The Ministry of Defense is suspected of making a profit by selling videos made by its celebrity soldiers to their fans, an online news outlet in Seoul reported Friday.According to the eDaily, all “entertainment soldiers” are required to take an oath to uphold their duties, and the fourth clause of the oath states that the soldiers should give up all the intellectual rights of products they make during their service. Entertainment soldiers are those serving in an army unit that provides TV and ra

Choi Young-kil, who is on the nationwide wanted list for cashing a counterfeit check, has turned out to be a former police officer. The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said that Choi worked as a police officer from 1982 until he was fired at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Mobile Police Corps in 1990.An overseas travel ban has been placed on Choi, but he is speculated to have already fled Korea to avoid arrest. Choi and two other suspects cashed a forged 10 billion won ($ 8.73 million) ch

Jung Yong-jin, vice chairman of Shinsegae Group, won a lawsuit against an online media source, Dispatch, over privacy invasion.　The Supreme Court handed out a ruling on Thursday that Dispatch’s report on the private family meeting of Jung and his then-fiancée is a violation of privacy law and portrait rights.The court ordered Dispatch to remove its article and pay 15 million won ($13,000) in compensation.Dispatch published the article two years ago, after taking photos of Jung’s family gathering

As the summer vacation season begins, college students in South Korea are seeking part-time jobs to help pay for the next semester’s tuition. An increasingly popular choice is taking part in bioequivalent drug trials.Bioequivalent products are generic version of original patented drugs. Before they can be sold, drug firms have to test their products on human subjects to identify side effects.Some college students participate in the two-session experiments with each session requiring a three-day

Nearly 25 percent of adult citizens in Seoul are obese amid a lack of exercise, with the proportion on the rise for the fourth consecutive year in 2012, a report showed Thursday.According to the report by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 23.4 percent out of 23,165 surveyed citizens aged 19 or older were obese in 2012, with 31.6 percent among male citizens and 16.5 percent among women. The rate has been on a steady rise from 20.6 in 2008 when the municipal government began compiling related dat

The government plans to spend about 9 trillion won ($7.8 billion)over the next five years to sharply increase state insurance coverage for four major categories of illness.The Social Security Commission, a top government panel on welfare policies, discussed Wednesday the healthcare overhaul designed to relieve the financial burden of patients of cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disorder and rare and incurable diseases.Under the plan, patients’ average contribution to treatment costs for th

A 42-year-old South Korean man was arrested Wednesday on charges of smuggling methamphetamine disguised as snacks from the Philippines as airfreight.The officers at Hyehwa Police Department chased down a delivery on a tip-off about the drugs hidden under bags of dried banana chips.Ten grams of methamphetamine were discovered in the package that the suspect had ordered on June 21 to be delivered to his home in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.The suspect, surnamed Kim, is also under investigation for al

The government will implement tighter controls on the movement of citizens who have been caught buying or selling sex in foreign countries as part of efforts to effectively curb sex trafficking in and out of the country,officials said Wednesday.   Measures include expanding the scope of sex offenders who can be banned from traveling abroad to include those who have seriously damaged Korea's national image through their involvement in sex trafficking abroad, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Fa

The police said on Tuesday they would develop a biometric database of palm prints to better catch criminals. According to the Korean National Police Agency, forensic investigators will start to collect palm prints at crime scenes and register the physical evidence in a planned national database. The police will also develop an image-clarifying tool for easier identification of palm prints by the end of this year, officials said.Palm prints can help police solve cases with insufficient evidence,

Major universities in Seoul on Tuesday promised to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent of 2012 levels by 2017 in an agreement with the Seoul City government.They also agreed to implement measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and enhance education and campaigns to protect the environment. A total of 34 out of 42 four-year universities signed a memorandum of understanding with the metropolitan government for the green campus project. At the ceremony the schools adopted a joint declarat

South Korea had the highest level of martphone ownership in the world last year, backed by rising demand for the device and faster Internet networks, data showed on Tuesday.According to data compiled by Strategy Analytics, 67.6 of mobile consumers in the country had smartphones last year, the highest rate in the world. The global average was 14.8 percent. In 2011, South Korea ranked fourth with 38.3 percent smartphone ownership, a sharp rise from 14 percent and 2 percent, respectively, in 2010 a