Health authorities said Tuesday they toughened quarantine inspections of passengers from Beijing and Henan province, as China confirmed that the new strain of bird flu, H7N9, had spread to its capital.Quarantine officials had been placing thermal image cameras only at arrival gates of flights and ferries coming from Shanghai and other eastern areas of China that previously had reports of human infection of the potentially fatal bird flu virus. The Ministry of Health and Welfare has also assigned

The government on Tuesday allowed North Korean defectors to work as experienced public servants in an effort to better embrace them as members of society.According to a revision of related rules endorsed by the Cabinet, the government can hire the North Korean defectors or naturalized citizens from overseas who have working experience in their home countries or hold a degree as civil servants. After a resume screening, the applicants will be interviewed, while being exempt from written examinati

A South Korean man was shot dead and another Korean was seriously injured in a shooting attack in Angeles City of the Philippines, a Seoul official said Tuesday. Unknown gunmen shot the two Korean nationals inside their car shortly after dining out in Angeles City on Monday, the foreign ministry official said. There was a third Korean national inside the car, but the third person only sustained a light injury, the official said. The motive for the attack was not yet known, and South Korea called

A Korean tourist who went missing while visiting Guam was attacked by a shark before he drowned, according to findings from an autopsy.Authorities identified the man as Nae Dok Kim, 40, Pacific Daily News reported Monday (http://bit.ly/XNkpKy ).He was last seen on the beach Saturday. Employees of Pacific Islands Club Guam had helped in the search, and lifeguards were asked to look out for any sight of him.Two fishermen found his remains floating the next day about 20 feet offshore in Tumon Bay.

The state-run Korea Gas Corp. said on Monday that its president and CEO Choo Kang-soo has offered to resign.In a press release, Choo said that he wants to step down to help South Korea open a "new era" following the inauguration of a new government, adding that he will follow the decision of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which oversees the gas monopoly.Choo served as vice president of a Hyundai unit and is known to be a close confidant to former President Lee Myung-bak, whose five-

Dozens of South Korean civic groups on Monday urged the two Koreas to defuse escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula by seeking a peaceful resolution through dialogue.Tensions have been simmering over the communist North's bellicose rhetoric and actions against the South and its allies after Pyongyang faced fresh U.N. sanctions for its third nuclear test on Feb. 12 and last month's joint military exercise between Seoul and Washington. An association of 24 progressive civic groups, including

The government and political parties reached an agreement Monday to readjust the proposed rules for real-estate tax breaks aimed at boosting the lackluster property market.The government has proposed that transaction tax for houses worth up to 900 million won ($799,000) and up to 85 square meters be exempted for five years.In a three-way meeting, representatives of the Finance Ministry, the ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic United Party agreed to lower the threshold to 600 milli

The Seoul High Court on Monday lowered the jail term for Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn from four years to three years after confirming most of the charges of embezzlement and breach of trust.The court cleared him of some charges related to breach of trust in connection with a corporate takeover. But the court additionally found him guilty of illegally supporting an affiliate, for which he was acquitted by a lower court. Kim was imprisoned last year but released in January due to poor heal

A teenager lost his hand and a man was burned on Sunday when their clumsy attempt to make a homemade rocket from a firecracker ended in failure, police said.A 16-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man, who met through an Internet Web site, bought firecrackers at a stationary store in Guri, south of Seoul, to use them as propellant for a small rocket and tried to test it at a park, officials said.When they put the gunpowder that they had collected from several squibs into a glass container, it explod

Former President Kim Young-sam is in intensive care with symptoms pneumonia, his son said Saturday.The 86-year-old Kim was admitted to Seoul National University Hospital on April 5 with a high fever and symptoms of a cold.“His recovery is slow due to his age,” his son Kim Hyun-chul wrote on Saturday night on his webpage, indicating the former president was still in serious condition. Kim served as president from 1993-1997. Born in 1927 on Geoje Island off the south coast near Busan, Kim was firs

Korea plans to expand its investment immigration program beginning next month to help boost local property development markets. Korea currently grants permanent residency to foreigners who make a certain level of investment in real estate in four tourist and international business zones. The Ministry of Justice said Sunday it would halve the required amount of investment from the current 1.5 billion ($1.3 million) to 700 million won for the Incheon Free Economic Zone, and from 1 billion won to 5

The Supreme Court has recently opened a website to provide legal assistance in more than a dozen languages to foreign residents in Korea. Aside from the court’s English website, the new website (jifi.scourt.go.kr) provides detailed explanations of the principles and rules of the legal system such as civil and criminal lawsuits, judicial independence, and types of courts in 15 languages. The language services include Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai.“The Supreme Court set up the website to meet an in

Police have warned of stern action against ungrounded rumors about a North Korean attack which have been spreading online this week and further anxiety amid military tensions on the peninsula. “We will take appropriate countermeasures to prevent these false Internet rumors from triggering unnecessary panic,” National Police Agency chief Lee Sung-han said Thursday at a nationwide senior police officials’ meeting in Seoul.Early Wednesday, an urgent message appeared on Twitter that North Korea was