But quarterly net income reaches 3.44 trillion won, 23 percent down on-year Samsung Electronics on Friday posted 41.27 trillion won ($37.35 billion) in sales and 4.25 trillion won in operating profit for the third quarter of this year, a better-than-expected performance on the strength of record-breaking sales of mobile handsets. The world’s top memory chip supplier and second-biggest handset m...

Police are investigating four panelists of an Internet podcast over allegations they spread false information about Na Kyung-won, the Grand National Party’s unsuccessful candidate in Wednesday’s Seoul mayoral by-election. According to the National Police Agency, the investigation was launched after Na’s election camp filed a complaint against the four ― political commentator Kim Yong-min; former...

Five opposition parties on Friday reiterated their vehement disapproval of the free trade pact with the U.S., saying they would mobilize “all possible means” to block its parliamentary passage. The main opposition Democratic Party also said that the removal of the clauses concerning the Investor-State Dispute Settlement is the “only condition” for its ratification. Calling some of their worries...

The government said on Friday it is considering setting a limit on the total number of lottery tickets issued in a bid to cool red-hot lottery fever. The Korea Lottery Commission, an agency under the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, raised the lottery ticket issuance limit for this year to 2.8 trillion won ($2.5 billion) on Thursday, up from 2.5 trillion won, to meet the surging demand. The Fi...

Apple’s latest smartphone iPhone 4S has gotten radio approval in Korea, the National Radio Research Agency said Friday. The radio approval, however, does not necessarily indicate imminent sales of iPhone 4S in Korea. The Apple handset will have to receive approval from the Korea Broadcasting Commission, with the launch date to be decided among local telecom providers. Considering that it took ...

College graduates make up 30% of irregular workforce The number of “irregular” workers with low pay and less job security in Korea reached nearly 6 million, data showed on Friday, underscoring that the country’s employment condition continues to deteriorate. Statistics Korea said the number of non-regular workers in Korea stood at 5.99 million as of end-August, accounting for a 34.2 percent sha...

Google chairman Eric Schmidt will visit Korea early next month for a series of talks with KT chairman Lee Suk-chae and other leaders of tech companies, industry sources said Friday. This will be the second time for the Google chief executive to visit Korea. Amid diverse smartphone-related issues expected to be discussed during the talks, industry sources predicted that mobile payment services w...

CDS premium down, KOSPI up on improved sentiment Korea’s stock market ended higher on Friday, helped by a new European deal aimed at slashing Greece’s massive debt, amid declining credit default swap premiums pointing to stabilizing sentiment. The benchmark KOSPI closed up 0.39 percent at 1,929.48 on foreign and institutional buying. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ, however, dropped 1.3 percent to 490.59...

JERUSALEM (AP) ― A U.S.-Israeli citizen arrested in Egypt as a suspected spy flew to freedom in Israel and into his mother’s arms on Thursday after more than four months in jail, after a prisoner swap deal that has eased friction between the two countries. A smiling Ilan Grapel, 27, looked fit after his one-hour flight from Cairo landed at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv. On th...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ― The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to lift the no-fly zone over Libya on Oct. 31 and end military action to protect civilians, acting swiftly following the death of Moammar Gadhafi and the interim government’s declaration of the country’s liberation. The council authorized the actions on March 17 in response to an Arab League request to try to halt Moammar...