Another teacher investigated for allegedly ignoring school violencePolice have opened an investigation into another local teacher on suspicions of neglecting a bullied student, police said Wednesday, two days after launching an unprecedented investigation into a teacher on similar suspicions. The Gangseo Police Station in western Seoul said the investigation was launched after the father of a middle school student submitted a petition for the investigation into the teacher, who the father said

N. Korean leader uses same gifts as his fatherIn another apparent move to bolster his rule, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has handed out binoculars and rifles to servicemen in the same way his late father, strongman Kim Jong-il, used to encourage military personnel.The gifts appeared frequently during Kim Jong-il‘s inspection visits to the military until August 2008, after which they were no longer seen in footage released by the North’s state media.On Tuesday, however, the (North) Korean Cent

Buoyed by stellar performances last year, Korean nonlife insurers are considering cutting their car insurance premiums amid worries over high inflation, industry sources said Wednesday.Industry leader Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co. recently sounded the Financial Supervisory Service, the local financial regulator, on its intention to slash insurance premiums by around 2 percent, according to the sources.The FSS has begun looking into the possibility, examining other non-life insurers’ loss r

The foreign ministry plans to tighten its rules of internal audits on overseas diplomatic missions to combat wrongdoings and corruption by diplomats, an official said Wednesday. Under the tougher rules, the ministry will carry out its own audit into all missions at least once every three years, the official said on the condition of anonymity. South Korea has nearly 170 missions abroad.The move follows a stock manipulation scandal in which diplomats were accused of playing a role in inflating the

LONDON (AFP) ― Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is reuniting with the Swiss architects with whom he created Beijing’s spectacular Bird’s Nest Stadium, to build a pavilion for this year’s London Olympics.Ai, along with the Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron, will join forces again to design a pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens park, the gallery said on Tuesday. “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog and de Meuron and Ai Weiwei,” said gallery director Jul

BERLIN (AFP) ― The Great Altar of Pergamon, a sculpted frieze dating from the 2nd century B.C. and one of Berlin’s top tourist attractions, will be closed for repair work from 2014, the museum said Tuesday.The Pergamon Museum ― which opened to house the Ancient Greek masterpiece in 1930 on Berlin’s renowned Museum Island ― will undergo a complete renovation in several phases, between October of this year and 2019.“Preliminary restoration work in the Pergamon Hall will likely begin in May 2014,”

The 2018 Olympics host invites youths from around world to promote winter sportsMore than 100 youths from around the world arrived in Korea Wednesday to participate in the Dream Program in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province. The annual program is designed to introduce winter sports to young people from countries where such sports are not available. This year, 143 youngsters from more than 30 countries have been invited to benefit from the program. The participating counties include eight African coun

A group of Korea’s large conglomerates pledged Wednesday that they will make concerted efforts to stabilize the economy and improve the livelihoods of ordinary people in the face of persistent global economic woes.The Federation of Korean Industries, a powerful interest group for the country’s big family-owned businesses, adopted a resolution on their responsibility for economic stability and social integration.The move came as the country’s large conglomerates have come under fire for monopoliz

NEW YORK (AP) ― A wine steward who plucked artwork off hotel and gallery walls in a bicoastal spree admitted Tuesday to stealing a $350,000 drawing in New York, resolving charges here after serving jail time in California.An art-loving thief who stole to decorate his own apartment, according to prosecutors, Mark Lugo pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the New York case.He admitted he took the pricey sketch by the Cubist painter Fernand Leger from a lobby gallery at Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel on J

Sweden’s Museum of East Asia will open a special exhibition wing for Korean antiquities this weekend, a South Korean government agency in charge of supporting exchanges with foreign countries said Wednesday.The Korean room, built with financial support from the Korea Foundation affiliated with the Foreign Ministry, is scheduled to open on Saturday, the agency said.About 160 of some 350 Korean artifacts owned by the museum, chiefly ceramics, will be displayed in the 100 square meters of space on

The South Korean government’s attempt to create a unification account by revising a related law to prepare for the possibility of a reunified Korea over the next 20 years has failed to win bipartisan consensus.The National Assembly’s foreign affairs, trade and unification committee on Monday suspended discussions on the revision of the South-North Cooperation Fund law, because of unilateral opposition from the Democratic United Party.The Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korean issues

An appellant court on Wednesday found not guilty a woman formerly convicted of homicide in a sensational case known as “the murder without a corpse.” The 40-year-old woman was arrested in June last year for killing a 26-year-old woman and cremating the body in Busan. She disguised the corpse as hers to receive money from her life insurance, which would have amounted to 2.4 billion won ($2.1 million). She signed up to the insurance policy two months before the alleged crime.She admitted she faked