A panel of the World Water Council embarked on a three-day visit to Korea on Monday to assess the country’s bid for the 2015 World Water Forum, officials said. The world’s largest summit in the water-related industry fosters global collaboration on issues ranging from water supplies and sanitation to access rights. Korea announced its bid last year and is competing against Scotland’s Glasgow. ...

...rease. Last year, the local alcohol beverage market was estimated to be worth about 7.89 trillion won ($7.43 billion), the agency said. Despite its increase of 12 percent of market share, makgeolli’s low tax rate of 5 percent contributed only 0.7 percent of the total liquor tax revenue. The data also found that a Korean adult aged 19 or older on average consumed 66.6 bottles of soju, 100.8 bott...

...its smartphone sales target this year, with the popularity of its latest Android devices and upcoming bada phones, which run on its own mobile software, and a ramp-up in low-cost smartphones, Samsung’s mobile and camera chief said Monday. The world’s second-largest maker of mobile phones, which competes with Apple Inc.’s iPad in the tablet PC sector, is also bullish that its new versions of the Galaxy Tab will spur the growth of the tablet ecosy...

Mulberry Group Plc, the 40-year-old British luxury-handbag maker, is the world’s best-performing fashion retail stock over the past year and its sales may keep gaining, driven by overseas growth, ana...st performer in the apparel retailers segment, according to Bloomberg data. Among all retailers, it’s behind only PT Mitra Adiperkasa, an Indonesian company that runs Starbucks Corp. coffee shops and ...

... winning by a wide enough margin to snatch the crown for year-to-date sales. Purchases of Chrysler’s Dodge Journey model, which guzzles less gasoline than a traditional truck-based SUV, increased mor...ilar kinds of fuel economy with greater space, that’s obviously going to attract people.” Chrysler’s Dodge Journey sales increased more than 50 percent to 16,069 in Canada. GM’s Chevrolet Equinox sal...

NEW YORK (AP) ― Time is running out for Washington to raise the country’s borrowing limit and avoid a default. Wall Street isn’t panicking yet. But if the unthinkable happens, a default could strike ...That’s one reason stocks and bond yields have remained relatively stable thus far, even after Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s warned they may soon take away the country’s top credit rating. “What would...

Taiwan’s 2012 presidential campaign candidates have been actively interacting with supporters online, and they are taking advantage of social networking websites differently, research reveals. Resul...an says good morning,” allows fans to “like” Taiwan, Ma’s campaign headquarters said. As part of Ma’s Early Bird Project, from 6am to 10:30 a.m. every morning, fans who leave a post on Ma’s wall to en...

...― her team, which also studied the effects of drinking green tea, found that it delivered no protection against the disease. Studies similar to this installment of the Singapore Chinese Health Study’s look at the link between liver cancer and coffee have been done in Japan and Italy, and the same conclusions drawn, but the disease is not common in the two countries, so the results were less signi...

...serious of all, a Chinese missile frigate firing at Filipino fishing boats in February near Palawan’s Quirino atoll. Will armed conflict result from these recurring ― and, it seems, escalating ― disp...he region’s harmony and security. Pax Asia-Pacifica’s institutions will need to be built, as Europe’s peace was built after World War II, on strong, cooperative undertakings among the most powerful co...