The Korea Herald

Click, unfriend: women more likely to do it than men

Feb 27, 2012

Women are more likely than men to delete friends from their online social networks and tend to choose more restrictive privacy settings, according to a study published on Friday.The study by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project also found that men were nearly twice as likely
Shipwrecked silver begins voyage back to Spain

Feb 26, 2012

A 17-ton haul of silver coins, lost for two centuries in the wreck of a sunken Spanish galleon, began its journey back to its home country on Friday after the deep-sea explorers who lifted it to the surface lost their claim to ownership.Two Spanish military C-130 cargo planes took off after noon fro
Bridge reaches across age groups

Feb 24, 2012

Enthusiasts enjoy social, mental benefits of old pastimeOn a cold afternoon inside an old building in southern Seoul, a group of people are playing cards. People of all ages cluster round square tables and chairs in a small room.At each table, four people sit silently, staring at their cards. “We play bridge here almost every day,” says Choi An-hee, chairwoman of Korea Contract Bridge League.Bridge is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 cards. It is played by four players with t
Cat-sized horses were the norm in a hotter past: study

Feb 24, 2012

WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than 50 million years ago, the Earth was a hotter place than it is today and horses the size of pet cats roamed the forests of North America, US scientists said on Thursday.These earliest known horses, known as Sifrhippus, actually grew smaller over tens of thousands of years
Work begins on black history museum

Feb 23, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Barack Obama ― the first black U.S. president ― heralded a new national black history museum as “not just a record of tragedy, but a celebration of life’’ as he marked Wednesday’s groundbreaking of the long-sought-after museum on the National Mall.Obama said the National Museum of African American History and Culture “has been a long time coming.’’“It was on this ground long ago that lives were once traded, where hundreds of thousands once marched for jobs and for fre
Automaton at U.S. museum linkd to Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’

Feb 23, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ― The Franklin Institute’s automaton can’t help you find a good sushi place, direct you out of a traffic jam or check your bank balance.But the automaton, a mechanical doll animated by a complex system of spring-driven motors and brass cams, can write three poems and draw four pictures. And what might be most interesting about this 200-year-old curiosity is its ability to amaze a high-tech culture whose homes, cars and pockets are laden with all kinds of wireless, streaming, ta
Greek P.M. rejects culture minister’s ...resignation

Feb 23, 2012

ATHENS (AFP) ― Greek culture minister Pavlos Geroulanos’s offer to resign over a major robbery at a museum in the city of Olympia has been rejected by the country’s premier, an official statement said Wednesday.Geroulanos had submitted his resignation on Friday, after robbers made off with scores of artefacts including items dating back over 3,000 years from a museum in the ancient Greek city of Olympia.But in a meeting between Geroulanos and Papademos, the culture minister was told his resignat
Olympia theft worse than originally reported

Feb 21, 2012

Police in Greece say 77 artifacts were stolen by armed robbers last week at a small museum in Ancient Olympia -- the birthplace of the ancient games -- revealing that the extent of the theft was worse than originally reported.Police and the Culture Ministry had initially estimated that some 65 objects up to 3,200 years old were taken in Friday’s raid, when two masked gunmen tied up a museum guard and used a sledgehammer to smash display cabinets at the southern Greek museum.Most of the items on
Museum robbed at Greece’s ancient Olympia

Feb 19, 2012

ATHENS (AP) ― Two masked gunmen stormed into a small museum at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece on Friday, smashing display cases with hammers and making off with dozens of antiquities up to 3,200 years old, authorities said.It was the second major museum theft in as many months in debt-crippled Greece, and a culture ministry unionist said spending cuts have compromised security at hundreds of museums and ancient sites across the country. With unemployment at 21 percent
S. Korean maestro to meet with N. Koreans in China over orchestra performance

Feb 18, 2012

SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A renowned South Korean conductor plans to meet with North Korean music officials this weekend in China to discuss a joint orchestra performance in Pyongyang, an official said Friday.South Korea allowed Chung Myung-whun, who leads the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, to hold
Exiled Iranian cartoonist vows to fight regime with drawings

Feb 16, 2012

ANGOULEME, France (AFP) ― Iranian dissident cartoonist Mana Neyestani says drawing has been his salvation and a weapon to combat his own personal demons as well as Tehran’s hardline Islamist regime.Neyestani’s autobiographical comic book “An Iranian Metamorphosis,” a Kafkaesque story recounting his jailing in Iran over a cartoon depicting a cockroach that sparked riots in 2006, is due to hit stores on Feb. 16.“With this book, I wanted to share my experiences but also to forget my worst nightmare
German museums to hold exhibition of Korean relics

Feb 16, 2012

Major museums in Germany will hold a joint exhibition of Korean relics, offering a rare chance to appreciate Korean art from the 11th to 20th centuries, the German Embassy in Seoul said. The joint exhibition will tour four German cities, including Grassi Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig and East Asia Art Museum in Cologne from Feb. 17 to May 27. The touring exhibition will also be held at museums in Frankfurt and in Stuttgart, the embassy said in a statement. A total of 10 museums in Germany broug
Curtain falls on landmark Hong Kong opera house

Feb 16, 2012

HONG KONG (AFP) ― Hong Kong’s last dedicated Cantonese opera theatre is holding its final performances before it closes this week, in what some art lovers see as another nail in the coffin of a 300-year-old tradition.The 1,000-seat Sunbeam Theatre has been synonymous with the operatic heritage of China’s southern Cantonese-speaking minority for 40 years since it opened in 1972.It has earned landmark status on Hong Kong’s art scene, standing in stoic defiance of the former British colony’s transf
Philippine swordsmith has Hollywood touch

Feb 16, 2012

POZORRUBIO, Philippines (AFP) ― Filomeno de Guzman does not know Sparta from medieval Scotland, but the Philippine swordsmith is an expert at replicating ancient warriors’ tools for killing each other.A stubby ex-military sergeant who has never set foot abroad, de Guzman and 15 rice farmer-neighbors who moonlight as blacksmiths craft old truck leaf springs into things of terrible beauty.The business feeds an overseas market for replica swords of Roman gladiators, Greek infantry and Japanese samu
Aztec relics uncovered in Mexico City temple

Feb 15, 2012

MEXICO CITY (AFP) ― Mexican archeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of 23 stone plaques with carved images inside the main temple of what was once the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, in downtown Mexico City.The carved images of serpents and warriors tell stories that include the birth of the Aztec warrior god Huitzilopochtli, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said.The tiles were likely carved when the main temple was built between 1440 and 1469, said archeologist