Defector groups Wednesday pledged to continue flying propaganda leaflets across the border despite North Korea’s recent threat of “direct firing” at the South’s psychological warfare sites.“The empty threats from the North have repeated over the past four years. There is nothing special this time as well,” said Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of the Fighters for Free North Korea. “

Seoul prosecutors have secured a high-priced painting at the center of a graft scandal involving two former national tax chiefs, a prosecution official said Tuesday.The official said the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has obtained the painting titled "Hakdong Village" by the late abstract artist Choi Wook-kyung. Han Sang-ryule, a former head of the National Tax Service, is accused of p

South Korea will send two chartered ships to strife-torn Libya to bring home citizens and foreign workers at South Korean construction firms there, an official said Tuesday.The ships chartered from Greece can each carry up to 1,800 passengers, a Transportation Ministry official said.“We have prepared ships capable of evacuating a far larger number of people than before,” the official said without

A group of unionized teachers have asked the Constitutional Court to review the law that bans teachers from joining political activities, court officials said Monday, challenging the long debated law that causes any teacher who wages an anti-government campaign to face disciplinary action. The Seoul Administrative Court has accepted the appeal by three teachers, affiliated with the liberal Korean

The government is reportedly considering raising the average retirement age to 60 from the current average of 57 to lessen the impact of the retirement of 7.1 million baby boomers born between 1955 and 1963. However, the plan is expected to face fierce opposition from both employers and employees.The “Baby Boomer Committee,” an affiliate of the Economic and Social Development Commission, a group r

Seoul’s education office plans to completely revamp the principal evaluation system, hoping that straightening out principals will lead to positive changes in schools.Officials said Monday that, once passed through review, headmasters will undergo management skill evaluations starting this school semester, monitoring their schools’ curriculum and its results, as well as 13 other criteria. A good p

The sister of an alleged former business partner of Lee Myung-bak has been questioned by the prosecution over a long-dormant scandal which engulfed the 2007 presidential election.Erica Kim, sister of Kim Kyung-joon, returned to Seoul over the weekend to help the prosecution wrap up an investigation into the scandal involving stock manipulation. With her brother Kyung-joon now serving an eight-year

The government spent nearly 34 trillion won ($30 billion) on health insurance cover last year. The medical costs covered by the nation’s obligatory health insurance scheme were 33.7 trillion won last year, a 12.9 percent increase from 2009, the National Health Insurance Cooperation said Monday.When considering those shared by individuals, the total amount reached 43.6 trillion won, up 4.2 trillion