SINGAPORE -- Hundreds of foreign guests were in Pyongyang over the weekend to attend celebrations commemorating the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding on Sept. 9.Among them were leaders of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations.“Eight board members of the SCWO including myself are going,” June Goh, president of the SCWO, told The Korea Herald in an interview Thursday, hours before boarding her flight to Beijing en route to Pyongyang.“According to the itinerary, there will be a we

Police apprehended 15 people for growing cannabis on hills, selling or injecting methamphetamine, in Busan.Four people have been detained and 11 booked without detention for violation of the narcotics control law, Busan’s Sasang Police Station said Monday.  (Yonhap)Two of them are suspected of selling methamphetamine to their acquaintances in the Gimhae area in South Gyeongsang Province.Ten are suspected of repeat injections of the drug from last November until recently. Another three are suspec

A 60-year-old man died after he was stung by bees 19 times Saturday afternoon.The man was found lying face down on a hill in the county of Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, around 5:50 p.m. by a relative, who called the police.The man had called his relative at around 5:20 p.m., saying he had been stung by bees.He had gone up the hill alone to weed an ancestor’s grave for the second time that day, having already made the trip with his relative in the morning, according to police. He was wearing

Seoul City said Tuesday that an extended bus-only lane on Dongjak-daero will open at 4 a.m. Friday.The 2.8-kilometer extended segment of the bus-only lane from Bangbae Police Station to the hill of Namtaeyreong is expected to raise the average speed of buses heading toward the city center from the current 17.8 kilometers per hour to 24.1 kph, the city government said. (Yonhap)The chronic traffic congestion around Sadang Station and increased traffic entering and exiting the Gangnam Expressway th

Busan’s seven major beaches saw less crime this summer, including fewer sex offenses, compared with previous years.Busan police said Tuesday that the number of vacationers on Busan’s beaches dropped from about 48.2 million in June-August of 2017 to around 41.1 million in the same period this year.“Summer police squads” patrolled all seven beaches this year as part of efforts to prevent crime. (Yonhap)There were 40 instances of five major crimes -- murder, robbery, rape, theft and assault -- on t

The Incheon Michuholl Police Station said Tuesday that it had booked two people accused of threatening nurses and assaulting doctors at hospital emergency rooms.One man, 48, was booked without detention Sunday for allegedly threatening to kill a nurse.Police said the man had requested an injection to relieve joint pain at a hospital emergency room in Michuhol, Incheon, and lashed out when the nurse asked him to wait. He continued to make threats for about 10 minutes, police said.  (Yonhap)Also o

Police arrested an alleged member of a criminal organization operating in Busan’s Yeonje district, saying he harassed and repeatedly extorted money from owners of local mom-and-pop stores over the last three years. Yeonje police said on Monday that they had arrested and detained the 59-year-old accused man on charges of blackmail and assault under the “three-strikes” policy. (Yonhap)  Under the rule, a person who has received suspended jail terms or more serious punishments for two or more count

A nongovernmental group said Monday it will distribute books on the history of the so-called “comfort women” and related issues later this month to 18 high schools in the San Francisco area.The San Francisco-based Education for Social Justice Foundation published the not-for-sale, 106-page student edition of “’Comfort Women’ History and Issues for Students” last week, which will be the first educational material entirely about Japan’s military sex slaves during the World War II to be used in US

With an increasing number of juveniles committing violent crimes, the government is seeking to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 13 by the end of this year.The Education Ministry announced on Friday a set of measures to prevent juvenile violence after a meeting of ministers presided over by Education Minister Kim Sang-kon.The measures also include holding public discussions on whether schools should be in charge of resolving lesser cases of school violence, and whether these lesser off

A woman in her 50s who blocked the entrance of an apartment parking lot with her car in a fit of anger over a parking sticker apologized after the incident was reported in the media and was met with a fierce backlash from other residents.Four days of aggression and tit-for-tat over a Camry parked in front of the car park entrance ended as the car owner apologized Thursday evening.The whole brouhaha started when the 51-year-old resident of the apartment complex in Songdo, Incheon, found a parking

The nation’s police command -- all 613 senior officials of superintendent rank or higher -- convened at the police headquarters in Seoul for a two-day course on gender sensitivity starting Thursday.It is the first such gathering since National Police Agency Commissioner General Min Gap-ryong took office in late July.When a new police chief is sworn in, the agency customarily holds a workshop where the commanding officers discuss important operational and other police matters. (Yonhap)This time,

Police suspect that a day care center tried to cover up a recent incident in which a girl, 3, was left alone in a vehicle for 2 1/2 hours.Parents of the toddler reported the incident to police Monday night when they heard about what had happened in the morning from their child after they returned home from work.The child was on the day care bus when it arrived at the center in Nam-gu, Busan, at about 8:40 a.m. on Monday. The day care center texted the girl’s mother when they did not see the girl

A South Korean activist said he had emailed a complaint to the members of the International Olympic Committee about its recommendation not to include the eastern islets of Dokdo on a flag for the two Koreas to use together at international sporting events.The original mock-up of the Korean Unification Flag, which features a blue Korean Peninsula against a white background, included the disputed rocky islets in the East Sea. But Seoul decided to amend the image, using an alternative for the Pyeon

Police reached the tentative conclusion that some 2,600 people lost a total of about 9 billion won after investing in the fraudulent Shinil Group that claimed to have found a sunken Russian warship loaded with gold.Police said the amount of losses could be bigger as their tentative estimate is based on the trading accounts they have tracked so far.“If we find more related accounts or confirm cases in which investors used cash, the amount could go up,” the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Sophi

Thai police have arrested six Thais on allegations that they traded counterfeit North Korean banknotes, a local newspaper reported Monday.Police in Chonburi, Thailand, said they had also seized some 86,000 banknotes amounting to 43 million North Korean won (53 million South Korean won or about $48,000) after an undercover investigation in the nearby Bang Lamung district. (Reuters)A photo in the newspaper, the Bangkok Post, showed stacks of old North Korean banknotes used before Pyongyang’s 2009