• East Asia

    Hyundai Card chief – creative strategist

    Chung faces daunting task amid industry downturn Hyundai Card CEO Chung Tae-young is widely known in the local credit card industry. He emerged into the spotlight in the early 2000s not only as the son-in-law of Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo, but also the chief executive of Hyundai Card. Chung Tae-young,…

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  • East Asia

    Seoul: Nightclub targeted for alleged drug use to assist sexual violence

    Nearly 20,000 people petition to punish Burning Sun operators Suspicions of repeated use of date rape drugs at the Burning Sun nightclub in southern Seoul are becoming more serious, after recent testimony alleged club staff drugged young women to help their VIP customers rape them. A man who claims to…

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  • East Asia

    Touring DMZ with North Korean defector

    “I’m a dead man in my hometown,” a North Korean defector, who uses the alias Jeong Sang-soo to protect his identity, said during a Korea Times interview in the middle of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) tour. “I had to fake my own death so that my wife and children…

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  • East Asia

    Rushing through 1970 Seoul’s music scene

    Korea….what an adventure! In some respects it feels like yesterday, yet in reality it was a lifetime ago. I feel uniquely blessed to have spent the formative years of my childhood in the Land of the Morning Calm. I met life-long friends there, I met my wife Betty there and…

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  • East Asia

    North Korean defector talks about embracing culture through food

    Food is usually an easy entry to a different culture. When it comes to North Korean food, however, there have been few that represent local recipes, a defector says.   Hong Eun-hye, 41, a defector who has been selling various North Korean food from sweets and snacks to abai-sundae ―…

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  • East Asia

    North Korea can learn economy from Hanoi

    Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi can present a potential economic model for North Korea as it seeks to abandon its nuclear program in favor of economic development. Vietnam has been selected as the venue for the second summit between the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. as the country has…

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  • East Asia

    Moon: Trump-Kim summit to produce ‘specific, substantial’ outcomes

    President Moon Jae-in expressed the hope Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un can build off their first meeting to make “more specific and substantial progress” at their second summit, which he believes could help advance inter-Korean relations. “Beyond bringing a lasting peace with no…

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  • East Asia

    Ministry to survey food delivery industry’s plastic usage

    The Ministry of Environment will conduct a survey on plastic use in food delivery service in the first half of the year as a preliminary to regulate on plastic use in the industry, the ministry said, Monday. Currently, there are no regulations on using plastic products for food containers or disposable…

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  • South East Asia

    Education system in Singapore

    This year, Singapore celebrates its bicentennial of its founding in 1819 by Englishman Sir Stamford Raffles who set up the first premier school named after him. Raffles Institution (RI) is the alma mater of many illustrious Singaporeans, including Lee Kuan Yew. Education has moved up the quality ladder since, playing…

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  • East Asia

    Can North Korea exist in international society?

    International society is, historically at least, a rather British concept. It was first put forward by the scholar Martin Wight during a series of lectures at the London School of Economics in the 1950s. The basic premise being that when states interact with each other over time, there evolves a…

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