A travel agent who scammed some 65 foreign customers out of more than 170 million won ($147,000) was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison at Seoul Eastern District Court on Tuesday. Kang Wan-koo, who also goes by “Wystan,” was also fined an undisclosed amount of several million won.Kang took millions of won from customers for non-existent flights through his company Zenith Travel, often claiming the bookings had been accidentally cancelled. Many of his victims only discovered they had no

The government and medical circles are at odds over the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling partially justifying doctors’ charging extra fees for tests and treatments outside state guidelines. While medical institutions call for extended autonomy of medics, the administration is striving to minimize the aftereffect of the ruling, which could pave the way for doctors to prescribe pricy but unnecessary treatments in the future. The long-term rift reemerged when the nation’s top court ruled in favor of Y

Police officers are protesting the National Police Agency’s recently-announced guidelines on using social networking services.They say the “Basic Principle and Outline for SNS,” announced on Friday, discourages freedom of speech.The guidelines include restrictions on leaving political comments and uploading photos, which the NPA says would “degrade the image of the police.”Under the guidelines, police officers who have a Twitter or Facebook account are screening out political comments themselves

A Korean-Chinese man convicted of killing and dismembering the body of a 28-year-old woman has appealed his death penalty sentence, court officials said Tuesday.Wu Yuanchun, 42, submitted a petition of appeal to the Suwon District Court in Suwon, south of Seoul, following the court's death sentence Friday, the officials said without elaborating.Prosecutors who demanded capital punishment, the maxi

The average age of South Korean workers is expected to be the oldest in the world in 2045 mainly due to the country's rapidly aging population, a report showed Tuesday.The report by the Korea Center for International Finance, based on findings by the Royal Bank of Scotland, showed the average age of workers in the country will hit 50 in the cited year.It said the average age of the country's labor

A notice on Korean Air’s website announcing the start of non-stop flights from Korea to Kenya sparked a flurry of angry Tweets and Facebook postings Monday over the description of Kenyans as indigenous people full of “primitive energy.’’Muthui Kariuki, who is handling public relations for Korean Air in Kenya, said that the notice had been removed from the website and that the word “primitive’’ was a result of a mistake in translation from Korean to English.Kariuki said the airline, which is supp

HWASEONG, Gyeonggi Province -- Four people were missing Monday after an explosion apparently triggered by overheating at a glue factory in a city south of Seoul, police and fire officials said.The explosion occurred just before noon, destroying one building and damaging three others at the factory in Hwaseong, 60 kilometers south of the capital, the officials said.Four workers remained unaccounted

Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to double the proportion of new public facilities using renewable energy sources from the current 10 percent to 20 percent by 2014.The city said it will make use of geothermal and solar energy and solar heat and also install energy-efficient insulating and ventilating systems to make city buildings greener.These efforts are expected to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which now take up 90 percent of the entire energy consumption, to 60 percent. From the second

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― A U.S. lawmaker is pushing for legislation on the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, one of the fiercest fights in the Korean War, a congressional source said Sunday.Rep. Don Young, a Republican from Alaska, submitted a bill earlier this month to designate a peak in the state as “Mount Chosin Few,” a move supported by Korean War veterans there who participated in the battle in December 1950, also known as the Changjin Lake Campaign, according to the source.The Chosin Few is a

South Africa’s largest trade union has accused as upstart rival of using witchcraft to boost recruiting. Tensions between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union are running high, and rank and file workers are taking the allegation seriously.The two unions, NUM and AMCU are fighting for control among workers at the world’s biggest platinum mine, run by Impala Platinum. “One of the tools which is used strongly is ‘muti’ and members of NUM