More than three out of 10 single men around the world cited appearance as their No. 1 preference for an ideal would-be wife, a survey showed Friday.According to the survey by South Korea’s matchmaking company Sunwoo of its 41,036 single male clients from 121 countries, 31.1 percent said appearance is the primary attribute for their ideal spouse, followed by personality with 28.5 percent, occupation or ability with 21.7 percent and family background with 18.7 percent.The survey was conducted onli

JEJU ― Local groups opposing the construction of a naval base on the island of Jeju denounced the government Thursday for denying them access to the IUCN World Conservation Congress, a major gathering of environmental professionals from around the world. Villagers of Gangjeong, a small village on the southern coast of Jeju chosen as the site for the planned base, had sought to set up a booth inside the Jeju Convention Center, where the conference will be held till Sept. 15, but to no avail. “Isn

JEJU ― President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday sought to promote the concept of green growth to participants of a major environmental meeting in Jeju. Speaking in front of thousands of environmental professionals, government policymakers and businessmen, he said that the country, which in 2008 set green growth as a new national development strategy, is taking efforts to a new level on the belief that “flourishing nature makes people happy.”“The slogan of the WCC is Nature+, which shares a common den

Giant water bugs, once commonly found in rice fields and ponds throughout the country, are now rated as a second-class endangered species. Efforts to restore their population have been under way for years, led by private biodiversity research centers. In the latest of the efforts, Holoce Ecosystem Conservation Research Institution in Hoengseong, Gangwon Province, reintroduced 40 pairs of the rare insects, to a nearby pond last week.  They were among about 400 entomologist Lee Gang-won bred in ca

Over 8,000 gather in Jeju for world’s largest environmental eventJEJU ― The IUCN World Conservation Congress kicked off its 10-day run on Jeju Island on Thursday, with over 8,000 participants from around the world in attendance. Over 8,600 people have registered for the conference, the largest in history, said the organizer, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Under the theme “Resilient Nature,” participants will hold discussions on 176 initiatives that include climate change, pr

More than 1,000 Korean men living overseas have returned home to serve in the military over the past six years, according to the Korean Army Training Center. Ever since the Army began offering a pre-training program at a boot camp in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province in 2007, 1,038 men with foreign residency have trained there. The one-week pre-training is designed to provide overseas Korean men with no experience here with basic instruction on Korean history and culture to help them adapt to t

Seoul City’s plan to introduce a “rain tax” scheme to promote a better use of rainwater and improve flood control is stoking debate as civic groups and experts raise concerns about the additional burden on property owners. The envisioned tax, modeled on a German scheme, would be collected based on the area of impervious surface on a property that generates storm runoff directed to local drains. The greater the impervious area, the less landowners would be charged. The plan comes as part of the m

Um Hong-gil, a prominent South Korean climber who was the world’s first to scale the globe’s 16 tallest mountains, will accompany President Lee Myung-bak on his upcoming Arctic trip as a symbolic move to underscore the seriousness of climate change, officials said Thursday.Lee is scheduled to visit Greenland next week for talks with Premier Kuupik Kleist about green growth, resource development and other issues. Lee plans to travel to Ilulissat, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its famous