Five North Koreans were rescued from a sinking fishing boat in waters off South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo last week, a Seoul official said Sunday.South Korea’s Coast Guard discovered the fishing boat about 60 kilometers northeast of Dokdo on Friday morning and rescued all five crew members on board, an official of South Korea‘s Unification Ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The crew members, all men in their 20s to 40s, expressed their wish to return home and will be sen

A political heavyweight of the ruling party and close confidant of President Park Geun-hye has been cleared of charges that he illegally acquired a transcript from a 2007 summit between then-President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.The Seoul Central District Court announced Monday that Rep. Kim Moo-sung of the Saenuri Party “was not in a position to take care of details regarding the summit minutes,” adding that it has found no charge to indict the lawmaker.Kim has been suspect

A South Korean woman who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese imperial army during World War II died Sunday, another sign that time is running out for the aging victims to receive an apology and due compensation, a civic group said.Bae Chun-hee died at age 91, according to the House of Sharing, which runs a shelter for victims of Japan’s sexual enslavement.Her death leaves only 54 surviving victims of one of the most serious wartime crimes by Japan. Initially, 237 women were on the li

The prosecution is poised to summon the wife of Yoo Byung-eun, the de facto owner of the sunken ferry Sewol, in a bid to put more psychological pressure on the fugitive, investigators said Sunday.Prosecutors bought up their plan to summon Yoo’s wife Kwon Yoon-ja after the Incheon District Court issued an arrest warrant for Yoo’s brother in-law, Kwon Oh-kyun, on Saturday.The wife’s younger brother Kwon became the first figure among Yoo’s family, relatives and in-laws to be taken into custody. He

South Korea’s new national security adviser vowed a relentless retaliation against North Korea if provoked again, an official said Saturday, the latest in a series of harsh rhetoric against each other.Kim Kwan-jin, who currently doubles as the defense minister, also called on them to “have a strong fighting capability to relentlessly retaliate against the enemy and completely make it surrender in case of the enemy’s provocation.”He gave the instructions during his trip to a military unit near th

Investigators on Wednesday arrested the brother-in-law of Yoo Byung-eun, de facto owner of the sunken ferry Sewol, for engaging in dubious intra-group deals as the head of a unit of Chonghaejin Marine Co., the operator of the ill-fated vessel.According to the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office, the suspect Kwon Oh-kyun allegedly pocketed company funds to illicitly transfer to the fugitive Yoo and his children.Kwon is working for the irregularity-saddled Chonghaejin group as chief of Trigon Kor

The Gwangju District Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for a senior vessel safety operator of the Korea Shipping Association’s Incheon unit and a vessel inspector of the Korean Register of Shipping’s Mokpo unit.The two suspects ― a 51-year-old vessel safety operator surnamed Kim and a vessel inspector surnamed Jeon ― allegedly approved the operation of the Sewol ferry and issued a safety certificate without verifying the authenticity of the “forged” report submitted by Chonghaejin Marine C

Investigators on Monday raised the possibility that internal information on tracing fugitive Yoo Byung-eun, the de facto owner of the sunken ferry Sewol, might have been leaked.While an extraordinary investigation team, composed of about 70 prosecutors and policemen, has been leading the nationwide search for Yoo, the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office alleged that Yoo or his followers could have accessed intelligence held by investigators.A senior prosecutor in charge of the team was quoted b