The number of children in South Korea with at least one foreign parent nearly tripled over the past four years, as international marriages continued to increase, statistics showed. According to data released by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security on Thursday, there were 151,154 such children registered as of Jan. 1, surpassing the 150,000 mark for the first time. This year’s figure

Mom, two daughters stricken by mysterious lung diseaseAt 0:30 on Sunday morning, Jin-ju finally stopped breathing.It was the 93rd day since the 15-month-old baby girl had been hospitalized with flu-like symptoms, which turned out to be an unidentified acute lung disease that has claimed the lives of four patients since May. “I went to Busan (where she was hospitalized) upon hearing the news, had h

This is the second installment of a three-part series looking into problems in Korea’s tertiary education. ― Ed. Lee, a 30-year-old computer engineering graduate, has been jobless since he graduated from a university in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, more than a year ago. There seemed to be a lot of job openings in the information technology industry, but for some reason, he did not feel he was qualif

Hong Joon-pyo puts self forward as anti-factional candidateThe race to become the new chief of the governing Grand National Party is shaping up to be a competition among young, reform-minded members from the capital area, with no clear frontrunner, political observers said Sunday. With about two weeks to go before the July 4 party convention, three lawmakers threw their hat in the ring on the day,

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs confirmed Sunday that an Asiana jetliner was “following a normal route” when Marine Corps mistook it as a North Korean military plane and shot at it late Friday. “The Asiana flight was flying normally. In fact, another plane had taken that route just 20 minutes before,” a ministry official said. It backed the claim by Asiana Airlines that the fl

This is the first installment of a three-part series looking into problems in Korea’s tertiary education system. ― Ed. After nearly a year of job hunting, Lee decided to lower her expectations. The 27-year-old graduate of a university in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, now goes to a vocational training institute in Seoul to learn how to make coffee. Hopefully, after completing this four-month course,

Students of the prestigious Seoul National University favor opposition leader Sohn Hak-kyu as the next Korean president, but think female conservative politician Park Geun-hye is most likely to win the race, a poll released Tuesday shows. According to the survey of 660 students conducted by the Seouldae Journal, a student newspaper at the university, Sohn, the chairman of the Democratic Party, was