One in five schools in Korea currently has no native English-speaking teachers, governmental data showed on Friday. As of the end of April, 8,520 foreign English teachers were employed at the country’s 11,368 primary, middle and high schools. The number is down 800 from a year ago, representing an 8.5 percent drop, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.Some 18 percent of schools, or 2,065, currently have no English speaking assistant teachers. The shortage in English-speaking te

Prosecutors are stepping up their investigations into corruption scandals involving politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties. Political parties are keen to the development of the inquiries which coincide with the launch of a three-way race for the December presidential election and are expected to affect voter sentiment considerably. Prosecution investigators on Thursday raided the home and office of Hong Sa-duk, a former lawmaker and close aide to Saenuri Party presidential nomin

TOKYO (Yonhap News) ― Japanese Emperor Akihito has expressed his wish to visit South Korea and said he could apologize for Japan’s colonial rule if needed, a Japanese weekly reported, amid heightened diplomatic tension between the two nations.During a Sept. 4 issue briefing with Koji Tsuruoka, the deputy vice-minister for foreign policy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Akihito said he and Empress Michiko hope to visit South Korea “some day,” the Japanese women’s magazine published Wednesday r

Before industrialization, Korea’s steep, rugged mountains were a perfect home for long-tailed gorals, a species of wild goat dwelling at high elevations from Russia all the way down to the Himalayas. These small, antelope-like ungulates were often spotted resting on rocky cliffs in mountains throughout the country, where their predators, including humans, couldn’t dare to climb. But as Korea developed, constructing roads that reached deeper into the mountains, habitats that suit gorals’ shy, tim

The father of a 23-year-old man who sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl earlier this month said Thursday his family is suffering from excessive attention by the media.“Our son went wrong, and now our entire family is about to break down. Please spare my family,” 55-year-old Kim said.He begged the media not to reveal personal affairs of the family, and said too much attention was tearing the family apart.Kim said he first found out about his son’s crime last week when he recognized his son’s fa

A video showing Japanese people trampling on Korea’s national flag Taegeukki is spreading online, adding controversy to already strained Korea-Japan relations.The video shows a small group of Japanese people taking turns to step on a version of the Korean flag in which the black lines around the red-and-blue central circle are depicted as cockroaches.The video is reported to have been created in late July by members of an extreme right-wing organization that calls for Japan to sever diplomatic t

Prosecutors raided the offices of LIG Group and its affiliate firms early Wednesday as part of an investigation into allegations that the group chief and his family members illegally issued multi-billion won of commercial papers last year.Scores of prosecutors and investigators searched several offices of LIG Group, LIG Insurance Co. and LIG Engineering & Construction Co., as well as the residences of the group chief and his family members engaged in running the affiliates in Seoul earlier in th

The number of juveniles committing sex offenses against other minors has jumped 11-fold in 10 years, court data showed Wednesday, indicating that enhanced measures are needed to discipline and protect youth.A total of 609 adolescents aged 10-18 were convicted by juvenile courts last year for committing sex offenses against minors under 19 years old, more than 11 times higher than 60 in 2002, accor

A South Korean history institute has filed a defamation suit against three Japanese accused of setting up provocative wooden stakes in downtown Seoul last month to lay claim to Dokdo, police said Tuesday.Two Japanese suspects in their 30s and 60s allegedly put three wooden posts with the phrase, "Takeshima (referring to Dokdo in Japanese) is Japanese territory," at the entrance to the Dokdo Resear

A high-school student had her research work on nutrition published by a local scientific journal. Nutrition Research and Practice published the paper, which was co-authored by Ro Yoo-na, 18, a student from Dona Hall School in Massachusetts, and professor Hyun Wha-jin from Joongbu University in South Chungcheong Province. They compared the perception of body image of female high-school students in Korea and China.Ro, who led the research, conducted a survey of 221 students in Yongin, Gyeonggi Pro