Most Popular
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Yoon visits ancient Uzbek city, wraps up Central Asia trip
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N. Korean military's construction activities spotted inside DMZ: source
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[Weekender] IV drips: A quick energy shot for overworked Koreans
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[Drama Tour] Follow Suwon’s fortress to find traces of ‘Lovely Runner’
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Yoon returns amid tensions over Putin's Pyongyang visit
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[AtoZ into Korean Mind] Korea's broken ladder of social mobility
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Top 4 conglomerates convene strategy meetings to navigate uncertainties
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Seoul, Washington, Tokyo to keep close tabs on Putin's visit to NK
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Unlicensed driver rams day care center van into wall
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Doctors to go on indefinite walkout as government rejects final demands
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FSS probes hundreds of suspect CJ accounts at Woori
The Financial Supervisory Service is set to launch a special inquiry into Woori Bank next week as it received from the prosecution a list of hundreds of Woori accounts that CJ Group held under borrowed names.The lender belongs to the state-invested Woori Financial Group, which was chided by the Board of Audit and Inspection on Thursday for its outgoing chairman’s abuse of authority, executives’ ethical lapses and lax management that led to low earnings.The FSS said it has no plans to look into o
IndustryMay 31, 2013
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Korea targets reduction of yearly working hours
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hyon Oh-seok said the government would seek to reduce yearly work hours to around 1,900 hours.Hyun revealed the plan during a meeting with OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria over Korea’s new employment policy aimed at achieving a 70 percent employment rate in Paris on Thursday. Commenting that Germany and the Netherlands achieved the 70 percent target in a short time through various employment categories, Hyun said the government will create various pa
May 31, 2013
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Korean food authorities strengthen inspection on U.S. wheat imports
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday it has intensified inspections and quarantines on U.S. wheat as some genetically modified wheat was recently found at a farm in Oregon. U.S. authorities said the genetically engineered wheat found in Oregon was of the type developed by Monsanto to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup. It added that the wheat was not harmful to public health, but was not approved for commercial use. “We are investigating into not only U.S. wheat imp
May 31, 2013
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Korea to raise W134tr to fund election pledges
The Finance Ministry on Friday announced a state-led fundraising plan between June 2013 and February 2018 to carry out the Park Geun-hye administration’s 140 major policies.The state fundraising plan is set at 134.8 trillion won ($122.5 billion) over the next five years, which will be poured into four major sectors ― vitalization of the economy, people’s happiness, cultural prosperity and readiness for Korean reunification.According to the ministry, policymakers aim to achieve the state financin
May 31, 2013
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Public offices required to slash electricity use by 20 percent
The government decided to reduce the electricity consumption of its offices and public organizations during peak hours by at least 20 percent.It also plans to control the use of electric power by such heavy consumers as conglomerates which use more than 5,000 kilowatts.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced these and others measures to reduce electricity consumption in the summer amid rising concerns of a power outage in the wake of the recent shutdown of two more nuclear reactors.
IndustryMay 31, 2013
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Users welcome Facebook’s new verified pages
As Facebook launched verified pages for celebrities starting from Wednesday, users welcomed the social network’s move.Facebook started to put a small blue circle with a white check mark to indicate that the page has been authenticated. The symbol is seemingly inspired by the icon used by Twitter. Pages of high-profile figures like Barak Obama that have already gone through the verification process have the blue icon right next to their names.Facebook users welcomed the company’s new measure that
TechnologyMay 31, 2013
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Seoul shares almost flat amid QE hopes
South Korean stocks closed almost flat on Friday, amid expectations that the U.S. may hold off squeezing the size of monetary expansion, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 0.95 points, or 0.05 percent, to finish at 2,001.05. Trading volume was moderate of 390.1 million shares worth 5.27 trillion won ($4.68 billion) but decliners outnumbered gainers 504 to 327. "Hopes that the Fed will delay winding down i
May 31, 2013
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Seoul shares open higher on QE hopes
South Korean stocks got off to a strong start Friday, buoyed by expectations that the U.S. will hold off withdrawing its quantitative easing (QE) due to dim economic data, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shot up 12.91 points, or 0.65 percent to 2,013.01 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Blue-chip tech shares drove up the main index, with top-cap Samsung Electronics gaining 0.8 percent and No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor moving up 0.9 percent. U.S. markets ga
May 31, 2013
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S. Korea intensifies inspection of U.S. wheat for genetic modification
The government said Friday that it has strengthened its inspection of U.S. wheat imports following the discovery of unapproved genetically modified wheat in Oregon.Currently, the country inspects a 1-kilogram sample from each shipment of U.S. wheat, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.Starting Friday, the government plans to test additional samples of 1 kilogram from each container of U.S. wheat, it said.The move comes one day after the U.S. Animal and Plant Health I
May 31, 2013
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Russians find mammoth carcass with liquid blood
A perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal, Russian scientists said Thursday.The carcass was in such good shape because its lower part was stuck in pure ice, said Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum, who led the expedition into the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast.“The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities bellow the belly and when we broke these cavities wit
TechnologyMay 31, 2013
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Radiation on trip to Mars near lifetime limit
Astronauts who travel on future missions to Mars would likely be exposed to their lifetime limit of radiation during the trip, not to mention time spent on the Red Planet, scientists said Thursday.The measurements were made aboard the Mars Science Laboratory, an unmanned NASA rover and mobile lab that set off for Mars in 2011 before landing 253 days later in August 2012, said the report in the US journal Science."In terms of accumulated dose, it's like getting a whole-body CT scan once every fiv
TechnologyMay 31, 2013
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S. Korea's fiscal deficit widens in Q1
South Korea's fiscal deficit widened during the first quarter of this year amid the prolonged economic slowdown, the finance ministry said Friday.The consolidated fiscal account, which reflects the central government's total income and expenditure, posted 14.8 trillion won ($13.1 billion) in deficit during the January-March period, widening by 3.5 trillion won from a year earlier, the ministry said.The growing deficit stems in part from decreased tax revenues affected by the slowing growth. The
May 31, 2013
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University chief, actress, Samsung exec among tax haven account holders
Businessman Kim Seok-ki and his wife and actress Yoon Suk-hwa have been included on the list of those who established paper companies in tax havens, a local journalists’ group said Thursday.The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit organization also known as Newstapa, released five names ― three businessmen, a university president and an actress ― in its third announcement of the list of Koreans with offshore financial accounts allegedly to operate slush funds or evade taxes. Th
May 30, 2013
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[Photo News] Korea-Uganda summit
PoliticsMay 30, 2013
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Peak-time energy users may face higher electricity costs
Conglomerates that use huge amounts of electricity to manufacture goods are likely to see a threefold rise in their electricity bills for some periods this summer.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is considering the expansion of its “critical peak pricing” program to big companies in a bid to manage power demand. The program already covers small companies and households.Under the CPP program, applicants will be charged higher electricity tariffs during peak hours (usually 3 to 5 p.m.) o
IndustryMay 30, 2013
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Hanwha Life raided for alleged offshore tax evasion
Tax authorities on Thursday raided the headquarters of Hanwha Life Insurance to look into whether the company played a crucial role in the alleged tax dodging of Hanwha Group as its flagship financial unit.The National Tax Service secured a variety of documents and computer hard disks by dispatching some 100 inspectors to Hanwha Life headquarters at the 63 Building in Yeouido, Seoul.Its investigative action comes days after a group of independent journalists revealed names of high-profile busine
May 30, 2013
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Publishers accuse Kyobo Book Center of unfair practices
Kyobo Book Center, the nation’s largest bookstore, has come under fire for allegedly forcing publishing companies to participate in its newly launched e-book service.The Korea Publishers Society, a body representing some 420 publishers, accused the bookseller of unfair business practices by abusing its superior position. It also claimed that some publishers were forced to buy the e-book reader released by Kyobo. “We have received complaints from publishing houses that Kyobo Book Center did not g
TechnologyMay 30, 2013
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[Graphic News] OECD cuts 2013 growth outlooks for Korea, world
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development revised down its economic growth outlooks for Korea and the world for this and next year, citing lingering uncertainties over the global economy.“The economy faces both external and domestic risks. With exports accounting for more than half of the GDP, Korea is particularly exposed to global economic conditions and exchange-rate shifts,” the OECD said in a report released Wednesday.In its outlooks, the OECD cut Korea’s 2013 economic growt
May 30, 2013
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U.S. vs. European hurricane model: Which is better?
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) ― When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers located around the world to create their predictions.Some of those models are more accurate than others. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the A
TechnologyMay 30, 2013
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Study reveals man’s rocky road to upright walking
PARIS (AFP) ― The rugged landscape created by volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate shifts in east and south Africa millions of years ago may be what prompted our human ancestors to start walking on two legs, a study said.The research published in the journal Antiquity challenges the commonly-held theory that early hominins (members of the broad human family) were forced onto two feet on the ground because climate change reduced the number of trees they lived in.According to the new hypothesis,
TechnologyMay 30, 2013