A civic activist is pushing for a debate on the sovereignty of Dokdo with a Japanese figure who claims the rocky islets are part of Japanese territory. Kim Jum-ku, head of the Dokdo Protection Party, said Sunday that he will deliver his invitation to Shimojo Masao, a renowned scholar known for his claims on Japan’s sovereignty over Dokdo, known as Takeshima in Japan. The invitation will take place

PM visits PyeongChang

A boarding school for North Korean defector children will open in Seoul next week, aimed at offering Korean language lessons to those from low-income households, a non-profit defectors’ group said Friday.According to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, the Samheung School will start its first semester on Feb. 25, with 27 elementary students. Considering that their parents usually return home lat

A Seoul court ordered a high school teacher to pay damages for hitting a student on the hands, giving her bruises and inflammations, officials said Friday.   The Seoul Northern District Court ordered the 52-year-old female teacher, identified only by her surname, No, to pay her former student 2.54 million won ($2,280) in compensation and medical expenses, court officials said.   The student, ident

A 50-year-old office worker, Jun Soon-geol, and his wife Shin Joo-ryeon, also 50, adopted two baby girls 11 years ago.They soon discovered that the younger child, Ah-young, was suffering from cerebral palsy but have never regretted their decision. “Government subsidies have helped a lot for raising our daughter. But we hope that more support is given for essential but expensive medical equipment l

Amid soaring jeonse prices, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has decided to supply about 13,000 rental homes for low-income households in the first half of the year.The city said Thursday that more than 80 percent of the total 15,665 public houses will be provided within the timeframe. They include 4,995 permanent rental houses for low-income households, 2,822 for families with multiple children

  A South Korean sailor from a fishing vessel freed recently from Somali pirates apparently fell to his death from his hotel in Kenya on Wednesday, a foreign ministry official said.   Kim Yong-hyun, 68, one of the 43 crew members of the Keummi 305 released last week after four months in the hands of Somali pirates, died at 2:25 a.m. Wednesday (local time) apparently after falling from his third-fl

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is to offer financial support to cultural events held by the foreign community here, officials said Wednesday.The city will cover up to 80 percent of the event costs or 6 million won ($5,320) for selected events.Since 2003, the city has offered such financial support to give opportunities for both foreign residents and locals to better communicate through cultural

One-on-one Korean language lessons will be offered for children of foreign parents or multicultural households from March, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday. Starting with 200 households this year, the city plans to extend the number of families receiving the service to 2,500 by 2013. There are about 20,000 children with foreign parents who are at compulsory education ages ― between 3