A team of officials will crack down on hiring irregularities at public agencies for three months, from Tuesday through the end of January.The team will look into possible irregularities in hiring and human resources management at 338 public agencies funded by the central government, 847 local public agencies and 268 organizations related to public offices for five years. (Yonhap)They will scrutinize job-related soliciting, rigging of test scores or interview scores, unfair instructions or briber

A man called the 112 emergency police hotline early Friday, asking police to check on the girlfriend he could not reach, saying she may have killed herself.When the officers called the woman, however, she told them that she was not home and that she never tried to kill herself. She said she had broken up with the man two days prior.When officers asked the man what was going on, he answered, “I just wanted to see her because she wouldn’t take my calls. I thought the police might help open the doo

SINGAPORE -- About 120 Korean small and medium-sized enterprises showcased their products and services to potential customers and buyers in Southeast Asia during a two-day trade fair that ended here Friday.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra) held the Korea Brand & Entertainment Expo for the first time in Singapore, to which 260 prospective buyers -- 160 from Singapore and 100 from neighboring countries -- were invited.Kotra has organ

Many “guesthouses” that have cropped up near Incheon Airport have been found to have operated illegally.The Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority said Tuesday that it issued notices of administrative actions against six guesthouses that violated the law on tourism promotion.The IFEZ Authority and police inspected 23 guesthouses around Unseo-dong in Jung-gu, Incheon from Sept. 18 through Oct. 22, and found six to be operating illegally.Under the enforcement decree of the Tourism Promotion Act, any

Nineteen private kindergartens said they will close as of Monday, days after a lawmaker revealed thousands of accounting fraud cases involving private kindergartens.Six of the kindergartens have submitted papers to the education authorities, seeking to terminate their businesses, and another 12 have informed parents that they will shut down. One said it has stopped accepting enrollment applications.Rep. Park Yong-jin of the Democratic Party revealed early this month that 5,951 financial irregula

Lawmakers’ push to launch a special tribunal on the judiciary power abuse scandal involving a former top court chief is stoking controversy among legal experts over fairness and judicial independence.Floor leaders of the ruling Democratic Party and three minor opposition parties said in a joint press conference last Friday that a special tribunal must be launched to “fairly handle” the allegations that former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae led the abuse of judicial power.(Yonhap)Paper

Some 200,000 South Koreans took part in working holiday programs abroad over the past five years, and 390 of them fell victim to crime overseas, according to Foreign Ministry data released by a lawmaker on Friday.Over 65 percent of them, or 254, fell victim in Australia, Rep. Kang Seok-ho of the Liberty Korea Party, who chairs the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and unification, said during the National Assembly audit.Fifty-two fell victim to crimes in Canada, followed by 41 in the UK

The US State Department stressed the full implementation of UN sanctions against North Korea in regard to the possible resumption of operations at the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong, US broadcaster Radio Free Asia reported Thursday.Executives of South Korean companies that have factories in Kaesong are seeking to visit the industrial park north of the border next week for the first time since factories there were shut down in 2016.  Kaesong Industrial Complex (Yonhap)“The US expects all

Actress Kim Bu-seon’s defamation suit against Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung, who denies her claims that they had an extramarital affair, hit a snag Wednesday when her lawyer was jailed.Former lawmaker and lawyer Kang Yong-seok was sentenced to a year in prison for forging documents concerning an alleged extramarital affair between Kang and luxury products blogger Kim Mi-na. Kang immediately filed for appeal. Should his prison sentence be upheld in a higher court, Kang will not be able to practice

A group of European Parliament members identified North Korea as one of 11 countries where severe violations of freedom of religion or belief occur, in a recently released annual report.The 11 countries named by the European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance also include China, Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Article 68 of the North Korean constitution enshrines a ‘right of religion,’ but in practice the government systematically suppresses th

Passengers in Seoul will be able to pay for a taxi by scanning a QR code from a mobile app, starting in January.The Seoul City government said on Tuesday that it would put standards in place for “taxi QR code contactless payment,” which will be an option in some 70,000 taxis. (Yonhap)While offline payments in Korea typically use a “static QR code” method, a “dynamic QR code” method will be used for Seoul taxis.With the “dynamic” method, QR codes can be created in real time to reflect fares based

Police nabbed 2,062 people suspected of illegally filming women’s body parts and distributing pornography after a two-month special crackdown on online sex crimes.Police detained 88 of the suspects, National Police Agency Chief Min Gap-ryong said Monday.“(Police) cracked down on 99 pornographic websites that had servers overseas, and so it was not easy to track down the 55 suspects involved, detaining 21 of them,” Min said in a statement.“(Police) raided 20 companies that run data storage busine

The green metro line, Line 2, had more crimes reported than any other subway line in Seoul since the start of 2016.Some 6,084 crimes were reported From the beginning of 2016 and August 2018 on Seoul subway lines 1 through 8, according to the Seoul Metro data released by Rep. Park Hong-geun of the Democratic Party, who sits on the parliamentary committee for land and transport. (Yonhap)More than a third of the crimes on subways, or 2,171 cases, took place on Line 2, the circular line that runs ar

SINGAPORE -- ASEAN, a regional bloc consisting of 10 Southeast Asian nations, is Korea’s second-largest trade partner after China, and is expected to be the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030, after the US, China and the European Union.Through the Moon Jae-in administration’s New Southern Policy, Seoul seeks to expand cooperation and improve its relationship with ASEAN and India. President Moon Jae-in paid a state visit to India from July 8 to 11. During the visit, he and Indian Prime Minist

The Seoul High Court overturned a Supreme Court ruling in a remanded case by recognizing as a refugee a Ugandan lesbian woman who claims to face risks of persecution for her sexual orientation if she returns home.The Seoul High Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, saying she has already been persecuted in Uganda with threats to her life and body after her sexual orientation became known. (Yonhap)“Should she return to Uganda, there are risks that she may be persecuted by homophobic people or th