President Park Geun-hye delivers a congratulatory speech at the launching ceremony of the new high-speed KTX Honam line at Songjeong Station in Gwangju on Wednesday. (Yonhap)

Global tech giant Samsung Electronics has begun granting its employees more flexibility in scheduling their work hours in an aim to promote a more creative and efficient office culture.Starting from late March, all employees at Samsung Electronics, excluding factory workers at the production sites, are able to freely adjust their working hours. The only requirement is that they work at least four hours a day, and fill 40 hours each week.The new work policy goes a step further in granting employe

A new high-speed KTX train service connecting Seoul and Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province will launch Thursday, according to the Korea Railroad Corp.The new KTX train will transport passengers between Seoul and Pohang in roughly two hours and 30 minutes, cutting the travel time by train by more than three hours. Previously, it took passengers riding on the Saemaeul train five hours and 20 minutes to travel the same distance.The Seoul-Pohang KTX service, which has been launched as part of the G

SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, will launch a new online B2B trading platform in April to better facilitate the exchange of telecommunications goods and services between local and international companies. SK Telecom’s new platform will handle transactions for company stocks, new, used and refurbished items and the company’s equipment such as network service tools and servers, as well as other electronic goods. The B2B trading platform will strictly operate as a closed system, o

The 10 South Koreans who were evacuated from Yemen have landed safely in Djibouti, officials here said Sunday.The defense ministry said eight civilians and two embassy staffers checked into a hotel in Djibouti around 6:30 p.m. Friday local time, or 12:30 a.m. Sunday in Korean time, having flown in on a U.N. plane. It said two South Korean military liaison officers based in Djibouti helped the South Koreans once they arrived in the African nation.According to the ministry, the liaison officers ha

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into former Chung-Ang University president Park Bum-hoon over allegations that the official granted special privileges to the university while he worked as a senior secretary to former President Lee Myung-bak.On Friday, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office raided Park’s home, Chung-Ang University’s administrative and foundation offices and the Ministry of Education after reportedly receiving intelligence documents about the official’s suspecte

In a move to boost Korean soldiers’ sense of honor and duty, all military uniforms will display the Korean national flag within this year, the Ministry of Defense said Thursday.“We came up with the measure to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Korea’s independence and to encourage military personnel to feel more pride about their service,” Defense Ministry deputy spokesperson Na Seng-yong said at a news briefing.Currently, only select groups ― Korean soldiers assigned to the Korean Augmentation

An arsonist attempted to start a fire at the Korean Cultural Center in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday night, the South Korean embassy in Japan said Thursday.The suspect reportedly poured oil onto the building’s outer wall and immediately fled the scene after lighting a fire, according to the center’s CCTV footage.An official of the Korea Tourism Organization in the building reported to the fire authorities after discovering blackened spots on the wall on Wednesday. There were no casualties or signifi

A total of 30 universities in South Korea currently offer diverse undergraduate and graduate programs which focus on nurturing multicultural specialists, according to recent figures from the Ministry of Justice.Nine universities including Sun Moon University, Chongshin University and Konyang Cyber University operate departments aimed at fostering experts specializing in multicultural social work and education, while 21 others offer related Masters and Ph.D. programs, the ministry said Tuesday.St

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will begin issuing yellow and ultrafine dust warning alerts and guidelines to international schools in Seoul in six languages, the city announced Wednesday.Some 12,000 foreign teachers and students at 22 international kindergartens and schools will begin receiving dust alerts and guidelines in English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Mongolian from next month.Foreign teachers will receive text message alerts whenever a yellow dust or ultrafine dust warning

A Seoul court on Sunday ruled in favor of a university’s decision not to renew the contract of a foreign professor, after she was found to have ridiculed her students’ English essays on social media.The Seoul Administrative Court recognized Ewha Womans University’s refusal to rehire its former employee last year as legal, stating that “the professor failed to maintain proper conduct as an educator.”In September 2013, the former professor posted several remarks on her Facebook mocking grammatical

Policymakers and ruling party lawmakers agreed to minimize the possibly growing burden of low-income households in the coming overhaul of the national health insurance system. During their meeting on Friday, the relevant ministries and the Saenuri Party said they would seek protective measures for low-income earners by setting a reasonable minimum insurance fee that would prevent the low-income bracket from being saddled with a higher payment obligation. The Ministry of Health initially proposed

Environment Minister Yoo Seong-kyu on Wednesday sidestepped the mounting criticism over Seoul’s recent decision to shoulder the costs of cleaning up two U.S. military bases, saying attention should be focused on environmental restoration.“From the ministry’s perspective, environmental remediation is the foremost concern, even if protocol dictates that the party which caused the environmental pollution must be responsible for the cleanup costs,” Yoon said in a press conference.“Who carries out th

One of the most salient social problems plaguing Korea today is violence and bullying in schools. A new Korean TV drama is seeking to address the issue with the story of a mother who, after discovering that her precious daughter is a victim of school violence, decides to take matters into her own hands by putting on a high school uniform and enrolling in her daughter’s school as a student.MBC’s new series, “Angry Mom,” which is comical at times and serious at others, aims to open a discussion on

Crazy Horse Paris, an internationally renowned performance house from France, will officially make its way to Seoul next month to perform its signature nude cabaret show in the country, organizers announced Monday.Popularly known as “Le Crazy,” the French cabaret house recently gained final approval from the Korean authorities to stage its famous artistic nude show here for audiences over age 19, according to W&FUN. Crazy Horse Paris, considered one of France’s hallmark cabaret houses alongside

South Korean IT company Will-Be Solution Inc. is expanding its business in Vietnam with its high technology and market specialization, company officials said this week.The company already won a database management project with the State Bank of Vietnam last year, beating out key competitors including international IT giants such as IBM, Oracle and SAP among others, the company said.The project includes developing the bank’s central data infrastructure as well as managing and building the financi

A memorial service honoring the late sociologist Ulrich Beck, considered one of Germany’s most renowned intellectuals for his academic works on modernity and future society, will take place in Seoul next week.Joongmin Foundation for Social Theory will hold a commemorative event for Beck, who recently died at age 70 on Jan. 1, under the title “Beyond Risk Society” at the Korea Press Center on Mar. 17, the foundation announced Thursday.Beck first gained prominence for his work “Risk Society: Towar

Im Kwon-taek, one of South Korea’s most renowned film directors, voiced strong concern over the future of the Busan International Film Festival, whose longtime programmer and chief is stepping down after clashes with government authorities over censorship issues. “The current situation is simply deplorable,” Im, 79, said at a public hearing in Seoul on Tuesday regarding recent events surrounding the festival. “As a director who creates and submits his works to film festivals, I wonder who would

Lotte Group has established a joint fund worth 1 trillion won with the state-run National Pension Service in an effort to boost its M&A deals overseas, the group announced Monday.The two parties each contributed 500 billion won to form the joint fund, which is now registered with the Financial Supervisory Service, according to Lotte.The fund will function so that each time Lotte Group acquires a foreign company through an M&A or invests in a new business, the National Pension Service will match

The U.S. is now conducting a thorough review of the APR1400 reactor model, developed by the state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, to determine whether to officially certify its design, the state power operator said Tuesday.The so-called next-generation reactor model ― with larger capacity, longer life span and less costs ― passed a preliminary screening by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.The NRC’s final approval would pave the way for South Korea to export the reactor to the Un