The government has discovered additional cases of abuse of South Korean detainees in China and other countries from recent consular meetings prompted by a high-profile activist’s torture allegations, officials said Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry is interviewing all 1,169 Korean inmates around the world this month to see whether they were abused. Consuls have so far met with 175 prisoners in 14 countries including 13 out of 346 in China, a senior official told journalists. During the meetings, o

Rows over history, territory, N.K., torture put strain on relationsThis is the second in a series of articles to mark the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties between South Korea and China. ― Ed.China’s release of a Korean activist late last month was supposed to remove a sharp thorn in relations between the neighbors set to celebrate their 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties. But it was only the start of a new diplomatic spat as the former detainee, Kim Young-hwan, revealed torture and inhumane

Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan will host an “Iftar” dinner this week with a group of diplomats and business leaders here from Muslim countries, ministry officials said Tuesday.Iftar, which literally means “breakfast,” refers to the first meal Muslims have in the evening after a day of fasting on each day of the Ramadan month. The ministry has hosted the dinner since 2004 to promote ties with Muslim nations.About 40 ambassadors, business and religious leaders from the Organization of the Islamic

HONOLULU (AP) -- South Korea, Japan, and the United States will hold joint exercises in waters of Hawaii this week.The U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement Monday the drills will include a search-and-seizure exercise, a counter-piracy event, a search-and-rescue exercise and officer exchanges.Three U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships will participate. They are the guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal, the guided missile destroyer USS Chafee, the dry cargo ship USNS Matthew Perry and the cutter USC

Police on Tuesday sought warrants to arrest six aides to the disgraced former leader of the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party (UPP) on charges of tampering with a crucial voter survey ahead of April’s general elections.The UPP and the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) chose single joint candidates for the parliamentary elections based on the results of public surveys asking voters which contenders they favored.Police said the six aides of Lee Jung-hee, the former UPP co-chai

South Korea will launch a special fund to bankroll its potential unification with North Korea, the Unification Ministry said Tuesday, following the Cabinet‘s approval of a relevant revision bill.The revision bill calls for dividing the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund into two accounts -- one for promoting cross-border cooperation and the other for covering unification costs, said the ministry.The unification account, which will also draw funds from the government and private donations, will be uti

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected a military unit, the country‘s state news media reported Tuesday, as the South is gearing up for its annual joint military exercise with the U.S.“Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army Kim Jong-un inspected a sub-unit under KPA Unit 552,” the (North) Korean Central News Agency said in an English-language dispatch.The latest inspection visit, which came about two months after a similar military inspection by Kim in late May, has likely been mad

South Korea and Cambodia have agreed to share military supplies in peacekeeping and rescue operations as part of efforts to expand military ties between the two sides, the defense ministry here said Tuesday.Lee Seon-chul, the head of the South Korean defense ministry‘s logistics management bureau, and Army Lt. Gen. Chau Phirun, the chief supply officer at Cambodia’s defense ministry, signed the memorandum of understanding on the bilateral logistics cooperation in a meeting in Seoul.Under the agr

President Lee Myung-bak instructed the Cabinet Tuesday to be more aggressive with a sense of emergency in taking steps to cope with the global economic crisis, saying he sees little action despite many discussions on how to handle the situation.“As we have feared from the beginning of the year, this crisis could last for a long time,” Lee said during a Cabinet meeting, according to spokesman Park Jeong-ha. “Though we have held emergency meetings ... government measures are not seen in action."We

NEW YORK (Yonhap News) ― South Korea has garnered growing international support of its diplomatic efforts in the United Nations on the naming of the waters separating the Korean Peninsula and Japan, a senior diplomat said Tuesday.International organizations formally call the waters “the Sea of Japan” but South and North Korea contend the original name of the “East Sea” should be used at least concurrently.The two Koreas’ war of diplomacy against Japan has continued during the 10th U.N. Conferenc

More than 200 Korean language instructors from 52 countries began training on Tuesday to secure more modern, practical and effective teaching skills, the Overseas Koreans Foundation said. The state-run organization said it is hosting the eight-day program at Kyung Hee University’s Suwon campus in Gyeonggi Province, which also includes sessions for school management, leadership education and Korean culture. The participants are from Europe, the Americas, the Commonwealth of Independent States and

South Korea’s cabinet Tuesday endorsed a bill which sets up a special fund to cover the huge cost of potential reunification with North Korea.The bill calls for dividing the existing Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund into two accounts ― one for promoting cross-border cooperation and the other for covering unification costs, said the unification ministry.The bill, endorsed at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Lee Myung-Bak, needs approval from parliament.The unification account will draw funds f

Police said Tuesday that they plan to summon a lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party for questioning over allegations his aide received money from businessmen for illegal purposes.Police said they will work out the timing and other details of the planned investigation as Rep. Hong Moon-pyo is currently in London in his capacity as head of the Korea Hockey Association.Hong’s aide is accused of accepting up to 40 million won ($35,000) in 2008 from the head of a small agricultural newspaper, who in

INCHEON (Yonhap News) ― Police on Tuesday busted the nation’s largest known distribution ring of online pornography, allegedly involving a university professor and another man in his 70s.The arrest comes as police crack down on online distributors of sex videos and other pornography in the wake of a number of brutal sexual offenses against women and children.Three operators of a local file-sharing service were booked without physical detention on charges of recruiting people to upload porn and p

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) ― Vietnam’s president said his country would donate 5,000 tons of rice to flood-stricken North Korea, Vietnamese state media reported Tuesday.The pledge was made by President Truong Tan Sang in a meeting with North Korea’s visiting nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam in Hanoi on Monday, the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan reported.Flooding in North Korea has killed 169 people since late June, while leaving 400 missing and around 212,000 homeless.The paper quoted Sang as exp

North Korea has had a gun control law since 2009, recently obtained data showed Monday, in what was seen as an effort to tighten control over the society at a time of power succession.North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un was groomed as the successor to his ailing father Kim Jong-il, with the hereditary succession plan becoming official for the first time in 2010 when the young Kim was named as a four-star general in the military. Kim Jong-un took the helm of the communist country after the death

The minimum wage for North Korean workers at the South-run industrial complex park in the communist nation rose 5 percent over the past year, the same annual rate of increase since 2007, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday. The joint industrial park in the border city of Kaesong opened in 2004 as a symbol of cross-border reconciliation and has been in operation without any major interruptions despite high cross-border tensions between the two Koreas. The factory park’s management officials

Power consumption in North Korea remains at 1970s levels, data showed Monday, an indicator of economic hardships in one of the world’s most impoverished nations.The North’s per capita electricity consumption amounted to 819 kilowatt hours in 2008, below the yearly average of 919 in 1971, according to the data compiled by the South’s Statistics Korea.Power consumption in the North had been on the rise until the early 1990s, from 1,114 kilowatt hours per person in 1980 to 1,247 in 1990. But the up

The Chosun Taepung International Investment Group, North Korea’s official investment firm, has been disbanded due to sluggish foreign capital inflows amid tightened sanctions, a news report said Sunday. Citing an unnamed source familiar with the country’s inner workings, Yonhap News reported that the breakup took place in early May. The North’s state media last mentioned the company in late December when its president Pak Chol-su attended the funeral of its longtime autocrat, Kim Jong-il.Taepung

South Korea has come under mounting pressure as its dispute with China over the suspected torture of a North Korea human rights activist is showing no signs of abating, with both sides reiterating their own claims. Beijing on Friday again denied allegations that its investigators abused Kim Young-hwan during his detention, in response to Seoul’s request for a reinvestigation into his claims. During the 114-day confinement, Kim said he was tortured with electricity, beaten on the face, deprived o