South Korea will open an embassy in Madagascar early next month, government sources said Sunday, amid its stepped-up efforts to strengthen diplomacy with the resource-rich continent.The two countries established diplomatic ties in 1962, but Seoul has not opened any mission in Antananarivo, the capital of the southeastern African state. After a government with close ties to North Korea took power in the African state in the 1970s, the bilateral relations remained chilled for nearly two decades. P

Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday. The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in. The victim stayed with them for 12 days.(123RF)During the time, she claims she was coerced into more than ten counts of prostitution, whereupon the men took the money. One of the men

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it has acquired U.S. cloud service company Joyent Inc. to cope with rising demand for cloud platform services.Joyent, a San Francisco-based cloud provider, has come under Samsung's wing as of Wednesday (U.S. time), the South Korean tech firm said in a statement. Samsung's acquisition of the U.S. startup firm signals its interest in cloud computing that has become fundamental in providing users with reliable services on their mobile an

South Korea will soon craft a concrete plan for the development of technology to tackle fine dust particles that have emerged as a major health threat, according to a related ministry on Thursday.The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said it will mobilize "all national R&D capability" on resolving the problem in a "fundamental and innovative" manner.In the first step, the government plans to map out a concrete action plan by September to develop technology that will curb fine dust.A d

Japanese chemical company Kuraray held a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday to build a production facility for polyvinyl butyral film at a plant of its South Korean unit in the southeastern city of Ulsan.PVB is a glass interlayer used in creating safety glass in the automotive and architectural industries. The company plans to complete the construction of the PVB production facility by the end of next year with an investment of $50 million.Kuraray's expansion of the local plant is part of its e

The South Korean government will install solar power generators at about 2,000 elementary and secondary schools nationwide in a way to help the education sector earn extra income and bolster the local renewable energy business, the trade ministry said Thursday.A special purpose firm by the Korea Electric Power Corp. will invest 400 billion won ($342.3 million) by next year in a project to help some 2,000 schools install 100 kilowatt-solar panels on their rooftops, according to the Ministry of Tr

Twenty-two members of the Seoul City Council proposed Monday a bill to impose a 100,000 won ($85) fine on people who consume alcohol in Seoul’s parks and playgrounds.According to councilor Kim Gu-hyun, the regulation is anticipated to foster a responsible drinking culture that will cut down on the social and economic problems caused by excessive drinking. 　 (Yonhap)The proposed ordinance gives the Seoul mayor the right to designate parks and children’s playgrounds, among other public spaces, as

South Korea's jobless rate fell slightly in May on a rise in the number of employees in the health and accommodation sectors, with the unemployment rate for young people still remaining high, a government report showed Wednesday.The unemployment rate in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 3.7 percent last month, compared with 3.9 percent tallied in April, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.The seasonally adjusted jobless rate stayed at 3.7 percent in May.Job creation edged u

Cheil Worldwide Inc., the advertising unit of the Samsung Group, plans to raise its investment and hiring this year after its negotiations to sell a controlling stake to a French advertising giant fell apart, industry sources said Wednesday.The company, part of South Korea's largest family-controlled conglomerate, plans to push forward with aggressive mergers and acquisitions and set a goal to expand its sales by more than 10 percent in 2016, they said.The country's No. 1 advertising company log

Major U.S. firms operating here on Tuesday joined the South Korean government's efforts to help local startups globalize.Members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea held a ceremony in Seoul to launch the "Global Leading Companies Mentoring Startups" campaign in partnership with the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.Nineteen American companies participated in the event, including Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Boeing.They agreed to provide 14 selected South Korean startups with

South Korea agreed with Vietnam on Tuesday to push ahead with a joint project to remove land mines and leftover unexploded ordnance at the sites of hard fought battles in the Southeast Asian country, home to massive minefields that are a legacy of the Vietnam War.The Hanoi office of the Korea International Cooperation Agency, South Korea's state international aid agency, signed a memorandum on the agreement with the Vietnamese Defense Ministry.The project, which is scheduled to begin in the seco

Senior diplomats from the United States, South Korea and Japan held talks in Washington on Monday about increasing cooperation in issues related to the Middle East and North Africa, the State Department said.The trilateral dialogue "provided an important opportunity for the three governments to exchange views and coordinate policy, as well as to explore opportunities to deepen cooperation in the region," the department said in a statement without providing further specifics.Representing the thre

A top Myanmarese agriculture policymaker will visit South Korea later this month to possibly discuss Seoul's quarantine regulations often cited as a hurdle for its exports of mangoes and other fruits, officials here said.Aung Thu, Myanmar's farming, livestock and irrigation minister, is scheduled to visit South Korea from June 27-July 2. This will mark the first time for the minister to travel overseas since his inauguration earlier this year, they said.His itinerary includes attending a forum h

Foreign visitors to South Korea chose "ganjang gejang," or raw crab marinated in soy sauce, as the most challenging Korean food, a survey showed Monday.According to the survey of 726 foreigners who visited the country between April and May, 508 respondents, or 65 percent, said the marinated crab is the most difficult dish to eat. (Instagram upload by seungtae.kim) Instagram upload by guun_95"Cheonggukjang," or soup made out of fermented bean paste, came second with 16.7 percent, followed by "san

An 18-year-old surnamed Kim was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday for killing his girlfriend and abandoning her body. Kim’s friend and accomplice, surnamed Yang, was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.(123RF)Kim was convicted for strangling his girlfriend in February in Hwasun-gun, South Jeolla Province, and hiding her body in a nearby reed field. Yang helped dump the body. The Gwangju District Court handed down the differing sentences based on evidence of Kim’s a

A 26-year-old man was booked without detention for allegedly distributing over 12,000 cartoons of child pornography on the Internet, the Incheon Gyeyang police said Thursday. The man is accused of uploading over 12,800 illustrations of underage children performing sexual acts between Sept. 29, 2015 and May 27, 2016 on a file-sharing site. (123RF)The clicks he received per download of the materials he posted gave him credits that were convertible to 2.6 million won ($2,200) in total. The man told

Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo met with a high-profile Chinese woman in charge of promoting friendship with foreign countries and they discussed ways to boost exchanges between the two sides, a Kumho Asiana official said Thursday.The meeting between Park and Li Xiaolin, president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, took place in eastern Seoul, the official said, without elaborating. (Kumho Asiana Group)Li, the daughter of former Chinese Premier Li

Asiana Airlines Inc., South Korea's No. 2 flag carrier, said Thursday it has sold a 50 percent stake in Kumho Asiana Plaza, a Vietnamese landmark building, to Saigon Boulevard Holdings Pte. Ltd as part of its efforts to improve its financial health.The $107.5 million deal was completed between the carrier and the affiliate of Singaporean property developer Mapletree Investments Pte earlier in the day, an official of Asiana Airlines said.Kumho Asiana Plaza built by Kumho Industrial Co., the const

The president of Hyundai Glovis Co., a logistics unit of South Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor Group, has been rated as the best performer among CEOs of the country's top 500 companies, data showed Thursday.According to the data by market researcher CEO Score, Kim Kyung-bae received 64.5 points out of a possible 100 in an assessment of CEOs' management performances in 2015. The Hyundai Glovis CEO placed second last year.Cho Hwan-eik, president of state-run Korean Electric Power Corp., and Park S