The government is reviewing plans to reduce oil imports from Iran to 2010 levels as part of efforts to reduce aftershocks of joining the U.S. sanction on Iran’s oil trade.According to reports citing an unnamed government official, Seoul is reviewing plans to reduce oil imports from Iran as it seeks an exemption for Korea in the application of the U.S.’ National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, and to prepare for possible developments in the region. The National Defense Authorizati

The upcoming leadership election of the main opposition Democratic Unified Party is to be the largest ever.In the citizen voter registration that ended Saturday, 643,353 voters registered, according to party officials.Together with 127,920 party members, the registered voters are to select a six-member decision-making body, and the lawmaker who receives the most votes will be named chairperson.The results of the mobile vote will be combined with the party delegates’ vote, which will take place d

The legacy of Vaclav Havel should inspire commitment to promoting human rights and democracy in North Korea, the director of South Korea’s Human Rights Special Committee has said. Kim Tae-hoon praised the former Czech president, who died in December, at a memorial in Seoul on Friday. “Havel’s life was a most noble one, dedicated to democracy and human rights, and I lack the words to give it due honor,” said Kim at the ceremony on the 35th anniversary of Charter 77. The leader helped author the C

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― South African police arrested Thursday six people suspected of luring a South Korean man and his daughter to the country with a money-making scam, then kidnapping them for ransom, a spokesman said.“The 65-year-old father and his daughter, who is in her 30s, apparently responded to an email from the suspects promising tens of millions of dollars. The duo arrived in South Africa from South Korea on Tuesday,” said national police spokesman McIntosh Polela in a statement.Upon th

Prosecutors said Friday that they have found no evidence to incriminate any Grand National Party lawmaker in connection with the Oct. 26 cyber attack on the website of the state election watchdog.They concluded that the attack was plotted and carried out by a former secretary of the National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae and another ex-aide of former GNP lawmaker Choi Gu-sik. They hacked the website of the National Election Commission with a distributed-denial-of-service attack from 5:53 a.m. fo

BAGHDAD (AP) ― An apparently coordinated wave of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims killed at least 78 people in Iraq on Thursday, the second large-scale assault by militants since U.S. forces pulled out last month.The attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents, come ahead of a Shiite holy day that draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across Iraq, raising fears of a deepening of sectarian bloodshed. Rifts along the country’s Sunni-Shiite faultline just a few years ago pushed Ir

President Lee Myung-bak will embark on a three-day visit to China on Monday. His visit, coming several months ahead of the 20th anniversary of Seoul-Beijing diplomatic relations, will surely provide an opportunity for Lee and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to review past achievements and map out the future course of action.South Korea and China, the only military ally of North Korea, have come a long way since they established diplomatic ties in August 1992. A retired Chinese diplomat, who

When the ruling Grand National Party was holding a national convention to select its leader, rumors that candidates distributed envelopes containing cash invariably made the rounds. None of them had been vetted until recently, and few came out to acknowledge they had been offered cash during the convention.But some of the rumors are most likely to be checked out this time, with one first-term lawmaker having said in public that he received an envelope containing 3 million won from a person close

The persistent perception one gets from all the reports about our migrant labor is that we consistently welcome the billions in remittances from their blood, sweat and tears. Yet policies since the 1980s also display a superficial sense of urgency in ensuring the security and welfare of millions of our men and women working far from home, many of them in high-risk situations.The Malaysian news agency Bernama reported recently that Indonesian workers sent home $6.1 billion last year despite unres

Getting post-disaster reconstruction efforts onto a steady track is a great task for Japan this year. We should consider the new year as “the first year of full-scale reconstruction” from the Great East Japan Earthquake.The March 11 quake and tsunami left many people bereft of their loved ones and deprived of their longtime homes, while also severing communities’ life-sustaining ties of mutual support.The number of people who were forced to evacuate, and saw out the old year while living in temp