The Korea Times

Doctor sentenced to 20 years in prison for murdering wife

A 31-year-old doctor was sentenced to 20 years in prison for strangling his pregnant wife, a Seoul district court said Thursday. In the first trial of the "Korean OJ Simpson case," the Seoul Western District Court concluded that the doctor, surnamed Baek, strangled his nine-month pregnant wife at their home on Jan. 14. “There are sufficient reasons to believe that the victim was strangled. All the charges filed by the prosecution are acknowledgeable,” the court said in the ruling. “Still, the murder didn’t appear premeditated.” The doctor initially reported to police that he found his wife, 29, dead in the bathtub, saying she must have slipped and died. He claimed that a pregnant woman can experience a neck constriction while slipping or falling down, denying murder. According to the prosecution, the husband was not in contact with his acquaintances for several hours on the day of the murder and there were no signs of outsiders entering the house according to surveillance TVs around the couple's home. An autopsy report also said the wife likely died from strangulatio

Sep 15, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Childless couples call it quits more easily

About 46 percent of the 116,858 divorced couples last year didn’t have children, a much higher divorce rate than those with offspring, the Supreme Court said Monday. The rate of divorce between husbands and wives without kids has steadily risen to 44.5 percent in 2009 from 39 percent in 2006. In comparison, among the parenting couples, 25.7 percent of couples with one child split up last year, and 24.3 percent with two children ended their marriages. The divorce rate fell to as low as to 4 percent of couples with three or more children. Regarding reasons for divorce, personality conflicts accounted for 53,032 cases, economic reasons 14,017, spouse's infidelity 10,001 and family conflicts 8,564.

Sep 13, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Number of corrupt cops on steady rise

The number of police officers penalized for taking bribes and other illegalities stood at 1,154 last year, up nearly 70 percent from four years ago. According to data from the National Police Agency, the number of officers who have been disciplined for breach of duty and other wrongdoings surpassed the 1,100 mark for the second straight year. The number has been steadily rising to hit 1,169 in 2009 from 684 in 2006. So far in the first seven months of this year, there were 746 cases, foreshadowing a five-year high for 2011, officials from the agency said. It said duty dereliction cases jumped 97 percent last year from four years ago, the highest growth rate, and that of assaults and sexual crimes rose 79 percent. As for type of punishment, dismissals surged to 104 last year from 34 in 2006, and salary cuts also more than doubled to 246 from 112. Police said the rise in the number of punishable officers is a result of the stronger audits implemented since 2009 and attributed a large-scale crackdown, conducted earlier this year, on assaults and bullying by senior offic

Sep 13, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Students to be freed from dress codes

Primary and secondary school students in Seoul will be able to abandon their drab uniform to freely choose what to wear and how to style their hair from next year, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Wednesday. The education office announced a new ordinance draft designed to promote students’ basic human rights. Under the ordinance, which it plans to seek approval at the Seoul Metropolitan Council in November, restrictions on dress codes, hairstyles and even rallies inside campus will be abolished. At the same time, they will be able to carry cellular phones and other electronic gadgets at their own discretion. The ordinance strictly bans teachers from using any forms of physical punishment on students. The ban on corporal punishment will also be applied to private cram schools or “hagwon,” it said. The ordinance also bans schools from obliging students to attend after-hour classes. After holding a series of hearings the education office will finalize the ordinance next month.

Sep 7, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Police chief rules out harsh crackdown on Gangjeong

By Cho Jae-hyon National Police Agency Commissioner Cho Hyun-oh said the police will not carry out any large-scale crackdowns on demonstrators opposing the construction of a naval base in a village in Jeju Island. “There won’t be arrests of any considerable number of villagers simultaneously with the use of large-scale police force,” Cho said in an interview with Yonhap News. He said the number of protestors in Gangjeong Village has not risen beyond 300, which he said does not warrant a massive dispatch of riot police. His remarks came as concerns are growing among the villagers and civic activists over the possibility that the police will mobilize large numbers of riot police to crack down on the protesting villagers. Protesters barricaded themselves in the site for seven hours Saturday to block police from arresting five of their number on charges of obstruction of official duty. The incident escalated as Cho immediately replaced the local police chief for giving in to pressure from protesters and ordered riot police to sternly deal with the “illegal protests.” On

Aug 29, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

English teachers experience Korean culture

About 970 English teachers, newly hired to teach at public schools from the fall semester, have been participating in orientation programs that will help them more easily adapt to Korean culture and customs, the National Institute for International Education (NIIED) said Tuesday. August is a month of new beginnings and new experiences for many of the English teachers invited to Korea through the government-run English Program in Korea (EPIK). NIIED, a division of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), hired some 970 teachers this term for placement in public schools across the nation. “The orientation, running from Aug. 17 to 26, is aimed to prepare the teachers to not only be effective teachers here, but to also learn to adapt to Korean culture and customs,” NIIED said in a statement. The orientation is being held at three different venues — NIIED, Kyung Hee University and Jeonju University. A total of 308 teachers, destined for schools in Seoul, took part in an eight-day orientation held at Kyung Hee University, in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

Aug 23, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Four found dead in group suicide

Four people in their 20s were found dead in what is seen as an apparent group suicide in a studio apartment in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, police said Friday. The janitor of the flat found them at around 3 p.m. Thursday when he went there to collect the rent, police said. Found dead were two men, including a 22-year-old Kim, and two women, including one surnamed Chang, 27. By the time the janitor found them, their bodies had already decayed severely. Police found traces of burnt briquettes in the room, and saw that all of the windows and doors had been sealed with tape. The four victims also left suicide notes in the room, which were dated July 8. Police said they will continue to investigate the circumstances of their deaths.

Aug 12, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Companies

Korea develops four-seat passenger aircraft

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) introduced its first indigenous private aircraft Wednesday, allowing Korea to join the ranks of nations that boast developing non-military aircraft. The four-seat light passenger plane, named "Naraon," is the first private aircraft developed and built by the country, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said in a statement. "Should the country conclude a bilateral aviation safety agreement with the United States' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by 2013 as planned, we will not only secure the status of a private aircraft manufacturer but also become an exporter," it said. KAI started developing the single-engine propeller aircraft in 2008. Korea, the world’s 15th largest air passenger service provider, became the world's 28th nation to build and fly an indigenous plane. Naraon can reach most major cities in Japan, China and some Southeast Asian countries. It can fly at a top speed of 389 kilometers per hour and has a maximum flight distance of 1,850 kilometers. The aircraft will have a price tag of around 600 milli

Jul 20, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Travel & Food

In Kenya, dreams of wildlife come true

Kenya, a paradise in Africa, boasts not only countless animals in the wild but plants and a diverse range of landscape as well.By Cho Jae-hyon NAIROBI ㅡ What does Africa remind you of? It’s a question an official from the Kenyan Tourism Board asked me. The words that instantly came to mind were poverty, civil war, and several other negative ones. It was a land practically unknown for me. But Africa drew closer to me since June 20 when I first set my foot in the capital city of Kenya for the first time. I visited Kenya for a week-long tour along with a group of other journalists, a program jointly organized by the Kenyan Embassy in Korea, Kenyan Airways and Korean Air. Arriving in Nairobi in the morning, we hopped onto a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle and headed for the first destination ㅡ Ol Pejeta Conservancy on the foothills of Mt. Kenya. It was a four-hour drive on bumpy and dusty roads to the Sweet Waters Tented Camp in the private wildlife conservation, abundant with animals. The camp had luxury tents with thatched roofs covering them. The lodges didn’t ha

Jul 7, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Opinion

African massage

By Cho Jae-hyon I had a rare opportunity to visit Kenya last week. It was the first time that I have ever set foot in Africa. I traveled the beautiful country for a week together with a group of reporters invited by the Kenyan Embassy in Korea. Upon arrival in Nairobi last Monday morning, I found the weather a bit chilly. It’s winter in June in the country, with temperatures running between 5 to 21 degrees Celsius. Two four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles were waiting for us at the airport. We broke into two groups. The driver loading my group’s baggage in the back of the van was very slow; the norm for a bunch of Korean reporters, who always work under extreme pressure, is to get things done as quickly as possible. He had difficulty squeezing all the bags into the back of the vehicle _ he had to pull out all the bags to reload the luggage several times. Finally he somehow managed to squeeze all the baggage in the back and between seats inside the vehicle. The driver was never in a hurry loading the luggage, while we were exchanging disappointing gestures at his leisurel

Jun 29, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Cho Jae-hyon

Read more

Doctor sentenced to 20 years in prison for murdering wife

Childless couples call it quits more easily

Number of corrupt cops on steady rise

Students to be freed from dress codes

Police chief rules out harsh crackdown on Gangjeong

English teachers experience Korean culture

Four found dead in group suicide

Korea develops four-seat passenger aircraft

In Kenya, dreams of wildlife come true

African massage

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