A Seoul court has reassigned a corruption case involving President Lee Myung-bak’s elder brother Lee Sang-deuk to a different team as the previous presiding judge was a member of the disgraced politician’s church.The Seoul Central District Court said Monday that the change was made to forestall a possible controversy over the credibility of court deliberations on the case. “Judge Jeong Seon-jae does not have any personal relationship at all with Lee. But he demanded the reassignment to prevent a

Gachon University Gil Medical Center in Incheon gave six Indonesian children suffering from heart disease a new lease on life, the hospital said Monday.Its medical team found 48 children suffering from a ventricular septal defect when they visited Banten, Indonesia, a sister city of Incheon.VSD is a congenital heart malformation, which manifests as a hole between the lower chambers of the heart. If it does not receive timely treatment, it can severely stunt the growth of a child.On July 12, Gil

A local court on Monday cleared Kim Jong-chang, former governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, of charges that he retained stocks without reporting it to the government and attempted to sell them off. According to the Seoul Central District Court, Kim was indicted last year for hiding 40,000 shares of Asia Trust Co., a real estate trust company, under his friends’ account when he was appointed the chief of the state financial watchdog in 2008. When asked by the prosecutors, he said the st

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Monday it will pull out nearly all English-speaking assistant teachers from the city’s middle and high schools by next February, considering that secondary schools put more focus on reading and grammar than speaking.In an effort to enhance students’ English skills through public education, the education office introduced the native-speaking teacher policy in 1995 in the country’s primary and secondary schools.Only 20 to 30 out of 180 native-speakin

Seoul began implementing new measures Monday requiring major buildings to disclose their electricity use and expanding the scope of facilities subject to monitoring of energy consumption. Seoul Metropolitan Government issued a municipal ordinance under which the top 2 percent of energy-guzzling buildings or locations are asked to make public their energy usage through an electric display board.Some of the highest energy consumers, the officials said at a press briefing, are Seoul National Univer

Tension mounts as opposition seeks to block detention of floor leaderThe prosecution on Monday requested a local court to approve the detention of Park Jie-won, floor leader of the largest opposition Democratic United Party, for allegedly receiving kickbacks from the management at ailing savings bank. The special investigation division of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office made the warrant request to the Seoul Central District Court for Park on suspicions that he received more than 100 million won

A warning against a fish-suffocating red tide was issued Monday along parts of South Korea's southern coast, a state fisheries institute said.The National Fisheries Research and Development Institute issued the warning, the first so far this year, at 6 p.m. on waters off southern coastal areas from Namhae to Geoje.Up to 1,500 cochlodinium, or red-tide-causing algae, were found in 1 milliliter of s

A nuclear reactor at South Korea's Younggwang Nuclear Power Plant automatically shut down Monday after its reactor protection system gave warning signals, plant operators said.The Reactor-6 at the Younggwang plant, located some 330 kilometers southwest of Seoul, was shut down at 2:57 p.m., according to an official from the state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd."An investigation is current

On Monday, Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency launched a nationwide crackdown on child pornography.The cyber crime investigation team said that they will strengthen monitoring of activities relating to child pornography, including production, trade and distribution of obscene materials.Downloading sexually explicit material from online storage services and peer to peer (P2P) sharing software are included in the activities subject to the clampdown.“People can be punished for distributing or holding

A ruling party lawmaker has submitted a bill calling for tax hikes on cigarettes to curb the smoking rate.Lee Man-woo, a lawmaker with the ruling Saenuri Party, submitted the bill on Sunday calling the government to change its cigarette tax structure and increase the prices in relation to inflation rate.Lee pointed out that the cigarette taxes are not indexed for inflation as the government has been fixing the price for many years. Under the new bill, all tobacco makers would be required to incr

Police arrest two on suspicion of stealing and selling personal informationPolice on Sunday arrested two hackers for stealing and selling on the personal information of 8.7 million KT users.Investigators said they would also investigate KT on suspicion of negligent management of firewalls and personal data as the number of victims accounts for nearly half of its subscribers. According to the National Police Agency, a telemarketing business operator and his coworker in February created a computer

 A South Korean activist who claimed have been tortured by Chinese authorities while under detention is considering bringing his case to the International Criminal Court, his close aides said Sunday.  Kim Young-hwan and three other activists trying to help North Korean refugees in China were arrested in late March and accused of endangering Beijing's national security.   After being deported to So