A handful of plants struggle to grow in a tiny garden in the backyard of a caf. Urban farmer Park Jeong-ja gazes in awe. The withered branches in crumbly soil are staging a spectacular battle to survive the long winter, urban pollution and dry weather.“In plants like this, we see a struggle for life. People rarely catch the changes in plant life, but some actively try to find them out,” the 49-year-old woman said.To many like Park, farm work is not only about growing food but also offers escape

Organic foods are neither far from home nor prohibitively pricy anymore. With growing popularity of urban farming, local food markets are mushrooming in metropolitan cities offering better access to healthy, safe and quality agricultural products.Behind the boom are support from government, dedicated communities and consumers increasingly aware of the environment and more sensitive about what they eat in the wake of a series of bad food scandals. Sing Sing Dream, which opened last year in Gangdo

Nearly 18 percent of high-ranking officials in the Park Geun-hye administration and lawmakers saw their assets rise above 100 million won ($935,000) last year, a state report showed on Friday. 　Up to 18.2 percent of 2,339 senior officials at government branches said their assets grew significantly, with most of them serving in the judicial branches, according to the Government Public Ethics Committee. On average, 60.8 percent of high-ranking civil servants and lawmakers held more assets than the

The prosecution withdrew the allegedly forged evidence against former Seoul City official Yoo Woo-seong on Thursday, effectively admitting that the documents were fabricated. Yoo, a North Korean-Chinese who came to the South in 2004, is accused of spying for Pyongyang. Although the case was initially thrown out for lack of evidence, the prosecution appealed using Chinese government documents secured by the National Intelligence Service. However, allegations surfaced that the documents, including

Police sought arrest warrants Thursday for six men in connection with the collapse of a poorly built resort facility that killed 10 university students.The snow-covered roof of the gymnasium facility at the Mauna Ocean Resort in the historical tourist city of Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, caved in on Feb. 17 during a freshmen welcoming party. The incident also injured 204 others. Announcing the final result of an investigation into the case, a special police investigation team said arrest

A gas leakage at a Samsung facility in southern Seoul sparked by a malfunction of the fire extinguishing system left one worker dead, local authorities id Thursday, raising concerns over the safety conditions at the country’s top tech giant amid a series of similar accidents.Local police and fire authorities said the building’s safety system released carbon dioxide after it wrongly detected fire, suffocating a 52-year-old man who worked for a partner company of Samsung.Officials from a local hos

South Korean prosecutors in the espionage trial of a North Korea defector said Thursday they have withdrawn evidence allegedly forged by Seoul's intelligence agency. The evidence, which includes Chinese immigration records and two documents issued by Chinese authorities, was earlier announced by the Chinese Embassy here as fake. The finding prompted speculation that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had fabricated the key evidence and handed it over to the prosecution to frame the defector

A man has been living with a knife lodged in his forehead for a month, according to the Jinju police, and it seems that he will be stuck that way for some time. A man surnamed Yeo stabbed the 49-year-old victim in the face last month after the two got into an argument in an office in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. Yeo attacked the victim for telling a worksite overseer that Yeo had left the site during work hours. The victim was transported to four different hospitals, including Seoul ASAN Me

Childbirths in South Korea fell for the 13th straight month in January, adding to the concern over the country’s chronically low birthrate, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the number of babies born in January came to about 41,400, down 6.3 percent or 2,800 from the same month a year earlier. This marked the 13th straight month that childbirths have declined since January 2012.The latest childbirth report comes as South Korea is pushing to raise t

South Korea has seen the number of atopic dermatitis patients rise, especially among women, data showed Wednesday.According to the state-run National Health Insurance Service, the yearly average number of patients receiving atopic dermatitis treatment hit 1.04 million between 2008 and 2012, with over half of them women. Atopic dermatitis is an itchy skin disorder that is inflammatory and non-contagious. Patients show allergic reactions to particular foods or inhaled substances. The exact cause i