... of imports, reduce currency volatility, economists say A stronger won could help tame the country’s inflationary pressure, as a tool to ease the burden of surging import prices, economists said Thur...exports have been resilient in the face of reduced demand from Europe and the U.S. last year. Korea’s December exports shot up 23.1 percent from a year before, to $44.34 billion. Korea is the world’s ...

...ncrease crude production by 33 percent. “We’re interested in assets in Africa, Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada,” Kim Seong Hoon, senior executive vice president, said in an interview. “We plan to r... to increase its daily crude oil output to 300,000 barrels by 2012 to meet the energy needs of Asia’s fourth-biggest economy. The company’s daily output was 50,000 barrels in 2008. Recent gains in cr...

...sed in liquid-crystal display televisions and monitors. Sony filed two new complaints, each listing four patents, yesterday in federal court in Los Angeles. The Tokyo-based electronics maker said LG’s 32LD350 LCD television and E2360V LCD monitor are among the products that infringe its technology. The new lawsuits come after LG filed two complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington on Feb. 4 seeking to block U.S. sales of Sony Bravia televisions and PlayStation 3 consoles because they allegedly make use of LG’s patented technology....

New Minister of Knowledge Economy Choi Joong-kyung Thursday reaffirmed the government’s intent to intervene in the local refining market to contain the recent petrol price hike. “The profit margins ...for the that nation’s nuclear reactors will be held in March, Choi said, adding that the event has been delayed due to the UAE king and crown prince’s schedule. By Koh Young-aah (youngah@heraldm.com)

... of Korea, Korea Development Bank, Korea Finance Corp. and Korea Trade Insurance Corp. ― to launch a public-sector investment bank. One problem with this scheme is that it clashes with the government’s plan to privatize Korea Development Bank. The government has already separated the bank’s policy-based finance function by establishing Korea Finance Corp. While Kim claimed that President Lee Myung-bak and relevant ministers expressed support for his plan during a recent policy debate,...

North Korea’s military said Thursday that it would not engage in dialogue with its South Korean counterpart any longer, laying the blame for the collapse on Wednesday of the two-day working-level mil... as a tactic designed to sidestep or water down its responsibility for the two assaults. The North’s response to the South’s demand for an apology clearly showed it is still not ready for any meaning...

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act” introduced Jan. 20 in the U.S. House of Representatives is a broad attack on women’s reproductive health care. The talk for the last couple of days has been the bill’s supposed attempt to redefine rape ― limiting a “rape” exemption to “forcible rape” ― but the potential harm to women is larger. The bill would prevent the use of taxpayer funds for abort...

...rman, the director of the Spatial Economics Research Centre at the London School of Economics. “It’s simply not a middle-class recession and a greater representation of the middle class is in the sou...a nation’s wealth. Since 2005, it has been relatively stable. Now inequality is rising again. What’s true of the U.K. is probably true of most of the developed world. There’s nothing very unique abou...