The government said Wednesday that it will push to strip teachers of their licenses if they are jailed for sex crimes. Under the current law, teachers who are convicted of sex crimes can be sacked, but they are allowed to keep their teaching licenses.The stricter rule is part of the measures announced by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to prevent sex crimes. Sexual and violent crimes comminted by teachers have long been an issue in Korea, but critics pointed out the limitations of nom

The South Korean Supreme Court is set to hand down a ruling on Thursday on a high-profile embezzlement case involving the two brothers leading the country’s third-largest family conglomerate, court officials said. A lower court had sentenced SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won to four years behind bars for embezzling nearly 45 billion won ($42.2 million) from SK Group companies. His younger brother, Chey Jae-won, was sentenced to three years and six months in jail for collusion.The case has attracted

The amount of narcotics confiscated in South Korea jumped in 2013 as illegal drugs are smuggled in through increasingly diverse means, the customs office said Wednesday.The Korea Customs Service said in a report that it confiscated a total of 46.4 kilograms of drugs last year, up 38 percent from a year earlier.The amount is estimated at about 93 billion won ($86.6 million), up 46 percent from a year earlier, the KCS said. The amount and its value are the largest since 2004.The amount of confisca

South Korea expanded its travel advisory for the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday due to the possibility of further terrorist attacks following a deadly bombing attack there last week. Three South Koreans as well as one Egyptian were killed in the terrorism-suspected bombing attack on a tourist bus on Feb. 16 in the border region of the Sinai Peninsula, a biblical place that attracts Christian pilgrims from across the world.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it will expand travel restrictions to t

Police said Wednesday that they will announce this week the tentative results of their investigation into a gymnasium collapse that killed 10 people and injured 105 others.The roof of the gymnasium at the Mauna Ocean Resort in Gyeongju, a historic tourist city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, caved in on Feb. 17 while some 560 incoming freshmen from the Busan University of Foreign Studies were holding a welcome party inside the building."The tentative results of the investigation will be relea

A local Catholic rights group lodged a complaint against an official of the state intelligence agency and the prosecution on Wednesday for allegedly fabricating evidence to charge a North Korean defector with espionage.The case of Yoo Woo-seong, a 34-year-old former civil servant for the Seoul municipal government, has raised a political storm in South Korea amid mounting suspicions that the National Intelligence Service helped the prosecution obtain fake evidence, including documents purporting

The government will suspend the enforcement of a bill to reduce the workweek for up to two years even if it wins parliamentary approval this year, the labor minister said Wednesday.Last year, the government proposed a bill that would cut the maximum weekly working hours, including overtime and holiday work, to 52 hours from the current 68 hours.The bill is aimed at protecting employees from long working hours and improve the nation's economy through job sharing. South Korea has one of the world'

The construction cost of the gymnasium that collapsed in Gyeongju turned out higher than the initial estimate, authorities said on Tuesday, with the probe underway to identify whether the lethal accident was a result of shoddy construction. The police said on Tuesday that the total construction cost for Mauna Ocean Resort in Gyeongju, a city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, stood at around 400 million won ($374,000), which is higher than the 150 million won reported by local media in the immed

Seoul City on Tuesday issued what it called a “livelihood alert” following its disovery of a massive smishing scam that involves imposters claiming to raise money to award a gold medal to figure skater Kim Yu-na. Officials said that scammers send a text reading, “Thank you, Kim Yu-na. We will compensate for your robbed gold medal. Compensation of 30,000 won ($28),” along with the URL or Internet address, taking advantage of the public sentiment over the Olympic Games to cheat money out of smartp

The newly elected president of South Korea's second-largest TV network MBC took office on Tuesday, vowing to rebuild the company's status as one of the nation's most popular TV channels by providing differentiated programming.Ahn Kwang-han, who led MBC's cable TV unit, MBC Plus Media, was officially elected MBC's president in a shareholders' meeting on Friday. MBC's largest shareholder, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, has a 70 percent stake in the broadcaster."We'll focus on making high-qu

South Korea’s militant umbrella labor union, boasting a membership of 700,000, said on Monday it would hold a one-day strike as planned to protest the government’s oppression of workers and its plan to privatize public firms.The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said its members will stage the nationwide walkout on Tuesday, timed with the first anniversary of the Park Geun-hye administration. “This is just the beginning of our fight against the government’s plot to privatize the public sector

GYEONGJU, North Gyeongsang Province (Yonhap) ― Police said Monday that they have begun looking into whether structural flaws were to blame for last week’s gymnasium collapse that killed 10 people, most of them college students, and injured 105 others.The roof of the gymnasium at the Mauna Ocean Resort in Gyeongju, a historic tourist city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, caved in on Feb. 17 when some 560 incoming freshmen from the Busan University of Foreign Studies were holding a welcome party

More than 300 South Koreans emigrated last year, the lowest number since the government first began collecting relevant data in 1962, according to the Foreign Ministry. Nearly 80 percent, or 239 emigrants, relocated to the U.S. in 2013, while about 23 headed for Canada and 18 went to Australia, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among the emigrants, almost 60 percent left their home country for family reasons, while one-third of them went for jobs. The number of emigrants from South K