The Korea Herald

Applicants for Korean language proficiency test top 1 million

Jan 20, 2013

The cumulative number of applicants for the state-managed Korean language proficiency test has topped the 1 million mark, officials said Sunday, indicating the rapid spread of the “hallyu,” or the Korean wave, abroad.The education ministry said a total of 18,702 people applied for the 29th Test of Proficiency in Korean, a test for non-Korean natives interested in school admissions and job searches in South Korea, raising the cumulative total to 1,015,013.TOPIK, which measures ability to understa
Court chief nominee admits wrongdoing

Jan 20, 2013

A controversial nominee for the top post at the Constitutional Court on Sunday confessed to falsely registering his home address in a real estate transaction two decades ago in violation of the law. Lee Dong-heub, who was nominated by President Lee Myung-bak earlier this month to head the top court, made the unusual confession, but insisted that the false address registration was intended not to disturb the education of his children. Lee has been suspected of committing the illegality to avoid t
Feasibility of Park’s policies questioned

Jan 20, 2013

A growing number of private think tanks and scholars are raising questions over the fiscal feasibility of President-elect Park Geun-hye’s welfare-centered campaign promises, with some insisting Sunday that her initial financial projection was less than half of what would be necessary.The ruling Saenuri Party has said that a budget of 130 trillion won ($123 billion) would be enough to cover all of Park’s welfare promises, including pension payments for all senior citizens, expansion of health car
Park’s North Korea policy focused on inducing changes

Jan 20, 2013

The incoming government of President-elect Park Geun-hye is expected to focus its North Korea policy on getting the communist North to embrace changes, multiple sources said Sunday.Park’s transition team had received policy briefings from the foreign and unification ministries and collected opinions from private experts over the past weeks before finalizing a broad picture of its North Korea policy, said the sources.They explained that the tentative direction of North Korea policy has been based
Police bust 9-story Seoul hotel used for prostitution

Jan 20, 2013

Police said Sunday they have busted a sex trafficking ring suspected of running a massive brothel out of an entire nine-story hotel and bar in southern Seoul.In the crackdown, police detained the brothel owner who raked in money with corporate style marketing and offered a one-stop service for alcohol, girls and sex in the luxury building in Samsung-dong, southern Seoul.The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it will seek a formal arrest warrant for the 35-year-old brothel operator, surnamed J
Your destiny may all be written on your face

Jan 20, 2013

Like many young South Koreans, Ko Joo-hyun is anxious about her future. She will be graduating from college soon, and she wonders what kind of job she will end up in and when she will get married. Like many others struggling to get or stay ahead in a society that moves quickly, questions about her future are a source of stress, and to help address them, she will consult a fortuneteller that offers a range of services ― including face reading.Face reading is an old practice where a trained expert
Korea ranked last in OECD in employment of female college graduates

Jan 20, 2013

South Korea's employment rate of female college graduates ranked at the bottom among a group of the world's advanced nations, with the country having the largest difference between employment rates for men and women, data showed Sunday.According to the data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), only 60.1 percent of college-educated South Korean women were employed as of 2011, marking the lowest rate among 33 OECD member nations.Turkey was second from the b
Oxfam: Super rich no help against poverty

Jan 20, 2013

The British charity Oxfam says the world‘s 100 richest people are increasing inequality and holding back the world’s ability to tackle poverty.The world‘s 100 richest people brought in $240 billion last year, The Guardian reported Saturday. Oxfam said that amount of money could put an end to extreme poverty four times over.In a report called “The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All,” Oxfam calls on world leaders to curb income extremes and commit to reducing inequality
Class-action suit against Apple withdrawn in Korea

Jan 18, 2013

A two-year-long collective lawsuit filed by a group of Korean iPhone users against Apple Inc. wrapped up as the plaintiffs withdrew the case, citing the difficulty of proving the alleged irregularities by the tech company. Twenty-nine iPhone users filed the complaint in 2011 against Apple Korea Inc. and U.S.-based Apple Inc. insisting that the tech giant had illegally gathered users’ location information in a hidden file “consolidated.db” on the handset. “It was impossible to acquire evidence fo
100 doctors face probe for kickbacks from pharma firms

Jan 18, 2013

The Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office said Friday it will call in around 100 doctors at hospitals and medical centers across the nation on charges of receiving illegal commission from Korea’s largest pharmaceutical firm Dong-A Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.The prosecutors have already sent summonses to some of the doctors, who allegedly received kickbacks from pharmaceutical firms. The rest will be summoned in the coming days. The doctors are thought to have received money or goods worth more than 3 m
Officials slam four-river audit

Jan 18, 2013

Ruling party calls for countermeasures after audit found project faulty
Nearly 100 doctors face summons over alleged illegal 'rebates'

Jan 18, 2013

Nearly 100 doctors will be scrutinized for allegedly receiving illegal kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, sources said Friday. The doctors are accused of accepting money or other kickbacks, known as "rebates," worth more than 3 million won (US$2,840) each, from drug makers in exchange for prescribing their products, prosecution officials and pharmaceutical industry sources said. Some of them were already notified to appear before prosecutors for questioning, according to the officials
Four dead in ship sinking in sea south of Jeju

Jan 18, 2013

A South Korean fishing boat sank in waters far south of the country's southern island of Jeju on Friday, leaving four dead and four missing, the Coast Guard and the foreign ministry said.The 29-ton Hwanggeum 3005 carrying nine people -- two Chinese and seven South Koreans -- caught fire in waters 289 nautical miles off of Jeju's city of Seogwipo around 3:40 a.m., due to an unidentified cause, they said. The boat went down about three hours and 40 minutes later after being burned down. One Chines
Foreign veterans of Korean War to be honored

Jan 17, 2013

Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War will be posthumously awarded commemorative medals as South Korea marks 60 years since the end of the conflict, organizers said Thursday.The first recipients of the medals, made of rusty barbed wire from the tense inter-Korean border, will be the families of 36,000 American soldiers killed in the 1950-53 war, they said.The Korean war, which started with an invasion by North Korea on June 25, 1950, ended in an armistice three years later.
Epidemic flu alert issued nationwide

Jan 17, 2013

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Thursday that influenza could fast spread across the nation. During the second week of this year, 4.8 per 1,000 people were infected with the flu. The figure, which is less than the 11.3 recorded in the same period last year, nonetheless surpasses the threshold of 4 that indicates an epidemic, according to the KCDC.The Gangwon area and cities of Seoul, Incheon, and Gwangju recorded relatively high infection rates. Those aged between 20