A Hong Kong-registered merchant ship has rescued all of the 17 South Korean and Myanmarese seamen from a sunken South Korean vessel early Sunday, South Korean maritime police said.All the 17 crewmen of the 2,518-ton South Korean vessel were moved to a lifeboat late Saturday when the vessel sank in waters 185 miles northeast of the Philippines, a maritime police spokesman said.Upon getting a distress report, a South Korean patrol plane rushed to the scene and asked for help from the Hong Kong fre

The South Korean government has recruited seven experts on foreign languages other than English to help promote the country’s image abroad.The seven, two experts on Chinese, and one each on Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Russian and Arabic, will translate and interpret for officials of various government agencies while engaging in jobs on international relations and promotion of the national brand of South Korea, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Sunday.Their annual salary ra

Naito Seichu, a Japanese historian well known for his research against Japan’s claims to Dokdo, died on Dec. 16 due to illness, Yonhap News reported. He was 82He was emeritus professor at Shimane University in Japan. Japan claims the official document dated 1905 from Japan’s Shimane prefectural government shows that the islets, called Takeshima in Japan, were pronounced as its territory.But Seichu pointed out that in 1696, the ruler of Japan acknowledged that the islets were Korean territory. (5

The number of workers with university degrees nearly doubled while the average age of the workforce got older in the past decade, data from Ministry of Employment and Labor showed on Sunday.There were a total of 17.39 million salaried workers in 2011, up 27.4 percent from 12.65 million in 2001. Among them, 30 percent, or 5.4 million workers, have a four-year college degree, up by 88 percent from 2.87 million in 2001.And 2.58 million of those workers have a two-year college degree while the major

A district court on Wednesday sentenced a man to four years’ imprisonment for pouring acid on his wife.The man, identified with his surname Kim, allegedly had a grudge against his wife, 47, after she filed for divorce in April.His wife also asked for a restraining order against him in May. In June, Kim was indicted on charges related to pouring sulfuric acid on his wife’s face, leaving her with severe burns that required six weeks of medical treatment.“He committed a crime, even though the court

    SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean pastor has been released on bail after spending more than five months at a detention center in eastern China for allegedly helping North Korean defectors there, a Seoul official said Tuesday.   The 51-year-old pastor, Jeon Jae-gwi, was arrested by Chinese authorities on July 9 at an airport in Harbin on charges of sheltering five North Korean defectors and has been held at the detention center in Yantai of northeastern Shandong Province.   "To my kno

Four Korean and one Nigerian employee of Hyundai Heavy Industries, the nation’s top shipbuilder, were kidnapped by an unidentified armed group at Brass Island in the state of Bayelsa, Nigeria, on Monday (local time), an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed on Tuesday.“No contact has been made with the kidnappers yet. The ministry has launched an emergency team with the related governmental agencies in Seoul and Nigeria, including the Ministry of Land, Transport and M

Reported sex crimes in Korea increased by 61.6 percent in five years to 22,034 cases in 2011, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said Monday. Seoul City recorded the highest rate of sex crimes per capita in the nation with 61.4 sex offenses per 100,000 people, followed by Bucheon with 60.9, and Suwon with 56.9.The number of sexual assault and abduction cases against children under the age of 13 years was 1,054 and 89, respectively.Among sex crimes against children, 23.8 percent and 32.6 percent wer

Seoul Metrolitan Government has asked alcohol, advertisement and entertainment firms to refrain from using pop stars in alcohol advertisements. The city will send out letters to liquor makers, advertisement companies and entertainment agencies Tuesday, asking them to reconsider their marketing strategies, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said. “Becoming a pop star is ranked as the No. 2 future dream of our children. We believe that hiring pop stars, who exert great influence on teens, for alcoh

The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office indicted a trainee prosecutor involved in a sex scandal without detention on Monday.The prosecution’s internal inspection team charged prosecutor Jeon Jae-mong with bribery and abuse of power.“His inappropriate behavior caused anger and criticism among the public and tainted the reputation of prosecutors,” said an SPO official, adding that the prosecution would seek the dismissal of Jeon.The internal inspection committee at the SPO last week recommended seeking ch