SEOUL, June 17 (Yonhap) -- President Park Geun-hye on Monday named a former veteran politician hailing from an opposition stronghold region in South Korea's southwest to lead a newly established presidential advisory panel on national unity, her office announced. Han Kwang-ok, a former four-term lawmaker, had long been considered one of the best-known politicians hailing from the "Hoham" provinces, the political support base of the main opposition Democratic Party, due especially to his close links to former late President Kim Dae-jung.

SEOUL, June 17 (Yonhap) -- President Park Geun-hye lamented strongly about the history education of teenage students Monday, expressing shock over a recent survey that showed a majority of high school students believe the Korean War was started by South Korea's invasion of the North. Last week, a local newspaper reported that 69 percent of high school students characterized the 1950-53 war as "bukchim" or "a northward invasion," though it is an indisputable fact that tank-led communist troops surged into the South in massive numbers starting the conflict.

SEOUL, June 17 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for "a dynamic drive" to produce modern machines during his visit to a machinery manufacturing plant, the North's state-run news agency said Monday. "(Kim) gave field guidance to the machine plant managed by Ho Chol-yong. Going round the processing and assembling shops, he learned in detail about the production and modernization of the plant," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The leader also visited the plant, believed to be in North Pyongan Province, in January and on May Day last year.

SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- The ruling and main opposition parties are engaged in a tug of war over the timing of a parliamentary inspection into the nation's top intelligence agency following the conclusion of a prosecution investigation into allegations that the agency meddled in last year's presidential election, party sources said Sunday.