Prosecutors here said Friday they have requested an arrest warrant for an Ulsan vice mayor suspected of illegally intervening in the 2018 mayoral election in the southeastern metropolitan city.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said it asked the court Thursday evening to issue a pre-trial warrant to detain Song Byung-gi, Ulsan's vice mayor for economic affairs, on charges of conspiring with several presidential aides to influence the city's mayoral poll last year in violation of the P

University students in South Korea still view tech giant Samsung Electronics as the most desirable future employer, a local survey showed Thursday. According to the survey of 473 male students and 586 female students conducted by online job portal JobKorea, 10.6 percent chose Samsung Electronics as the company where they would most like to work. The next most popular answer was Korean Air (7.6 percent), followed by food manufacturer CJ CheilJedang (6.7 percent) and the Korea Electric P

Over 3,000 South Koreans who had applied for reunions with their long-lost relatives in North Korea have died this year without having their wishes fulfilled, according to government data.A total of 3,147 South Koreans, registered as members of separated families since 1988, died from January to November this year, an online system jointly run by the unification ministry and the Red Cross showed on Tuesday. Among the total of 133,365 South Koreans registered as members of separated families, onl

The latest bone of contention between the labor union and management at Hyundai Motor was unforeseen in a country that boasts one of the highest internet penetration rates -- Wi-Fi use.On Tuesday, the automaker changed its decision to allow employees to use Wi-Fi at its manufacturing plant in Ulsan, and placed restrictions on use only during meal times and break hours. The decision was taken after criticism that employees spent a lot of their time surfing the internet or watching YouTube vi

A family war is brewing in Hanjin Group, one of Korea’s vast conglomerates which also owns flag carrier Korean Air, with siblings battling to assume management control. Late Chairman Cho Yang-ho’s eldest daughter Cho Hyun-ah is stepping up her attack against her younger brother and present Chairman Cho Won-tae, hinting at continued dispute about succession.Former Korean Air Vice President Cho Hyun-ah said in a statement Monday via a law firm that “ Cho Won-tae’s busi

Arson suspect in ICU with non-life-threatening injuries

A teenage mother and a father in his 20s were sentenced to prison for the neglect of their newborn baby for five days and leaving it to starve to death. Incheon District Court on Thursday ordered 20 years of imprisonment to the 21-year-old father on charges of murder, abandonment of a body and negligence of a child. The 18-year-old mother faces a minimum of seven years to a maximum of 15 years of prison on the same charges. In Korea, where the age of adulthood is 19, juvenile law states tha

A lawyer for two producers of a high-profile K-pop audition show admitted most of their charges involving vote-rigging during a preparatory hearing on Friday. Ahn Joon-young, a director of Mnet cable TV's "Produce X 101," and the program's chief producer, Kim Yong-beom, were detained early last month after they were accused of having tampered with mobile text message-based voting results of the high-profile show in favor of certain contenders.In July, a vote-rigging scandal hit hard th

Debate heated up over whether successful K-pop stars should be exempted from Korea’s mandatory military service during a public hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul on Thursday.Chaired by Rep. Ahn Min-suk of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, the hearing saw a panel of lawmakers and culture critics call for reform of the country’s military exemption rules in order to give international K-pop stars like BTS military service exemption.Pop culture critic Ha Jae-geun said exempti

The state manpower agency on Thursday publicly disclosed the personal information of 261 citizens who failed to comply with state orders to fulfill mandatory military service last year without due reasons. The disclosure is in accordance with the 2015 revision of the Military Service Act as part of efforts to ensure fairness in the implementation of the compulsory system, according to the Military Manpower Administration. The list of dodgers has been disclosed once a year on its website since 20

Police and prosecutors have issued conflicting views on a controversial forensics report that was used as key evidence in convicting a 53-year-old man surnamed Yun of the eighth of the notorious Hwaseong serial killings.Police on Wednesday disputed prosecutors’ suggestion that the 1989 forensic report that led to the suspected wrongful conviction had been a “fabrication,” saying the tested samples had not been manipulated.This follows a statement from the prosecutors Tuesd

The police said Tuesday that they have opened a probe into possible law violations and violence during a rally the previous day by conservative activists in front of the National Assembly building.Some 500 people belonging to right-wing organizations and supporting the main opposition Liberty Korea Party held a rally in protest against a set of reform bills. Following the rally, the protesters remained there for nearly nine hours, tried to break into the National Assembly building and some of th

US Forces Korea said Tuesday it lifted a curfew for all of its troops, effective immediately. The curfew, set for between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., was imposed in 2011 amid public outcry over allegations of sexual violence and other crimes by USFK troops. Before making the termination decision, USKF temporarily suspended the curfew until Tuesday, and looked into the results for assessment.  "After assessing the curfew data and consulting with USFK leaders including component commanders, I dec

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk appeared at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning Monday. Cho is accused of wrongly suspending an internal investigation of former Busan Vice Mayor Yoo Jae-soo in 2017, then a senior official at the Financial Services Commission. Yoo, who is detained, was indicted Friday. Yoon Do-han, senior secretary to the president for public communication, denied that the Blue House stopped the inspection. He said Cho’s office ran the ins

Former Ulsan Mayor Kim Gi-hyeon, who raised allegations about Cheong Wa Dae’s suspected meddling in regional elections last year, appeared before the prosecution Sunday to be questioned as a witness. Kim, who is affiliated with the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, says that the Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency deliberately investigated suspicions surrounding his brother and close aide a few months ahead of the elections last year, to sway the vote in favor of the ruling Democratic