by January next year.The two, who are considered potential rivals to NPAD chairman Rep. Moon Jae-in’s political clout, were seen to turn up the heat a

Three out of four buildings in Seoul that are required to be earthquake-proof do not have proper aseismic designs to prepare against such natural disasters, a report showed Thursday.A large number of public facilities, such as schools and public offices, also were not equipped with earthquake plans, making them vulnerable in the case of a disaster, according to the report submitted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to Rep. Park Nam-choon of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.As of June t

Unionized workers at Kia Motors Corp., South Korea's second-largest automaker, voted Wednesday in favor of a strike over pay, lending support to their leaders in wage negotiations down the road.In a vote asking some 34,000 unionists whether to go on strike,72.8 percent, or 22,700 out of 31,163 who cast ballots, voted yes, according to the labor union. It was held Wednesday afternoon at each office and plant located throughout the country. The vote came after the labor and management could not pr

Eight cabin crew members who were on board the Asiana Airline Flight 214 Boeing 777-200ER that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport in 2013 were revealed to have filed damage suits against Korea’s second largest carrier and the plane manufacturer Boeing.The eight were among 12 flight attendants aboard at the time and filed the suits in a U.S. district court rather than in Seoul.  According to reports, one of workers had her backbone broken in the accident and filed a suit in Janua

The body of another passenger missing from a capsized fishing boat was recovered Wednesday on an island off South Korea's southern coast near the site of the accident, raising the death toll to 13, Coast Guard officials said.The body, which was found washed up on the coast of Chuja Island at around 7:20 a.m. by a local resident, was identified as that of a 44-year-old man surnamed Lee, according to the Korea Coast Guard. The island is located about halfway between the mainland and the southern r

President Park Geun-hye has decided to donate 20 million won ($17,000) to a fund aimed at helping young people find jobs, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Wednesday, in a gesture to quell lingering opposition to the government-led labor market reform with a move that will expand to all sectors of society.Park will also give 20 percent of her monthly salary each month to the fund, Hwang said. Given that Park’s annual remuneration stood at 192 million won last year, her monthly contribution could

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the spouse who caused damage to a marriage, such as by cheating, cannot file for divorce on principle.The court upheld a lower court’s ruling that the spouse responsible for an action damaging to the relationship cannot be the one to file for divorce, following suit precedent cases.The case was brought to court by an unidentified plaintiff, who married the defendant in 1976. He had an affair with another woman and had a child with her in 1998. The man left

Half of South Koreans used their mobile phones while sitting on a toilet, research conducted to promote colon health showed Tuesday.Seven out of 10 Koreans said they defecate at least once daily and spent an average of 6.1 minutes on the toilet, the report by the Korean Society of Coloproctology and research company Macromillembrain said. They surveyed 2,000 Koreans living in Seoul and metropolitan cities aged 16 to 69.Three out of 10 said they have experienced constipation, while 8 out of 10 sa