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Lee Kyung-min

Korea Times AI content 2 team Reporter

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South Korea

Young girls dieting needlessly

By Lee Kyung-minGirls in Korea are dieting needlessly due to social pressure to be slender, according to data released Monday.Such pressure causes girls of normal weight to begin dieting from a young age, even while at elementary school, and it is feared side effects such as eating disorders could drastically increase.According to a report released by the OECD on Monday, 14.1 percent of Korean girls aged between 5 and 17 were overweight or obese in 2013, almost half the rate of boys, who have an obesity rate of 26.4 percent.Among the 33 OECD member nations surveyed, Korea had the widest gap between the two genders.The OECD’s average overweight rate was 24.3 percent for boys and 22.1 percent for girls.According to another study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on middle and high school students in 2014, 45.1 percent of girls said they had attempted to lose weight in the past 30 days, while only 23.1 percent of boys said so.Experts say that such disparity stems from double standards about body image between the two genders: being overweight is not as much of a shame or stigm

Nov 9, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
Young girls dieting needlessly
South Korea

TOEIC template to be changed

By Lee Kyung-minThe Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), a certified test to measure workplace English, will be revised for the first time in 10 years to reflect practical language frequently used in cyberspace, test administrator ETS (Educational Testing Service) said Friday.The difficulty level, number of questions and scoring method will remain the same. The revised template will be implemented for tests from May 29, next year. Tests will be first conducted in Korea and Japan.The revision will include questions involving expressions frequently used in text messages through online messenger services.As for listening section, test takers will have to answer 100 questions within 45 minutes ― with the maximum score being 495, the same as the current one.However, the number of questions for selecting a description that matches a photograph will be reduced from 10 to 6. Questions for part two will be reduced from 30 to 25, as well.Instead, nine questions will be added to part three, the most difficult part, increasing them to 39.Speakers in questions will conver

Nov 6, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
TOEIC template to be changed
South Korea

Lawyer helps foreigners with divorce or back wage issues

Lawyer Jeong Hye-youngBy Lee Kyung-min  Lawyer Jeong Hye-young, 30, said providing legal consultation to foreigners is one of her duties that make her truly happy.Since 2009, she has helped foreigners with the two most common legal issues for them ― divorces for immigrant wives, and back wages for factory workers. She has dealt with numerous such cases while volunteering at the Korea Legal Aid Corporation, and Seoul Global Center run by Seoul Metropolitan Government.“People’s lives are instantly ruined if they do not receive their monthly paycheck, especially for foreigners many of whom are day laborers. That is why I feel so strongly about helping them,” she said.Last year, she helped three foreigners from Southeast Asia who had not received their paychecks for more than one year, after their employer, a subcontractor for contact lens manufacturer Bescon went bankrupt.She filed a court injunction against the company that acquired the troubled subcontractor, and made it pay the due amount to the three foreigners.  “Fortunately, the acquirer was

Nov 6, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
Lawyer helps foreigners with divorce or back wage issues
South Korea

Seoul to launch overpass remodeling next month

By Lee Kyung-minSeoul City will start remodeling the overpass next to Seoul Station next month to turn it into an elevated park.The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) said Thursday that it gave public notice of a bid for the removal of some sections of the floor slabs as part of the remodeling for Seoul’s version of High Line Park in New York.The company selected for the construction will start the removal work next month and complete it in April 2015. The city plans to spend 4.3 billion won on this part of the project.The removal is part of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s plan to turn the overpass into a rest area and tourist attraction by 2017 with a total budget of 38 billion wonAccording to the SMG plan revealed Monday, the city plans to construct a bridge using tempered glass to let the citizens stand on and look at the cars passing beneath them. Flower shops, drug stores, and museums will be set up nearby.Residents and merchants have opposed the park project saying it would deteriorate the regional economy due to severe traffic jams it would cause without an alternativ

Nov 5, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
South Korea

'Itaewon murder' trial begins

By Lee Kyung-minThe two key figures in the “Itaewon murder” case have met with each other 18 years after the 1997 incident.Edward Lee took the witness stand at the Seoul Central District Court Wednesday in a trial against Arthur John Patterson, who is now being tried on charges of murdering Korean college student Cho Joong-pil in a Burger King bathroom in Itaewon, Seoul. Lee had been acquitted in 1998 for the same crime.Since the acquittal in 1998, Lee has constantly claimed that Patterson was the real killer.When prosecutors asked Lee if there was any possibility that someone else besides him or Patterson had killed the victim, Lee said no, adding that he has consistently said that since the initial investigation.“I saw him (Patterson) stabbing the victim,” he said.Although Lee acknowledged that he went into the bathroom first, he repeatedly denied that he killed the victim.“I went to wash my hands and I saw Arthur take a look into the stall, and then he started stabbing Cho. I was shocked and I turned around and I remember Cho trying to hit Arthur with

Nov 4, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
South Korea

Law to protect abused and depressed service-sector staff

Call center employees suffer from chronic depression due to repeated caller abuse./ Korea Times fileBy Lee Kyung-minService-sector workers who suffer from depression or adjustment disorder will be recognized as victims of industrial accidents, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said Monday.The ministry plans to revise related laws to give more protection to employees in service jobs who often experience stress from abusive customers.According to the revision, depression and adjustment disorder will be included in the types of mental distress eligible for compensation from an industrial accident. At present, only post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is recognized.The new rule is expected to help people in the service sector ― including telemarketers, sales people and flight attendants ― who suffer emotional distress from their working environment where they encounter abusive language or even physical violence from angry customers.  “Depression is one of the most common forms of illness among workers in the service sector,” said a ministry official. &ldquo

Nov 2, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
South Korea

Women forced to give up on childbirth

Birthrate unlikely to rise soon unless fundamental social changes  By Lee Kyung-min  Hahn Hye-jin, 31, an office worker at a Seoul-based company, is not planning to get pregnant any time soon, although she has been married for almost three years.“All my working-mom friends are saying that raising children, especially infants, is an enormous burden,” she said.Although the idea of having a child is heartwarming, Hahn said she is not sure whether she is, or will ever be, ready to take on childrearing responsibilities for the rest of her life.She is not alone. Childcare responsibilities are pushing Korea’s birthrate down to almost the world’s lowest level. According to Statistics Korea last year, the nation’s birthrate was 1.2, meaning that women gives birth to an average of 1.2 babies during her lives. The rate has remained at about that level for almost a decade.The financial burden is the biggest reason for not having children, Hahn said.“I have to work, and there is no one to take care of my baby while I’m out, unless I hire a

Nov 2, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
Women forced to give up on childbirth
South Korea

Court recognizes 'no-fault' divorce for the first time

By Lee Kyung-min A court has granted a divorce to a man who was responsible for the breakup of his marriage by cheating on his wife, overturning the lower court’s ruling.It is the first court decision that allowed a divorce sought by a cheating spouse after the Supreme Court’s ruling in September that expanded the grounds for divorce in limited cases, although it largely upheld the legal principle that bans a party responsible for destroying the marriage from filing for divorce.Following the ruling, similar divorce requests are expected from estranged couples who have been barely maintaining a paper-only marriage relationship.The suit was filed in 2013 by a man, whose identity is withheld, who had been separated from his wife for more than 25 years after having two extramarital relationships.The couple had fought often since they married in 1970, with the man throwing the television set during an argument with his wife in front of their children.The couple agreed to end their marriage in 1980 and reunited three years later, but the husband started living with another

Nov 1, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
South Korea

Top court orders rehearing in soldier's murder case

By Lee Kyung-minThe Supreme Court has ordered a new hearing at the High Court for the Armed Forces for an Army sergeant surnamed Lee and three other soldiers who were accused of beating a junior soldier to death, saying only Lee should be charged with murder, not the other three.Referring the case back, the top court said Thursday that it only recognized the murder conviction against Lee.Earlier, the appellate court convicted Lee and the three soldiers of murder, sentencing Lee to 35 years in prison and the three others to up to 12 years. They were indicted for beating a private first-class, Yoon, to death at barracks in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, in April of last year.The top court said Lee had the intention to kill Yoon because he was fully aware that his action might cause death. But it ordered a retrial for Lee as well, because the Constitutional Court last month found a legal clause about additional punishment for weapons possession ― a charge which Lee also faced ― unconstitutional.For the three soldiers, the court said it was wrong for the appellate court to ackno

Oct 29, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
South Korea

Safety rules to get tougher at postpartum care centers

By Lee Kyung-minPostpartum care centers will face suspension of operations and could be shutdown if a large number of infants get infected with a disease at a center, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry, Wednesday.The ministry announced a set of strengthened safety measures for postnatal care centers to prevent infants from contracting any virus after coming into contact either with infected medical staffers or with visitors.It is common here for women giving birth to receive postnatal care at such centers for two to three weeks after childbirth. But loose regulations have resulted in a growing number of cases of infection. Staffers at such centers will be obliged to be vaccinated, and visitors will be banned from direct access to newborns, except for their mothers.The measure comes a month after some 120 infants were exposed to tuberculosis by a nurse who treated them after being infected herself with the virus. Of the 120 infants, more than 20 tested positive and had to take antibiotics. More than 70 parents filed complaints with the Prosecutor’s Office against

Oct 28, 2015By Lee Kyung-min
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