A Seoul court has acquitted South Korea’s oldest living independence fighter of sympathizing with North Korea, overturning a 49-year-old conviction. Along with four other members of his now-defunct Unification Society Party, Gu Ik-gyun, 103, was convicted of supporting the North by opposing the then anti-communist law and espousing “ideologically neutral reunification.” Gu was given a suspended...

Foreigners in Seoul think samgyeopsal, or Korean pork belly meat, is the most delicious food in the city, followed by kimchi and tteokbokki, a survey by the Seoul Metropolitan Government showed Monday. The city government polled 1,984 foreigners about their favorite Korean dishes in Seoul via the city government website, social networking sites such as Facebook, Japanese blog websites and the Ch...

BOGOTA (AFP) ― The Colombian Navy has rescued four Koreans from their catamaran after it suffered a breakdown while sailing across the Caribbean, a Colombian official said Saturday. “We responded to a call from the Korean embassy, which alerted us to a boat with four of its nationals aboard,” Commander Carlos Serrano said, in describing the Thursday rescue off the coast of La Guajira. The quart...

A pair of illegal Vietnamese immigrants fell to their deaths out of a four-story motel window while trying to evade an illegal-gambling raid by police in Gwangju on Sunday. The two men, aged 30 and 34, whose names were undisclosed to the media, fell while attempting to hide during the raid and were taken to the hospital but died soon after. Another illegal Vietnamese immigrant, 30, fell with the...

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- A group of civic and labor activists rallied in Seoul Saturday to protest what they called the greed of financial institutions and the growing income disparity in the country. The rally, the second of its kind since Oct. 15, was in concert with the "Occupy Wall Street" movement that began in the United States. They, among other things, urged Korean lawmakers not to approve the ...

Seoul’s global influence has continued to increase for the last four years and it ranked 7th among 35 major cities in the world, achieving high scores in research and development and accessibility, a report showed Friday. According to the Global Power City Index developed by the Institute of Urban Strategies at the Mori Memorial Foundation, the city’s ranking has gone up by six steps since 2008,...

British beauty queen accuses committee of not paying for flights, meals The organizing committee of an international beauty pageant held in Korea said it is looking into allegations raised by a British competitor that she was sexually harassed and offered votes in exchange for sex. Nineteen-year-old Amy Willerton, a triple-crowned beauty queen from Wales, also claimed that participants were fed...

Prosecutors on Friday demanded a 15-year prison sentence for a U.S. soldier accused of raping a teenage South Korean woman. In South Korea, 15 years of imprisonment is the maximum penalty allowed by law for rape. The 21-year-old U.S. army private of the 2nd Infantry Division stationed in Dongducheon, 40 kilometers north of Seoul, was indicted in early October on charges of raping a 18-year-old ...