South Korea will forge a mobile radio-frequency identification network in metropolitan regions by the end of the year to promote mobile commerce, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Tuesday. The technology allows users to pay for items by flashing RFID-imbedded mobile phones in front of wireless readers. The RFID system has already been used in the country for transportation cards and wirele...

Australia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate at the highest level in the developed world as floods disrupt coal mining in the nation’s northeast and a rising currency tempers inflation. Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens held the overnight cash rate target at 4.75 percent for a fourth straight meeting, as forecast by all 25 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. He cal...

In a press briefing Monday, Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon apologized to the public for translation errors in the Korean language version of the Korea-European Union Free Trade Agreement. With the Cabinet approval of a corrected version on Tuesday, the bill for the ratification of the trade pact will now be submitted to the National Assembly for the third time, an embarrassing record in the country...

If a first-term National Assemblyman is banned from running for reelection because of his wife’s illegal campaigning for him, what should he do? He may try to complete his tenure honorably with exemplary legislative activities and prepare to return to his original profession. Rep. Kim Choong-hwan of the Grand National Party had a different idea; he decided to rewrite the law with the support of s...

When former President Jimmy Carter last visited Cuba, in 2002, he delivered a remarkable speech via the state-run media that criticized the Castro dictatorship and exposed listeners to the truly revolutionary idea that it’s up to the Cuban people, not the one-party regime nor any foreign government, to determine Cuba’s future. Naturally, his visit raised hopes that this might represent an ever-s...

Even people in the sports world are not free of this craze for money as more in-depth reports on the arrest of three soccer referees show. Lu Jun was arrested for taking bribes from local soccer teams. Before being exposed, he was known as the “golden whistle” for his “integrity.” He officiated in two matches at the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan. Praising the clean soccer admini...

Conservative Utah has bucked the national GOP trend of embracing hard-line ― and arguably inhumane ― laws meant to make states inhospitable to illegal immigrants. Two weeks ago, Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed into law a bill that will grant work permits, and a path to legal residence, to undocumented immigrants and their immediate families. And conservative Arizona, which last year passed the ...

With U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday announcing his re-election campaign bid, the unofficial starting whistle for the 2012 election has been blown. In a highly unusual move, Obama will be the first U.S. president in modern history to place his campaign headquarters outside of the Washington D.C. and suburban Virginia corridor (basing it instead in his home city of Chicago). The president h...

TBLISI, Georgia ― Nearly 70 years after being deported by Stalin, members of the Meskhetian Turkish community are preparing to return to Georgia. But after all this time, it’s unclear exactly what kind of welcome they will receive. The Meskhetians were one of several ethnic groups who were deported from the Caucasus region during World War II because Stalin feared they might form a fifth column ...