The government, telecom operators, handset makers and credit card companies are teaming up to expedite the development of a new mobile payment technology. The Korea Communications Commission announced Tuesday the launch of a coalition to foster near-field communication technology, which allows shoppers to apply their mobile devices to an electronic reader at the check-out to pay for goods and se...

Telecom industry giant and world’s No. 2 phonemaker struggling to shirk blame for high call fees SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics, known for their airtight alliance on phone marketing and sales, are showing signs of a major rift with both parties attempting to shift blame for spiking call fees, according to industry watchers. On the government’s mounting demands on telecom companies to slash ...

The Trade Ministry is to again revise the Korean-language version of the Korea-EU free trade agreement, and resubmit the bill for ratification to the National Assembly for the third time. “The government was recently informed that several errors were found while reviewing the Korea-EU FTA’s Korean translation,” Rep. Nam Kyung-pil, National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Commit...

Korean commercial and state-controlled banks are seeking to strengthen their investment banking sectors in the belief they will be their new growth engines. Beyond the saturated loan issuance market, most local banks share the view that investment banking is one of many priorities for globalization in the coming years. Among them are KB Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Shinhan Bank and Industrial Bank...

Thailand’s central bank may raise interest rates further as oil above $100 a barrel and surging food prices add to inflation pressures stoked by the fastest economic growth in 15 years. “The risk on growth is probably less of a concern, so the risk balance is tilted toward inflation,” Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Bangkok Monday. “You can expec...

Is it 50 billion euros? Or perhaps 70 billion euros? The cost of bailing out Portugal varies according to who makes the calculation. No one will know the real price until officials from the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank tell us. But it isn’t the actual amount that counts. It is the price the euro area is paying for having a single currency. And on that measure, a res...

Unlike the Iraq war, which smacked of go-it-alone cowboyism, the Libyan intervention has been for the most part a multilateralist’s dream: an idealistic granola bar of an operation, carefully orchestrated to win broad support from nations around the world. Not only did President Obama seek and receive the blessing of the U.N. Security Council, the Arab League and many of America’s traditional all...

Rumors have it that it was the product of a recent series of unsavory episodes in courts involving male and female judges, but a “service manual” prepared by a senior judge in Seoul and now circulating in district courts sheds light to a new culture emerging in the judicial community. “Leave the door ajar when you meet a female colleague in your office. Keep a distance of at least one meter when...

The Defense Ministry has put off flying leaflets into the North Korean territory in consideration of political and legal factors. Yet, the campaign to send leaflets and consumer supplies by flying balloons into the North that has been engineered by some conservative groups not only sharpens tensions with Pyongyang but causes serious internal troubles in the South. Last year, the military’s psych...

Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich raises the possibility of impeaching President Barack Obama for aggressive air strikes against Libya, while Mitt Romney, a potential Republican presidential candidate, says the policy shows the commander in chief to be “tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced.” Obama can brush aside these criticisms. Every modern president would have been impeached under K...

The more someone purports to know what’s in Kim Jong-il’s mind, the more skeptical you should be. What about the North Korean dictator’s heart? This question is much on the minds of Japanese after Kim donated $500,000 to help their nation deal with a record earthquake and tsunami. The gesture is as fascinating as its timing. It came on the same day a United Nations agency said Kim urgently needs...