A delegation of South Korean lawmakers held a ceremony on Wednesday to mark the 104th anniversary of the execution by the Japanese of a Korean national hero who assassinated a top Japanese official more than a century ago, honoring him as an anti-Japanese martyr.Ahn Jung-geun shot to death the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, at a railway station in Harbin in 1909. A year later, or months after Japan formally annexed Korea, he was executed at a Japanese prison in

Combined investment made by South Korea's top 30 conglomerates contracted 1.9 percent in 2013 as weaker profits affected corporate outlays, a report by an online business productivity evaluation firm showed Wednesday.According to CEO Score, tangible and intangible asset investments made by big businesses reached 95.8 trillion won ($89 billion), from 97.7 trillion won a year earlier. The numbers do not include research and development spending.The researcher said while their investments hovered a

Childbirths in South Korea fell for the 13th straight month in January, adding to the concern over the country's chronically low birthrate, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the number of babies born in January came to about 41,400, down 6.3 percent or 2,800 from the same month a year earlier. This marked the 13th straight month that childbirths have declined since January 2012.The latest childbirth report comes as South Korea is pushing to raise t

The U.S. government said Tuesday it is considering taking "appropriate" measures in response to North Korea's firing of two medium-range ballistic missiles.In an unusually lengthy and strongly worded statement, the State Department stressed that launches by the communist nation using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.It said U.S. government information has confirmed that North Korea launched two Rodong missiles into the East Sea, a

North Korea threatened Wednesday to "deal merciless sledgehammer blows" to South Korea for allegedly disseminating leaflets critical of the communist regime amid fresh tensions over Pyongyang's missile launches.The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea accused South Korea's military of scattering anti-Pyongyang leaflets and staging drills near their tense western sea border -- the scene of bloody skirmishes between the rival Koreas in recent years.The allegation came about an hour be

대한민국 해군 46명이 희생된 천안함 사건 당시우리 군이 ‘북한에 의한 폭침’을 주장하며 배후로 지목했던 북한 군부 인사들의 4년후 지금 거취도 관심이다.우리 군은 천안함 사건은 서해 북방한계선(NLL) 북방을 담당하는 북한군 4군단과 대남 침투·공작을 전담하는 정찰총국의 소행이라고 주장하며 2010년 당시 4군단장이었던 김격식과 김영철 정찰총국장을 두 사건을 주도한 인물로 지목했다.이들은 북한에서 김정은 체제 출범과 함께 군부의 대대적인 세대교체가 있었음에도 여전히 북한 주요 행사에서 건재함을 과시하고 있다.김격식은 김정은 국방위원회 제1위원장이 전면에 등장했던 2010년 9월 노동당 중앙위 후보위원에 선출된 데 이어 김정은 체제가 출범한 2012년부터 지난해까지 인민무력부장, 군 총참모장 등 군부의 최고 요직을 두루 거쳤다.김격식은 지난해 8월 리영길에게 총참모장 직을 넘겨주고 일선에서 물러난 이후에도 올해 1월 말 김정은 제1위원장의 항공육전병 야간훈련 참관에 대장 계급장을 달

President Park Geun-hye arrived in Berlin on Tuesday for a four-day state visit aimed mainly at learning from German unification as she has made strong pitches for unification with North Korea.The trip will also be watched closely because Park could unveil a new vision for inter-Korean unification when she visits the former East German economic center of Dresden later this week. Park will be the first South Korean president to visit a city in former East Germany.South Korean leaders have sometim

South Korea's largest cinema chain, CJ CGV, will open a "4DX" movie theater in Los Angeles, the first of its kind in the United States, the company said Tuesday.The film exhibitor said that during the recent CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, it signed a deal with the Anschutz Entertainment Group, a U.S.-based global sporting and music entertainment presenter, to operate the 4DX space.It will open within a theater called the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in downtown Los Angeles, possibly to

The United States has called the "comfort women program" Japan's systematic enslavement of women for sexual purposes, according to a U.S. government report.The description was included in a final report to the U.S. Congress by the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group in 2007.In 2000, Samuel Berger, then National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, directed agencies to locate records held by the U.S. government relating to war crimes committed