People who have fled North Korea will be able to receive door-to-door healthcare service in the South from fellow North Korean defectors from this month. They will also be able to receive tailored medical services at local public healthcare centers, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Friday. The authorities have hired 10 North Korean defectors with counseling licenses here at public health...

The ministries of education and knowledge economy are at odds over the latter’s unilateral decision to make information technology one of the subjects for the College Scholastic Ability Test, a state-administered university admission examination. While the Knowledge Economy Ministry justifies the plan that IT education is essential for enhancing global competitiveness, the education authorities ...

South Korea’s import prices rose at the fastest pace in 27 months in March due to sharp gains in oil and other commodity prices, the central bank said Friday, pointing to growing inflationary pressure. In local currency terms, the country’s import prices jumped 19.6 percent in March from a year earlier, picking up from a 16.9 percent on-year advance in February, according to the Bank of Korea. ...

The growth of household loans extended by South Korean financial firms accelerated in February from the previous month on the back of gains in home-backed lending, the central bank said Friday. Household lending handled by local banks and non-bank institutions totaled an outstanding 599.2 trillion won ($551.3 billion) as of the end of February, up 3.2 trillion won from the previous month, accord...

South Korea has more best-selling products in Chile than any other country thanks mainly to a free trade agreement with the South American nation implemented seven years ago, a local trade agency said Friday. According to the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, South Korea currently has 40 best-selling products out of 150 key import items of Chile. Seoul also has 29 second best-se...

South Korea’s top two Internet companies asked the country’s antitrust watchdog Friday to investigate Google Inc.’s alleged practice of stifling competition in the country’s mobile search market. NHN Corp., the operator of Naver, South Korea’s most-visited Web search engine and Daum Communications Corp., the Web search runner-up, separately filed complaints against Google with the Fair Trade Com...

Rising costs, demand call for nation to be self-reliant by reusing waste South Korea is preparing to step up efforts to recycle minerals from used electronics and industrial waste in a bid to secure self-reliant sources of minerals on growing demand, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Friday. The process, termed “urban mining,” refers to reclaiming compounds and elements from products and w...

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Global finance chiefs moved to aid strife-torn North Africa Thursday as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warned of more potential social unrest from high food prices and joblessness. Finance ministers of leading economies and development bank heads discussed ways to help Egypt, Tunisia and other regional economies rebuild, as the annual spring meetings of the Wor...

Record spending cuts win approval, on way to Obama for signing, but bigger deficit fights loom WASHINGTON (AP) ― Congress sent President Barack Obama hard-fought legislation cutting a record $38 billion from federal spending on Thursday, bestowing bipartisan support on the first major compromise between the White House and newly empowered Republicans in Congress. “Welcome to divided government,...

Many of the 30 million customers of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, suffered inconveniences for four days from Tuesday as the bank’s computer network broke down. It was the worst accident of its kind in Korea and fueled unease among the public over the security of online financial transactions as it came just several days after a serious hacking incident at Hyundai...