Twitter, a U.S. microblogging service provider, has won a lawsuit against a Korean website address owner over the use of the corporate name “Twitter,” officials said on Sunday. The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of Twitter in the lawsuit lodged by the Korean owner of the domain www.twitter.co.kr. A 42-year-old man surnamed Ko filed a suit last year, after the Internet address Dispute Resolution Committee nullified the defendants’ right to the domain name. Ko claimed that he did not

Prosecutors declared an all-out war on organized crime groups on Friday as they are expanding into various sectors of society.Veteran prosecutors from district prosecutors' offices across the country gathered at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in southern Seoul to discuss ways to effectively clamp down on the organized crimes, SPO officials said."The prosecution, armed with new investigative techniques, will launch an extensive crackdown on organized gangs, which are evolving," said Yun Gap-guen

In a landmark ruling, a Seoul court ordered the government to compensate a group of farmers who were forced to give up their land during former President Park Chung-hee’s dictatorial rule, officials said Thursday.The Seoul High Court ruled on Feb. 11 in favor of the 291 farmers, awarding 65 billion won ($60 million) in compensation based on the land’s value in 1988. Including the 5 percent annual interest tallied at about 45 billion won, the total compensation is estimated to surpass 110 billion

Authorities investigating a deadly gym collapse in Gyeongju said Thursday that the owner of the facility had ignored the city office’s demand to remove snow from the roof days before the accident.Investigators at the North Gyeongsang police agency said they had secured statements from a Gyeongju city government official that he had told Mauna Ocean Resort by phone to clear the snow four days before the accident happened. Managers at the resort said they did not clear the snow, officials said.The

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won ordered officials Thursday to sternly punish those responsible for the deadly collapse of a student-packed gymnasium and to devise fundamental safety measures, his office said.On Monday, 10 people were killed and 105 others injured, as the roof of the gymnasium at a mountainside resort in Gyeongju, a tourist city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, caved in. Some 560 incoming freshmen from the Busan University of Foreign Studies were gathered inside the building for

The first batch of South Korean survivors from a suspected terrorist attack in Egypt returned home Wednesday, three days after the bombing killed four people aboard a tourist bus.The bus was carrying 31 South Korean tourists along with Korean and Egyptian tour guides in Egypt's bustling tourist destination of Sinai Peninsula when an identified man boarded the bus and detonated explosives in an apparent suicide attack.The attack killed three South Koreans and the Egyptian bus driver. The bomber w

President Park Geun-hye called Wednesday for aggressively lifting or relaxing restrictions related to the use of land, saying such regulations are directly related to investment and easing them is crucial to boosting the economy.Park made the remark during a joint policy briefing by the land, maritime and environment ministries, saying the three agencies hold the key to success in the government’s deregulation campaign as their land use-related restrictions account for more than one-third of all

“Dokdo,” South Korea’s name for its easternmost islets, was used together with the Japanese name “Takeshima” in a U.S. Congressional Research Service report amid frosty relations between Seoul and Tokyo, sparking concerns that this may benefit Japan. The U.S. congressional report’s adoption of the dual names for the Dokdo Islets came as some U.S. lawmakers are pushing for the use of “the East Sea” along with “the Sea of Japan” in textbooks, led by the state of Virginia.The CRS reports, which pro

PHNOM PENH ― Leading media academic institutions from five Asian countries have reached an agreement to forge a regional collaboration on media education that will prepare Asia for a new era.The five are the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at Philippines’ Ateneo de Manila University, the Statesman Print Journalism School from India, Nation University’s Faculty of Communication Arts from Thailand, Royal University of Phnom Penh’s Department of Media and Communication from Cambodia and

A fire swept through a housing facility for Korean-Chinese residents in Seoul on Monday, killing two people and injuring six, authorities said. The two killed were identified as residents surnamed Choo, 90, and Jeon, 81, while six others were hospitalized with injuries including burns and smoke inhalation. The fire near the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Supyo-dong, Jung-gu, started around 10 p.m. on Monday night, and firefighters brought the blaze under control around 11 p.m.The flames engulfed all o

A district court on Wednesday sentenced a son of convicted Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn to eight months in prison with a two-year stay of execution for smoking marijuana.The Incheon District Court handed down the suspended sentence to the 28-year-old defendant, the second of the disgraced chairman's three sons, for smoking marijuana four times between November 2010 and July 2012.The junior Kim was also ordered to undergo 40 hours of treatment program and pay a fine of 400,000 won ($380).

Prosecutors launched a probe into allegations that evidence against a former civil servant accused of spying for North Korea was forged."We will carry out the investigation in a thorough and swift manner," a senior prosecutor said.The announcement came after defense lawyers claimed a key piece of evidence against Yoo Woo-seong -- a Chinese national in North Korea who arrived in South Korea by disguising himself as a North Korean defector -- was fabricated.The 34-year-old suspect was indicted las