Senior officials and business leaders of major African countries will gather in South Korea this week to discuss cooperation and joint business opportunities, the foreign ministry said Saturday. South Korea and the African Union will jointly hold the Korea Africa Economic Cooperation Conference in Seoul from Oct. 15-18, bringing 150 ministers and heads of 18 African nations and international organizations, the ministry said.“Africa is the last growth engine of the world economy, which has unlimi

Prosecutors said Sunday that they had asked a court to order chemical castration against a 25-year-old man for repeated sexual abuse of children.The man surnamed Chang was arrested earlier on charges of sexual abuse of four elementary school boys.He sexually abused the boys in June and July this year near their school in Dongdaemun in Seoul, according to the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors’ Office.Chemical castration refers to the process of using drugs to reduce sexual urges. In response to

A 61-year-old man on Sunday jumped from a government building in downtown Seoul after setting fire to an office room, police said. According to the police, the man, identified only by his family name Kim, entered the government main building in the Gwanghwamun district in the heart of Seoul at 1:30 p.m. and passed through the security line with a fake government ID card. He then went into a room o

Hong Sa-duk, a close aide to ruling party presidential candidate Park Geun-hye, confessed that he received illegal political funds from a businessman, during a recent questioning, prosecution sources said Saturday. Hong, a former co-chairman of Park's primary campaign team and former six-term lawmaker, was summoned by prosecutors on Friday on suspicion of receiving kickbacks from the businessman,

Hong Sa-duk, a close aide to ruling party presidential candidate Park Geun-hye, appeared before prosecutors on Friday for questioning over allegations that he took illegal political funds.“I will sincerely respond to the questions,” the 69-year-old Hong told reporters before entering the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in southern Seoul around 9:45 a.m. Hong, a former co-chairman of Park’s primary campaign team and a former six-term lawmaker, is suspected of receiving a total of some 60 million won

South Korea’s state arms procurement agency had dealings with Japanese firms accused of involvement in mobilizing Koreans for forced labor during the 1910-45 colonial rule, a lawmaker said Thursday, calling for barring such firms from military supply contracts.The Defense Acquisition Program Administration purchased 55 sets of binoculars worth 428 million won ($383,316) from Nikon, one of the companies of the Mitsubishi Group, in 2009, Rep. Kim Jae-yun of the main opposition United Democratic Pa

Branksome Hall Asia, the second private international school in the Jeju Global Education City, will open next Monday, according to the Jeju Office of Education.The Branksome Hall Asia Jeju campus will have a 1,212-student limit for its 60 classes, where kindergarten to 3rd grade are co-ed, and 4th to 12th grade are split by gender. Some 300 students registered to attend school this year.The school finished construction in September and has finished recruiting 46 instructors from North America,

A lower court in Tokyo on Thursday ordered the Japanese government to disclose part of the classified 1965 Korea-Japan normalization treaty dealing with the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery. The Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of 11 Korean and Japanese civic activists representing formerly enslaved sex workers, known as “comport women.”The pact covers compensation rights for the victims of the 1910-45 colonial rule.The Japanese government has been insisting that the sexual slavery iss

Police have caught three members of a sex trafficking ring who smuggled Korean women to the United States and forced them to work as prostitutes, the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said Thursday.Police requested an arrest warrant for 47-year-old man on charges running the sex trafficking ring and booked two of his accomplices without physical detention. The remaining six members of the ring have been put on the wanted list.Yu and the others allegedly arranged for the illegal entry of five Kor