Hanwha Thales, the country’s biggest defense electronics provider, took over a 50 percent stake from the French contractor for 288 billion won ($260 million) Monday and renamed itself Hanwha Systems. The Seoul-based company was set up in 2000 as a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Thales Group. Hanwha Group acquired Samsung’s stake in the firm along with other defense and petrochemical units as part of efforts to shore up its presence in the fields. The new name, chosen in a contest

With new international sanctions in the making over North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, the upcoming resolution should be designed to block the regime from abusing exemptions such as on energy trade for livelihood purposes, said the US’ envoy to the UN Sunday. Ambassador Samantha Power said in Resolution 2270, passed last March after Pyongyang’s fourth underground blast and missile test, the Security Council member states allowed the exemptions on concerns over the “welfare of the citizens” but ha

In the aftermath of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, calls are rising around Washington for the need to prepare a preemptive strike on the communist state’s nuclear and missile facilities, prompting skeptics to question its viability and legitimacy. Last month’s underground blast has triggered a heated debate over ways to stop leader Kim Jong-un’s ostensibly accelerating nuclear development and unabated provocations, including dialogue and even a regime change. Some former administration offici

The North Korean regime plunders at least $975 million yearly from its people by systematically operating plants, companies and construction projects without paying decent salaries, constituting slave labor, a civic group said Wednesday.Seoul-based Open North Korea unveiled a report based on findings from 18 defectors who had been mobilized to work at construction sites, factories and other locations run by the regime or military. Under a system called “dolgyeokdae,” or “storm troopers,” authori

Despite its still nascent foray into low-carbon development, the Global Green Growth Institute is seeking to introduce comprehensive planning frameworks for each member country this year, its new chief said Tuesday. Frank Rijsberman, who took the helm of the Seoul-based multinational organization this week, said that it was ready to capitalize on what is called the GGGI value chain. The chain begins with macroeconomic analyses then progresses to green growth planning, project development and eve

North Korea’s fifth nuclear test has kindled a fresh round of debates around Washington, with former administration officials and academics differing over how to rein in the Kim Jong-un regime’s relentless development of weapons of mass destruction. As Pyongyang appears to be near the “nuclear threshold,” some scholars raised the need to restart talks, citing the constraints of international sanctions in thwarting the communist state’s military ambition given its deeply isolated economy and Chin

The Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the closure of a national bar examination that has long been a source of public debate over social mobility and individual freedom of career choices.  The appeal was brought last March by a group of students who claim the current National Bar Examination Act, which calls for the “sasi” system to be terminated after 2017, is unconstitutional because it limits the freedom of occupational choices, and the rights to equality and hold public offi

In the aftermath of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, the US is pushing other countries to cut off or scale down diplomatic and economic relations with the defiant regime, a senior official said Wednesday. Daniel Russel, assistant secretary for Asian and Pacific affairs at the US State Department, said the measure is aimed at further isolating the country that views diplomatic meetings and visits as “important markers of its international legitimacy.” Daniel Russel, assistant secretary for Asian

The following is the first in a series of articles featuring the impact of the landmark anti-corruption law that took effect Wednesday. -- EdAs a watershed anti-graft act came into force Wednesday, Korea’s public officials, businesspeople and teachers alike were seen cautiously picking their lunch place. The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act bans members of civil agencies, private educational institutions and media from giving and receiving free meals, presents or monetary gifts respectively w

South Korea on Tuesday welcomed the US’ imposition of sanctions on a Chinese firm suspected to have provided financial services and illicit goods that may have helped beef up North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. The US Treasury on Monday blacklisted Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development, an industry machinery wholesaler, and four of its executives, including founder Ma Xiaohong. The Department of Justice also laid criminal charges against them for “conspiring to evade” its sanctions and

Fresh allegations surfaced Monday about a nonprofit fund that is at the core of an influence-peddling scandal involving close confidants of President Park Geun-hye, claiming that the organization was orchestrating an overseas aid program even before its formal launch. During a regular parliamentary audit, Rep. Kim Kyung-hyup of the main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea argued that the Mir Foundation requested some professors of an academic-industrial team at Ewha Womans University last Novem

Despite the tightening global squeeze on North Korea, Seoul and Washington should narrow their policy objectives and reinitiate engagement in tandem to give the communist state substantive incentives to change course, a renowned US scholar told The Korea Herald. Frank Jannuzi, president and chief executive of the Mansfield Foundation, raised the need for the allies to refine their current North Korea policies, especially after their respective presidential elections, while shoring up sanctions a

As Pyongyang spurs its nuclear development with its fifth nuclear test, South Korea and the US should fine-tune their pressure-focused North Korea policies and seek fresh ways to put a brake on the regime’s weapons program, experts said Thursday. Dozens of renowned analysts from the US, China, Japan and other countries gathered in Seoul for a conference hosted by the Korea Institute for National Unification. Under the theme “Rapidly changing East Asian order and the Korean Peninsula,” they asses

Some lawmakers on Wednesday stepped up their calls for a redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea as a countermove to the North’s evolving threats, though top government officials ruled out its possibility under the denuclearization principle. The second day of the parliamentary questioning on foreign and North Korean affairs focused on the deepening security crisis following North Korea’s latest nuclear test, along with plans to install advanced US missile defense assets here

With North Korea reeling from the worst floods in decades, debate is heating up here as to whether Seoul should provide humanitarian relief despite heightened tension following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test. The North’s state media has said the floods caused by recent torrential rains in the country’s north had forced nearly 70,000 to flee their homes, calling it the “worst disaster” since its 1945 liberation. A UN agency tallied the casualties as at least 138 deaths and 400 vanishings. To hel

In its latest report on worldwide displacement, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number of forcibly displaced persons in 2015 at an all-time high of 65.3 million. About 12.4 million people were newly displaced last year, which means that every minute, 24 people were forced to flee their homes. If the forcibly displaced were to constitute a country of their own, they would make up the world’s 21st biggest nation. It is not difficult to imagine the colossal human pain and grief behin

The two Koreas are poised to face off at the UN this week as tension continues to intensify following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, with Seoul ramping up its push for stiffer international sanctions. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se arrived in New York over the weekend to deliver a keynote address at the General Assembly and hold some 15 rounds of bilateral and multilateral talks with his counterparts from the US, Japan and other countries. Atop his agenda is rallying member states

Amid the escalation of the Cold War, David Lassiter, then a 22-year-old college student in international relations, landed at Gimpo airport in 1966 as part of the maiden batch of US Peace Corps volunteers tasked with aiding South Korea’s post-war reconstruction. A lover of Chinese food who had not traveled outside the US and who was largely ignorant of Korean society, he came directly into solitude, homesickness and “culture shock,” among other snags, as soon as he began teaching English at Euij

With ripples from North Korea’s latest nuclear test continuing to spread throughout the region, speculation surfaced Monday that the communist state may be gearing up to detonate another fission device in defiance of international condemnation. Friday’s underground explosion as well as the previous three rounds occurred in the second of the three tunnels installed at the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex in the northwest town of Punggye, leaving the others ready for additional blasts, Seoul’s Def

As Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test highlighted its threats, Seoul is coming under mounting pressure for an overhaul of its North Korea policy that critics say has failed to deter the regime’s military ambitions while eroding room for its own maneuvering. Despite its earlier introduction of a series of bold inter-Korean initiatives, the Park Geun-hye government has turned hard line, in particular after the North detonated a fission bomb for the fourth time last January, followed by another success