A National Intelligence Service employee accused of making malicious comments online about Democratic United Party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in will press charges against party officials for illegal confinement, the agency said Thursday. “The DUP used physical force to unlawfully trespass into the private residence of an individual, foul language and blocked family members from entering the residence and thereby engaged in illegal confinement,” the NIS said in a press release on Wednesday.

Police said Wednesday they have booked three South Koreans without physical detention on charges of stealing a thermal observation device from a U.S. unit’s military equipment storage and attempting to sell it online. A 56-year-old waste management employee working at a U.S. Army base in Gunsan, 274 kilometers south of Seoul, is suspected of stealing the TOD, estimated to be worth about 100 million won ($93,100), in March and selling it to a military equipment dealer for just 50,000 won, the Seo

Kim Bok-sun, 87, a surviving victim of Japan’s sex slavery, passed away Wednesday due to old age. She had been in hospital for a long time, according to the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an organization to help the victims.The number of surviving victims of Japanese sex slavery during the colonial period stands at 59, said Yoon Mee-hyang, a representative of the organization.The 1,054th Wednesday protest demanding an official apology from the Japanese

Eleven Chinese sailors were rescued from their cargo ship that was tilting in South Korean waters near the border with North Korea, the Coast Guard said Tuesday.The Cambodian-flagged 1,996-ton freighter sent out a distress signal at around 5:40 p.m. as it was listing on its right side about 56 kilometers south of Daecheong Island, it said.The Coast Guard said it immediately dispatched a helicopter and a patrol boat to the scene but the sailors had already been rescued by a passing freighter.The

The government announced a set of measures for multicultural families on Tuesday to improve education, eradicate discrimination and support their social and economic participation. The five-year project that kicks off next year is the second part of the Korean government’s policy efforts to harmoniously integrate multiculturalism into traditionally homogenous Korean society. The first phase of the comprehensive multicultural project, started in 2010, ends this year. The new support measures focu

Korea’s middle school students ranked top in math proficiency and third in science in the world, while primary students ranked top in science and second in mathematics, a global-assessment data showed on Tuesday.According to the data released by the international research association IEA, students aged 13-14 years old in Korea received the highest average score of 613 in mathematics among 42 countries, followed by that of Singapore with 611. Singapore topped in science proficiency in the age gro

Unionized subway workers called off plans to go on strike Tuesday after reaching a last-minute agreement with the transit system operators on retirement age and the severance pay system.The 8,118-member union member of Seoul Metro, a public corporation that runs Seoul subway lines one through four, were scheduled to walk later in the day after repeatedly failing to find middle ground on various outstanding issues despite mediation from the National Labor Relations Commission.The two sides had en

An anonymous man left a check for 105.7 million won ($97,900) in a Salvation Army collection kettle, the Salvation Army Korea Territory said Monday.According to the Salvation Army, a man in his late 50s or early 60s placed an envelope containing the check and a short letter in the collection kettle in central Seoul on Sunday requesting the money to be used for the elderly.“I send a small seed to the Salvation Army’s noble and holy forest out of respect for my parents wishes,” he said in the lett

By Kim Young-wonThe temperature in the capital Seoul on Monday was minus 7.1 degrees Celsius, the sixth-lowest temperature in early December since the nation’s weather agency started meteorological observations in 1907 in Seoul.The lowest average temperature was recorded in 1944 with minus 10.4 degrees Celsius, followed by minus 8.8 in 1910, minus 8.5 in 1956, minus 8.3 in 1926, and minus 7.2 in 1937.The temperature in the city dipped to a low of minus 11.8 degrees Celsius. As a cold front swept

The proportion of Korean women who consider income in choosing their prospective husbands has increased 8 percent over the past 10 years, while fewer and fewer women give preference to profession and educational background, a matchmaking firm said Monday.Seoul-based Sunwoo released the results of a survey of 900 single working women that indicated a shift in their concerns from social position to economic stability. The company divided them into three groups for arranging dates with three differ

Moon Tae-Hwa stares at his computer, dizzy and nauseous from the hours of porn he‘s viewed online while his wife and children slept. He feels no shame  only a righteous sense of mission.``I feel like I’m cleaning up dirty things,‘’ the devout Christian and family counselor said.Moon is among the most successful members of the ``Nuri Cops‘’ (roughly ``net cops‘’), a squad of nearly 800 volunteers who help government censors by patrolling the Internet for pornography in their spare time.Unlike mos