The prosecution questioned Cho Hyun-joon, the eldest son of Hyosung Group chairman Cho Suck-rai, to investigate suspected tax evasion, slush funds and accounting fraud, officials said Thursday.The country’s 26th-largest business group is suspected of having evaded corporate taxes worth 1 trillion won ($900 million) since 1997 by manipulating accounting records and setting up paper companies in overseas tax havens.Earlier this month, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office questioned the H

Seoul City and police have designated some 600 spots in the city for strengthened measures against sex crimes. Police patrols will be enhanced in the areas including secluded residential towns, neighborhood parks, entertainment streets and construction sites, the city government said Thursday. A total of 340 extra surveillance cameras will be installed in the areas. All 25 districts and police will share images under an integrated system, helping monitor about 25,000 cameras at the same time.(re

A Seoul court on Thursday accepted state prosecutors' second request to press additional charges against a former national intelligence chief accused of meddling in last year's presidential election.Won Sei-hoon, who headed the National Intelligence Service (NIS) under former President Lee Myung-bak, was indicted in May on charges of leading an online smear campaign to sway public opinion ahead of the Dec. 19 poll in favor of President Park Geun-hye, the then ruling Saenuri Party candidate.A tea

K-pop star Rain is under investigation by prosecutors on charges of violating the military code of conduct during his mandatory service, prosecution officials said Thursday.The probe comes after an unidentified person had filed a charge against the 30-year-old singer, whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon, for spending too many days off duty before being discharged in July, they said.All able-bodied South Korean men are required to serve about two years in the armed forces.Rain spent 21 months as an "

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the education ministry that seeks to nullify a controversial ordinance that protects the human rights of students.Aimed at expanding students' rights at school, the student human rights ordinance bans corporal punishment by teachers as well as discrimination against homosexual and pregnant students, allows rallies on school grounds and gives students the freedom to choose their own hairstyles and clothing.The Seoul Metropolitan Office of

A local nuclear reactor was once again shut down for what appeared to be mechanical flaws, elevating concerns about the nation’s power supply situation this winter.Kori Reactor 1, located in Busan, halted operation at 1:18 a.m. on Thursday due to “problems in its turbine system,” according to the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corp.The number of inactive nuclear reactors in Korea thus increased from five to six out of 23, including Shin-Kori Reactors 1 and 2, which were involved in a certificate fo

Police investigating a deadly gas leak at a local power plant found on Wednesday that employees did not comply with safety rules before the accident which left one dead and three others in critical condition. The incident occurred at Hyundai Greenpower in Dangin, South Chungcheong Province, on Tuesday evening.Police said six out of the nine workers on the scene didn’t wear gas detectors. One worker was poisoned by the gas while doing maintenance work on the plant’s boiler. His co-worker, who cam

A Seoul court on Wednesday extended the suspension of imprisonment of food and entertainment conglomerate CJ Group chairman by another three months, citing his poor health, court officials said.The custody suspension of Lee Jay-hyun, who has been staying at a Seoul hospital since being temporarily released from prison in August, will be extended until Feb. 28, said the officials at the Seoul Central District Court.The 53-year-old Lee, who underwent a key transplant surgery, will stand trial with

A public organization voluntarily cut the annual salaries of its top executives by 30 percent after the government vowed to strictly monitor lax management of public organizations, the Labor Ministry said Wednesday.The Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association, under the wing of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, said it has decided to cut next year’s annual salaries of its top executives by an average of 30.1 percent and lower-level executives by an average of 10 percent, the ministry said

Defector-turned-lawmaker Cho Myung-chul on Wednesday sued for defamation a university professor who called for the execution of North Korean escapees.In a news briefing held at the National Assembly, Cho accused Yoon Jae-man, a Daegu University professor, of defamation and called his remarks in messenger app KakaoTalk "shocking." He said a complaint has been filed with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, calling for a probe into the matter.The progressive scholar allegedly characteri

A fatal gas leak at a local power plant left one dead and three others in critical condition on Tuesday, local authorities said.Police here in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, about 120 kilometers south of Seoul, said the leak at Hyundai Greenpower's plant at around 7 p.m. Tuesday killed a worker surnamed Yang. Eight others were transferred to Dangjin Hospital, with three of them said to be in critical condition.Police believe that one worker was doing maintenance work on the plant's boiler

The rate of sex crimes among juveniles has hiked by fivefold in Seoul in the last three years, data showed Tuesday. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s report, the number of sexual assault cases jumped from 21 to 107 between 2010 and 2012. The number for this year reached 66 as of the end of July, putting it on track to exceed last year’s figure. While the number of cases stayed around 30 to 40 before 2012, the figure started to increase sharply, apparently as a result of v

SYDNEY/SEOUL (Yonhap News) ― An Australian teenager has been caught as a suspect in the brutal battering to death of a South Korean woman in Brisbane, police in Australia and Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.According to the Queensland Police Service, the 19-year-old man named Alex Reuben McEwan was arrested on Monday on charges of killing the 22-year-old South Korean woman and abandoning her body at Wickham Park the previous day. He faced the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday, accordin

The South Korean Cabinet approved a motion Tuesday calling for the dispatch of some 500 troops to the Philippines to help with relief efforts in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.Last week, Seoul announced plans to send troops comprised of doctors, engineers and other supporting forces to Tacloban, the city hit hardest by the typhoon.Under the motion, the troops will be tasked with carrying out relief missions and providing humanitarian support in the affected areas.Up to 540 troops will operate i