Rival parties agreed Monday to launch this week a parliamentary investigation into allegations that the state spy agency meddled in last year’s presidential election.The probe, which will run for 45 days starting on Tuesday, will look into allegations that former National Intelligence Service chief Won Sei-hoon ordered an online smear campaign to sway public opinion in favor of the ruling party ahead of the Dec. 19 election.The probe is also expected to focus on former Seoul metropolitan police

Heavy rain is expected to pour out across the nation this week, starting Tuesday in Gyeonggi {rovince and western regions first and other areas later. The precipitation will hit Seoul and the Gyeonggi Province area hardest, with 150 millimeters, while 30-120 millimeters of rainfall is forecast in other regions. Some thunder and lightning is anticipated in the Seoul and Gyeonggi region until Wednesday and in southern parts until Thursday for two days. The intense heat will be alleviated with belo

If the past is any guide, President Park Geun-hye’s plan to build a peace park in the Demilitarized Zone may be close to infeasible. Previous attempts by governments to bring symbols of peace into the no-man’s land, fortified with heavy arms and strewn with land mines, ended in smoke. Worse, inter-Korean ties are at one of the lowest ebbs in recent years.But regional governments bordering the 4-kilometer-wide buffer zone are brimming with hopes and already embarking on plans to host the envision

The prosecution on Monday detained a former Democratic Party member who locked in an intelligence agent last year accused of conducting an online smear campaign against an opposition candidate during the presidential election.The man, identified by his surname Chung, continued to defy the prosecution’s summonses, an official said.The ruling Saenuri Party and a National Intelligence Service official surnamed Kim have filed complaints against him and other DP members who allegedly kept her from le

From ecological farms to flea markets to after-school institutes, local cooperatives are sprouting up in many districts in Seoul. About 500 neighborhood groups are currently supported by the city government’s “village community” program initiated by Mayor Park Won-soon, a former progressive civic activist.But his pet project has recently been embroiled in political controversy, with conservatives suspecting some of the organizations as hotbeds of leftists and potential support bases for the mayo

Tensions between the ruling and main opposition parties escalated Monday as the two sides argued over whether to disclose the original version of a summit transcript containing late South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s controversial remarks on the disputed Yellow Sea border with North Korea.Last week, the National Intelligence Service disclosed its copy of the transcript amid the ruling Saenuri Party’s claims that Roh had tried to scrap the western sea border, called the Northern Limit Line, in

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korean police say a local man is responsible for prank 911 calls that prompted school lockdowns in New Jersey last year.The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Monday in a statement that a 19-year-old surnamed Lee made calls from South Korea to a New Jersey communications center and threatened to use an AK-47 to kill students at Hackettstown High School.The calls led schools in the northwestern New Jersey town and at Centenary College to keep students inside for

Japanese activists held a protest on Monday to criticize their government for failing to respond to a U.N. body’s call to put an end to attempts to deny the fact that the former comfort women were sex slaves.According to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, Amnesty International Japan and other organizations held a demonstration in front of an office building of Japanese Parliament members. The protestors decried Tokyo’s stance against the recent recommendation by the U.N. Committee against Torture

 Personal information from roughly 100,000 people was leaked in a recent hacking attack on the presidential office, a presidential official said Sunday, in the first confirmed data leakage involving the top South Korean office.   The official said the compromised information includes names, birth dates, identification numbers and offline addresses and Internet Protocol addresses, which are the online equivalent of street addresses or phone numbers.   Still, users' passwords and their registratio

The government plans to give certified foreign entrepreneurs looking to set up a company in Korea wider leeway to receive a visa, as part of efforts to stimulate foreign investment, the Justice Ministry said on Sunday.According to the proposed revision to the enforcement decree of the Immigration Control Act, an “entrepreneurship visa” will be granted as part of the corporate investment visa (D-8) to foreigners who hold at least a bachelor’s degree, have earned an intellectual property right and

More women and older workers are taking up irregular jobs in South Korea, showing that the “socially weaker” group remains less protected in the employment market, a report showed Sunday.Of all irregular workers, 53.8 percent were women as of March this year, a 5.2 percentage point rise from 48.6 percent in 2007, the Korea Employment Information Service said.The percentage of women holding regular jobs, meanwhile, declined to 37.7 percent from 38.4 percent during the same period.The ratio of mal

A South Korean man was shot dead in the Philippines on Saturday, said the South Korean embassy in Cebu City.The victim surnamed Jeong was shot twice in the head by two unidentified assailants around 3:00 p.m. (local time) on his way out after having a cup of tea with his colleagues. Jeong died on the spot.According to the local police and witnesses, the two gunmen who were seemingly Filipinos took off on their motorbikes after firing five to six times toward Jeong and his driver. Jeong‘s driver

The government will strengthen its early response to domestic violence calls and toughen punishment for uncooperative assailants, officials said Friday, as part of efforts to curb the recent upward trend in the number of domestic abuse cases.The government will also make it a rule for police to be accompanied by a professional counselor when called to a scene of a domestic violence case, they said.The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced these and other measures after a government po

Labor and management failed to agree on the minimum wage level for next year in their last-minute talks by the legal deadline on Thursday. The two sides came up with compromise proposals at the sixth meeting of Minimum Wage Council but failed to narrow differences, officials said. The 27-member panel consists of the same numbers of union, business and public interest representatives. When the negotiations began in April, labor unions demanded a 21.6 percent increase to 5,910 won ($5.18) per hour