The Korea Times

Temple arsonist gets jail term

A district court sentenced an arsonist who set fire to a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple in Busan to five years in prison Thursday, court officials said. The man surnamed Lee, 43, was charged with burning down a wooden gate of Beomeo Temple in mid-December, causing property damage estimated at 1 billion won ($923,000). Lee was also accused of causing two forest fires near the temple, which destroyed the entrance of a museum inside the temple, as well as damaging the temple's drum earlier that month. Beomeo Temple was built in 678 during the Silla Kingdom (B.C. 57-A.D. 935). The destroyed gate Cheonwangmun (The Gate for the Heavenly King) was one of the temple's major architectural features.

Jun 9, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Railroad operations back to normal after accident

By Cho Jae-hyon Railroad operations came to a halt for nearly six hours at Uiwang Station in Gyeonggi Province after a piece of drilling equipment fell onto the tracks Monday, the Korea Railroad Corp. (Korail) said. Korail said it has cleared the 20-meter drilling equipment which fell across three of the four tracks at 4:25 a.m near Uiwang Station, south of Seoul, putting railroad operations back to normal. It is the latest in a series of accidents involving Korail in recent months. There were no casualties and property damage was minimal as no trains were running at the time. Still, many people had to use buses or other forms of transportation in the morning since only one track was open. “The damaged equipment has been removed and trains have been running on schedule from late in the morning,” a Korail official said. Railroad authorities have yet to figure out the exact cause of the collapse of the equipment, which was turned off and being moved at the time of the accident.

Jun 6, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Opinion

Battle against the rat

By Cho Jae-hyon It was one of the most annoying sounds. Most Seoulites lived with rats under the same roof in the 1970s. Once the night set in, rats came to life. The moment my family went to bed, they started running from one corner of the ceiling to the other, making noise that seemed too loud to be made by things so small. The rat family continued to run all around the ceiling ― one after another or in a group. At some point, my father would run out of patience, leap from his bed and strike the ceiling hard repeatedly with whatever he could get his hands on. After a short moment of silence, the rats ― you could almost hear them giggling and smirking ― would return to their running around as if they were teasing: “Catch me if you can!” In this seemingly perennial war that took place night after night, the family which is struggling to get some sleep on the floor has to give in, leaving the family above to rule the night. But that was until the 1980s. The decades old, shoddy flats and houses rapidly began making way for apartments in the modernization of the cap

Jun 1, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Veteran claims chemical spraying in 1950s

A retired South Korean said Monday that U.S. military aircraft sprayed large amounts of Agent Orange over the demilitarized zone in the 1950s to thwart North Korean border intrusions following the war, according to the Yonhap News Agency. "When I served in the 15th Army in 1955, I saw U.S. aircraft including helicopters spraying the defoliant over the DMZ several times a month," said retired Msg. Eum Do-nam, 77. The 15th Army is stationed in Cheorwon, near the eastern border with North Korea. Although the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange in South Korea in the 1960s is widely known, Eum's remarks are seen as the first account in South Korea that USFK also used the toxic chemical in the 1950s. "After the aircraft passed over, grasses and trees along the sprayed area glowed red and died," Eum said. In the meantime, the defense ministry will start this week a large-scale environmental survey of former U.S. military bases, officials said Monday. Seoul and Washington are jointly investigating claims by retired American soldiers that in 1978 they had helped dump larg

May 30, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Society

NIIED programs to boost national image

‘Teach and Learn in Korea’ takes firm root in rural areas; TOPIK sees growing demand abroad By Cho Jae-hyon Whenever he has the chance to make a speech in foreign countries, Chung Sang-ki, president of the National Institute for International Education (NIIED), found that the people who applaud most vigorously are those who have connections with Korea somehow. Among those groups who clap most heartily to his “humble” speech are war veterans who fought for South Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953), taekwondo practitioners and those who once lived in Korea, he said. Chung wants to make participants in the “Teach and Learn in Korea” (TaLK) program another group of fans. Under the scholarship program, thousands of undergraduate students — ethnic Korean residents or native English speakers — have already taught English at elementary schools in rural areas since 2008. “More than 2,000 students have taught at elementary students in rural areas over the last three years. Most TaLK program participants, when returning home, say they cultivated leadership qualiti

May 11, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

80 universities to share W300 billion in subsidies

The government has selected 80 universities that will receive a total of 300 billion won ($280 million) in subsidies this year. Among the schools chosen are Konkuk, Kyung Hee and Dongguk universities, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Tuesday. Under the program designed to help boost their capability to educate students, a school will be able to receive up to 5.5 billion depending on the outcome of evaluations by the ministry. The ministry has graded schools in terms of employment rate, portion of foreign professors, scholarship programs and other key aspects. Introduced in 2008, the program distributed 50 billion won that year, 265 billion won in 2009 and 290 billion won to schools last year. Of the 80 schools, 29 are based in and around Seoul and 51 are in the provinces — also 48 are private schools.

May 10, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Opinion

English bubble

By Cho Jae-hyon English has become a source of power in Korean society. To enter better schools and to land decent jobs, one must command high levels of English proficiency. After getting a job, one should continue to cultivate English skills to keep afloat and climb to higher posts. Learning a second language is not easy. It requires a lot of money, energy and tenacity. The long road toward conquering English is strewn with various obstacles. Many stumble and eventually give up. Only a selected few succeed in reaching the level where they can use the language comfortably. For Koreans, no matter how fluently they speak the language, English is not their mother tongue. Even though we may not want to admit it, many of us often feel an inferiority complex to native English speakers when it comes to English. Most Koreans have no opportunities to live overseas long enough to become bilingual. For them English is a big burden they should shoulder for most of their lifetime. It’s a source of power but at the same time a source of tremendous stress. As English is a decisive e

May 4, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Life sentence confirmed for child rapist

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the life sentence for Kim Kil-tae, 34, on charges of kidnapping, raping and killing a 13-year-old middle school student. Kim was prosecuted in February last year for murdering the girl who was alone in her home in the southern port city of Busan. The criminal was also charged with abducting and raping a woman who was walking on the street recently. He was sentenced to death in the first trial in June last year. A high court commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in December, saying that his murder did not appear to be premeditated. A series of sexual crimes against children have prompted the government to introduce hormonal treatment, or “chemical castration,” for convicted pedophiles.

Apr 28, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Dokdo radiation levels within normal range

By Cho Jae-hyon Radiation levels on the Dokdo islets were within the range of normal fluctuations, measuring far lower than those on Ulleung Island that is located further away from Japan, a state nuclear safety institute said Saturday. The measurement came a day after Education, Science and Technology Minister Lee Ju-ho visited the country’s eastern most islets to install a radiation detection monitor, a move aimed at demonstrating that Dokdo is South Korean territory as Japan renewed its claims over the islets. The automated radiation monitor checks radiation levels every five minutes and sends the data to the state-run Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety. According to the agency, radioactive levels on Dokdo measured at 99 nanosieverts per hour on Saturday, lower than 138 nanosieverts gauged at the same time on Ulleung, about 93 km northwest of Dokdo. Normal radioactive levels in South Korea range from 50-300 nanosieverts.

Apr 3, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

South Korea

Government to beef up quake safety for buildings

By Cho Jae-hyon The government is moving to tighten seismic resistance standards to make buildings, bridges and other infrastructure more quake resistant following the recent mega-earthquake and tsunami in Japan. At a National Assembly session, the chief of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said the agency will eventually make it mandatory for new buildings to follow specific guidelines in their construction. “We will take necessary measures to improve the quake resistance of buildings,” NEMA director Park Yeon-soo said. The agency plans to raise the resistance of public facilities to 43 percent by 2015 and to 80 percent by 2030, Park said. A budget of 3 trillion won ($2.6 billion) has been allotted by the government to undertake quake safety work up to 2015. According to NEMA, only 16 percent of the 51,903 public buildings nationwide that are subject to engineering standards were built under earthquake-proof guidelines. Separately, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said he will ask the city council to revise rules to require the same for all new buildings i

Mar 16, 2011By Cho Jae-hyon

Cho Jae-hyon

Read more

Temple arsonist gets jail term

Railroad operations back to normal after accident

Battle against the rat

Veteran claims chemical spraying in 1950s

NIIED programs to boost national image

80 universities to share W300 billion in subsidies

English bubble

Life sentence confirmed for child rapist

Dokdo radiation levels within normal range

Government to beef up quake safety for buildings

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