The Korea Herald

China top destination of leaked trade secrets

Feb 6, 2012

Police arrested 311 people last year for selling trade secrets, with most information going abroad ending up in China, said police officials Monday.According to the National Police Agency, the numbers are up from 154 people in 40 cases in 2010.Police report that secrets going abroad increased by 167 percent during the same period.Of the total cases 29 percent involved secrets being sold abroad, with 58.3 percent of those going to China, followed by the U.S., Germany, Spain and England.Medium and
Koreans spend W12m a year before death

Feb 6, 2012

Koreans spend more than 12 million won ($10,430) on medical treatments in their last year of life, a national research center reported Monday. According to a study of 209,004 subscribers who died in 2010 by Health Insurance Policy Research Institute, a think tank under the National Health Insurance Corporation, men spend an average of 12.8 million won in medical fees in the year before their death. Women spend 12.1 million won during the same period. Teens spend the highest amount of 17.8 millio
English language education group caught for TOEIC, TEPS exam leak

Feb 6, 2012

Prosecutors are investigating Hackers Education Group, a local English education franchise, on suspicion of illegally recording and copying copyrighted English test questions.Investigators of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said Monday that they had indicted six management members of
U.S. soldier’s wife booked for DUI hit-and-run accident

Feb 6, 2012

The wife of a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea has been booked without detention for causing a hit-and-run car accident while driving under the influence of alcohol, police said Monday.The unnamed woman allegedly swerved her Sonata sedan and rammed it into an SUV driving in the next lane around 9:50 p.m. on Friday in a residential area in Jamsil, southern Seoul, Songpa Police Station said. After hitting the SUV, the woman drove away from the accident scene but was hunted down by the SUV dri
Reference booklet for asylum seekers

Feb 6, 2012

A human rights reference booklet was released on Monday for asylum seekers living in Korea, according to an NGO here specializing in migrant women affairs.Ecofemme and the National Human Rights Commission teamed up to create “Human Rights in My Pocket,” a booklet that contains essential information for asylum seekers living in the country.The booklet describes different scenarios and offers detailed responses in a wide range of issues including applying for refugee status, health insurance and c
Government toughens against school violence

Feb 6, 2012

The government announced a wide range of measures against school violence Monday, focused on united tough action by all members of society.The measures called for strengthening the role of teachers and headmasters in resolving school violence, zero-tolerance towards bullying and more protection of a
Korea to test Camp Carroll area residents for chemicals

Feb 6, 2012

The government of Chilgok-gun and a state-run research institute will conduct health checkups for the residents of areas close to the U.S. military’s Camp Carroll.Located in Chilgok-gun in North Gyeongsang Province, Camp Carroll was at the center of a controversy raised by a former U.S. soldier who claimed that Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, was buried within its grounds. The claims were disproved by a joint Korea-U.S. investigation team that discovered that drums containing chemicals were exc
Road show to bring Korean scientists back home

Feb 6, 2012

The Korean government plans to go on a road show in U.S. cities where prestigious universities are clustered in a bid to attract young Korean scientists to the new domestic science belt, officials said Sunday. Vice Minister of Education and Science Kim Chang-kyung will make presentations to Korean scientists on doctoral or post-doctoral courses in Chicago and Boston from Monday to Saturday. He will explain the “Brain Return 500” project focused on bringing Korean scientists back home.The project
Chinese struggle with Korean college fees

Feb 6, 2012

Semester fees here equivalent to annual tuition plus living expenses in ChinaTotalWhile Korean students struggle with rising college tuition fees and living costs, Chinese students are also feeling the strain. A Chinese student surnamed Song has been working at a convenience store part-time for five months to earn her monthly rent and living expenses in Seoul. Her day starts with studying Korean at one of the well-known universities in Seoul. From 2-7 p.m., she works as a cashier at a convenienc
DJ DOC’s Kim Chang-ryul donates scholarship

Feb 5, 2012

Kim Chang-ryul, a member of K-pop group DJ DOC and a sophomore at Kyung Hee Cyber University, has given his performance fees from school events and commercials to underprivileged students at the university as scholarships, the school said Sunday. “I heard there are many students worrying about their tuition fees lately. The scholarship may not be large but I would like to help students in need,” Kim said. The 39-year-old singer is well known for passing high school qualification and college entr
Elementary school students in Seoul rest 3 hours per day: report

Feb 5, 2012

Elementary school students in Seoul get an average of just over three hours of spare time per day during the week, a report showed Sunday, indicating growing competition even among younger age groups.Elementary school children in the capital spend an average of 195.6 minutes per day in leisure activ
Two dead, six injured in explosion at coal mine

Feb 4, 2012

TAEBAEK (Yonhap News) -- A gas explosion at a coal mine has killed two people and injured six others, police said Saturday. The blast occurred at around 8 p.m. on Friday when nine miners were working at a site about 970 meters deep or 3,400 meters from the entrance, police officer Chang
Brand panel pushes more sites on U.N. World Heritage list

Feb 3, 2012

The nation will up efforts to have several Confucian academies and temples adopted into the UNESCO world heritage list as part of its drive to raise Korea’s profile abroad, said a government report on Friday.According to the Presidential Council on National Branding, it plans to have nine Confucian academies and several Buddhist temples recognized by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization by 2014 and 2015, respectively.Well known schools such as the Sosu Seowon and Dosan Seow
Male nude photo stirs fans and critics of podcast

Feb 3, 2012

The nation’s most popular political podcast, “Naneun Ggomsuda,” has started a fresh round of dispute as one of its male supporters posted a nude photo of himself in response to the mounting criticism of the racy campaign to free one of the hosts from jail. The fire reignited on Thursday when 37-year-old Choi Young-min posted a photograph of himself naked with “I am serious,” and “Bring back my model!” written across his body on a website dedicated to Chung Bong-ju. Chung is a panelist on the sho
U.S. army private gets 3-year prison term for raping S. Korean

Feb 3, 2012

A regional court on Friday sentenced a U.S. soldier stationed here to three years behind bars for raping a local woman.The 31-year-old U.S. Army private of an unidentified unit in Chilgok, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, was convicted of raping a South Korean woman in her residence last July