Seoul Metro CEO Chang Jung-woo resigned Friday over the subway collision on Line 2 that injured more than 246 people last week. A train rear-ended another at Sangwangsimni Station on Seoul’s busiest subway line on May 2. The operator said the accident was caused by an apparent mechanical malfunction of its signal system. A second accident Thursday on Line 1 is likely to have increased the pressure for Chung to resign. “(Those involved) will be held responsible,” Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said in

A few weeks ago, before the ferry Sewol sank, I interviewed a theater director from Germany. He had just finished a show in Gwangju during which staff and audience members asked questions to 100 citizens, all nonactors, on stage, conducting an instant opinion poll. What came as a shock, said the director, were the answers to the question, “Who here believes that news reports are manipulated?”“Surprisingly, the vast majority said yes,” he said. To me, it wasn’t surprising at all. During my 10-plu

Prosecutors have indicted former STX Group chairman Kang Duk-soo over alleged business malpractice and embezzlement, officials said Thursday. Kang was accused of illegally funneling funds from STX Heavy Industries Co., a financially troubled shipbuilder, to support other affiliates in trouble. He was also suspected to have misappropriated company money to bribe political circles. The Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office said in its interim report that Kang allegedly made undue profits with fabricat

Seoul City released Thursday a five-year support plan for foreign residents as part of efforts to better protect their human rights and boost their quality of life here. As of this year, some 395,000 foreigners reside in the capital, accounting for 3.9 percent of the city’s population. To secure human rights more effectively, the city established a special human rights team specifically for foreign residents in February, which is the first started by the municipal government in the country. The

Police plan to summon two officials of a Seoul subway operator Thursday for questioning over their handling of signal errors detected hours before a recent train collision that injured over 200 passengers.The summonses are part of the ongoing investigations into what caused the accident in which a moving train rammed into the rear of another train that had stopped at Sangwangsimni Station due to mechanical problems on Friday afternoon. Some 238 people suffered minor injuries.The investigation te

The government said Thursday it will seek to permanently remove the operator of the sunken ferry Sewol from the related industry.The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said it will revoke the operation license of Chonghaejin Marine Co. for its Incheon-Jeju Island route following the deadly sinking of a ferry en route to the southern resort island on April 16.The ministry said it will also press the company to voluntarily give up its operation license for two other routes -- between Incheon and wes

INCHEON (Yonhap) – Prosecutors said on Wednesday they have requested arrest warrants for two close aides of the de-facto owner of the sunken ferry Sewol as part of their expanded probe into multiple corruption allegations surrounding the owner family.Prosecutors suspect the two – Go Chang-hwan, head of Semo Group, and Byeon Ki-choon, head of Semo's shipbuilding unit Chonhaiji – inflicted losses on their firms to help the owner family create slush funds.They are deemed close aides of Yoo Byung-eu

The concept of time may be a difficult one to grasp, but for everyday purposes there is a standardized system that keeps the world ticking. In Korea, however, some things run on a different scale, Korean time. “Korean time” describes the widespread tardiness or, more specifically, the relaxed attitude with which Koreans approach appointment times. Being a few minutes late to an appointment without giving prior notice is almost the norm among friends, and even being late by an hour or more is not