SEOUL, Jul. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — A peace park named after the late Kim Bok-dong, an iconic Korean victim of Japanese wartime sexual slavery, will be built in her hometown, officials said Thursday. The municipal council of Yangsan, a South Gyeongsang Province town about 420 kilometers southeast of Seoul, said it and 21 civic groups [...]
SEOUL/TOKYO, Apr. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The construction permit for a new Japanese embassy building in central Seoul has been revoked, as Tokyo failed to break ground for four years after winning the permit, municipal officials said Wednesday. Seoul’s Jongno Ward Office said it notified the Japanese Embassy on March 4 of the cancellation of [...]
GWANGJU, Sept. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited on Monday surviving South Korean victims of sexual slavery during World War II, expressing regret over Japan’s refusal to apologize for its wartime atrocities. Schroeder arrived at the House of Sharing in the afternoon, a shelter on the outskirts of Seoul set up [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s state history institute on Friday released new documents substantiating the Japanese military’s involvement in operating front-line brothels during World War II. The National Institute of Korean History (NIKH) made public interrogation reports written by the Allied Forces’ Translator and Interpreter Section, a unit founded in September 1942, [...]
SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) – Courting North Korea’s dysfunctional leader Kim Jong-un, and soothing tensions over the THAAD missile system with China – a conflict expected to cost South Korea billions of dollars – are likely the most urgent diplomatic issues to be tackled by newly elected President Moon Jae-in. But to its east, [...]
BUSAN, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – On Wednesday, a civic organization tried to erect a statue representing comfort women – Korean sex slave victims of the Japanese military during the Second World War – in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan. The attempt failed when Dong District officials and the police intervened, and forcefully [...]
BUSAN, Dec. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – A new attempt to erect a statue representing Japanese wartime sex slaves, or comfort women, in Busan failed Wednesday, with intervention from district officials and the police. Some 150 members of a civic group tried to set up the statue on the sidewalk adjacent to the Japanese Consulate at [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – A foundation dedicated to supporting South Korean women forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese military said Friday that five more victims have expressed their intent to accept compensation disbursed by the Japanese government, bring the total to 34 out of the 46 women still alive. The Reconciliation and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Korea Bizwire) – A dozen angry activists gathered in front of the Grand Hyatt Seoul on Thursday, where a birthday celebration for Japanese Emperor Akihito was hosted by the local Japanese Embassy. Although it is a common annual event for Japanese diplomatic offices overseas to celebrate the occasion (the actual birthday is [...]
SANGJU, South Korea, Oct. 31 (Korea Bizwire) – Sangju’s local religious and civic groups unveiled a comfort woman statue on Monday, symbolizing Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. The statue is a replica of the one set up in 2011 in front of the Japanese [...]