The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill that would punish corrupt employees at state-run firms the same as government officials, which the government said is a measure aimed at increasing transparency in the management of local public firms. The revised law on provincial public firms is subject to approval from the parliament. All employees of state-run companies, if the bill is endorsed, can fa...

CHUNCHEON, South Korea, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) -- A local court here on Monday sentenced a 45-year-old South Korean man to 20 years in prison for killing his Cambodian wife last year to collect US$1 million from insurance policies. The defendant, identified only by his surname Kang, was indicted in March last year on charges of setting his home ablaze after drugging his 23-year-old Cambodian wife with...

More than 200 people were arrested in connection with sex trafficking over a five week period, police officials said Monday. According to the National Police Agency, 225 people were arrested in Korea for operating in the international sex trade, from Aug. 22 to Sept. 30. Of those arrested 110 were women. They were led to believe that they could make large sums of money through prostitution in a...

Students of a late mechanical engineering professor of Sungkyunkwan University have raised a scholarship fund in his honor, the school said Monday. Named after professor Kim Young-jin, Y.J. Kim Century Club has been set up by 100 of his students, colleagues and mother. Kim died of liver cancer on Sept. 29. Kim’s fifth student, professor Choi Jae-boong of mechanical engineering department, said ...

A former vice culture minister, during an overnight questioning, denied allegations that he received a huge amount of money from a local businessman in return for influence peddling, prosecution sources said Monday. Shin Jae-min, the ex-vice minister and close presidential confidant, returned home early Monday after undergoing 17 hours of intensive questioning over allegations that he took more ...

Seoul city government is holding a Korean food competition through YouTube until Oct. 31, with a chance to win a four-day trip to Seoul. Foreigners residing outside of the country are eligible to apply for the contest. Participants are required to create a video clip of a Korean dish combined with their local cuisine and upload it on YouTube at www.youtube.com/visitseoul. Five winners will be s...

Former Vice Culture Minister Shin Jae-min on Sunday faced questioning by state prosecutors after a businessman claimed to have given him nearly 1 billion won ($847,000) over the space of a decade. The interrogation is expected to widen investigations into the scandal including President Lee Myung-bak’s key aides. Entering the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office around 10 a.m., Shin told reporters...

South Korea kicked off an international legal conference Sunday to discuss new developments in financial, intellectual property and energy issues, the event’s organizers said. Some 900 lawyers, judges, prosecutors and other legal experts from the Asia-Pacific region also plan to exchange opinions on laws governing foreign investment, antitrust, Internet, labor and human rights, organizers said. ...

Only 20 North Korean defectors work as public servants in South Korea, an opposition lawmaker said Sunday, the latest sign that North Koreans are struggling to join mainstream South Korean society. The figure represents just a small fraction of the more than 22,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea. In June, Cho Myung-chul, a former economics professor at the North’s elite Kim Il-sung Unive...

Some 200 representatives from human rights organizations in the Asia-Pacific region will gather in Seoul this week for a conference regarding business and human rights, officials in Seoul said on Sunday. Organized by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and its larger Asia-Pacific counterpart, the meeting will run from Tuesday for a three-day discussion, bringing together chiefs and off...

The Association of Restaurant Owners has announced that they will hold a protest rally on Oct. 18 in Seoul to demand credit card commissions cut and easier employment of foreign workers. Restaurant owners demand lowering credit card commission rate from the current 2-2.7 percent to 1.5 percent and also want to hire migrant workers more easily, ARO said. As about 100,000 owners are expected at t...