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SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – The South Korean government is liable for the botched rescue of more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren, who drowned when their overloaded ferry sank, a court ruled Thursday, ordering the state to compensate relatives. In a landmark ruling, the Seoul Central District Court awarded the next of kin of each deceased passenger from the Sewol ferry 200 million won ($177,000), a further 40 million won for each of their parents, […]
JEJU, South Korea (AFP) – A few hundred asylum-seekers from Yemen have sparked an unprecedented wave of xenophobia in ethnically homogenous South Korea, echoing the anti-immigrant sentiment that has swept Europe and helped propel Donald Trump to the White House. More than a million migrants arrived in Germany after its borders were opened in 2015 to asylum-seekers — many fleeing war — which deeply divided the country and its neighbours. And the United States, by […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – The two Koreas on Wednesday held a friendly basketball match in Pyongyang in the latest effort at sports diplomacy between the neighbours. A group of 50 male and female players from the South arrived in the North’s capital on Tuesday for four rounds of friendlies on Wednesday and Thursday — agreed at the inter-Korea summit held in April. The South’s delegation was led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, in the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday upheld the jailing of those who evade the country’s military conscription law, but ordered authorities to provide conscientious objectors with an alternative form of national service. Almost 65 years after the end of the Korean War, nearly every able-bodied South Korean man between the ages of 18 and 35 must still complete around two years of military service. Anyone refusing the call-up usually ends […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP)–The patriarch of South Korean flag carrier Korean Air was grilled by prosecutors Thursday over alleged tax evasion and other crimes, as a series of probes reached the top of the troubled business dynasty. Cho Yang-ho, 69, and his brothers and a sister allegedly avoided paying 50 billion won ($45 million) in taxes on the overseas assets they inherited after their father Cho Choong-hoon died in 2002. “I am sorry. I will […]
SOUL, South Korea (AFP) – North and South Korea held talks Tuesday on connecting the railways that run across their border, a physical link that would transform the relationship between the two sides of the divided peninsula. The discussions, the first on the issue for 10 years, took place in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone. A rail line already exists from Seoul to Pyongyang and on to Sinuiju on the Chinese […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The last polar bear kept in South Korea will be sent to Britain to escape the country’s stifling, humid summers and live out his days in more appropriate surroundings, zookeepers said Thursday, June 21. Tongki — a 23-year-old male named after a Japanese cartoon character of the 1980s — lives in a 330-square-metre (3500-square-foot) concrete enclosure at the Everland theme park outside Seoul. Born in captivity at a zoo […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The two Koreas on Monday discussed forming unified teams for the upcoming Asian Games in Indonesia to extend the burgeoning diplomacy on the peninsula that took off at the Winter Olympics. At their historic summit in April, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in had agreed to joint participation in “international sports events such as the 2018 Asian Games”. On the agenda for the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The matriarch of the troubled Korean Air dynasty was grilled Monday over allegations she used company resources to illegally hire foreign housekeepers, as a probe into the scandal-hit family widened. Lee Myung-hee, 69, who was questioned by police twice last month over multiple assault allegations, was interrogated by immigration authorities over suspicions she hired more than 10 Filipina maids to work at her family home on false pretences, by […]
