Much-maligned for uninspired play of late, the South Korean men's national football team came alive just in time to secure a vital win over Uzbekistan in their World Cup qualifier on Tuesday.Youth was served as South Korea eked out a 1-0 victory over Uzbekistan at Seoul World Cup Stadium. Given South Korea's epidemic failure to score, it was perhaps fitting that the home team enjoyed the win on an own goal by an Uzbekistan defender.Still, South Korea displayed flashes of brilliance on offense, c

Soccer June 12, 2013

South Korean stocks opened lower Wednesday as investor sentiment was dented following MSCI's decision to retain the country's emerging market status, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) moved down 6.81 points, or 0.35 percent, to 1,913.87 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Shares lost ground across the board, with tech giant Samsung Electronics falling 1.44 percent and leading steelmaker POSCO losing 0.47 percent. Top chipmaker SK hynix shed 0.46 percent.Stock

June 12, 2013

South Korea's financial authorities will monitor shares of Samsung Electronics Co. to detect possible price-rigging activity amid the recent price swings, market sources said Wednesday.The move came as the top smartphone maker suffered a 6.18 percent drop in its share price on Friday to 1,427,000 won, the lowest since Feb. 6. It fell for the fourth consecutive trading session on Tuesday to 1,389,000 won."We have intensified our oversight on the trading activities related to Samsung Electronics,"

June 12, 2013

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that North Korea is dangerous and unpredictable despite signs that the two Koreas are moving back on a diplomatic track."We see this up-and-down diplomatic track, and then there will be something occur, and then there's a diplomatic track," he said at a hearing of the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hagel was referring to a nascent reconciliatory mood in Korea after years of sharp military tension.South and North Kor

North Korea June 12, 2013

SK hynix Inc., the world's No. 2 memory chip maker, said Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with Rambus Inc. on a new license deal that would cost the South Korean company a total of US$240 million over the next five years, ending a decade-long legal battle over memory chip technology. Under the new agreement, SK hynix will pay $12 million in royalties each quarter over the next five years to the U.S.-based technology licensing company for using its semiconductor technology, the South Ko

Industry June 12, 2013

The world's oldest person and the oldest man ever to have lived has died of natural causes aged 116 years, media reported Wednesday.Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who was born in 1897, died in hospital early Wednesday morning, Kyodo News cited the local government as saying.Kimura, from Kyotango in Kyoto Prefecture, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living person in December 2012 when a woman from the United States died at the age of 115.On the 28th day of that month he br

People June 12, 2013

Edward Snowden, who admitted leaking details of secret U.S. government surveillance programs, was fired by his employer Tuesday while the U.S. government considers criminal charges against him.Booz Allen Hamilton said in a statement that it fired Snowden on Monday “for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy.” It said he had earned a salary of $122,000 a year. The firm called Snowden's actions “shocking” and said he had been a Booz Allen employee for less than three months.Presid

World News June 12, 2013

A massive battle is taking place in the skies over Europe _ and airplane passengers across the continent are feeling its effects.A plan to simplify the European Union's patchwork air traffic control system and open up more air traffic duties to private enterprise has sparked strikes and job actions by controllers that began Tuesday in France and were to spread Wednesday to 10 other European nations.Nearly two decades after the 27-nation EU began eliminating checks along its land borders, its air

World Business June 12, 2013

A bill that stigmatizes gay people and bans giving children any information about homosexuality won overwhelming approval Tuesday in Russia's lower house of parliament.Hours before the State Duma passed the Kremlin-backed law in a 436-0 vote with one abstention, more than two dozen protesters were attacked by hundreds of anti-gay activists and then detained by police. The bill banning the ``propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations'' still needs to be passed by the appointed upper house and

World News June 12, 2013

South Korea's jobless rate fell in May from a month earlier but job creation slowed amid concerns labor market conditions might remain tough for many job seekers, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3 percent last month, down from the previous month's 3.2 percent. The rate also fell from a year earlier when it was 3.1 percent.The jobless rate adjusted for inflation, however, edged up to 3.2 percent from April's 3.1 percent.J

June 12, 2013

Global investment index provider MSCI Inc. retained South Korea's emerging market status on its global equities index Wednesday, citing the country's high barrier in the financial sector."Many international institutional investors consider that the accessibility of the Korean equity market is not at Developed Market standards," MSCI said in a statement.MSCI, the research arm of U.S. banking group Morgan Stanley, announced the decision on its Web site early Wednesday morning (Seoul time). "The li

June 12, 2013

The government is set to review and rewrite all of its business regulations from square one as a means to deregulate or remove burdensome rules to boost private investment in Korea, sources said Tuesday. The Office for Government Policy Coordination, part of the Prime Minister’s Office, will lead all related state agencies in the so-called “zero-based” process of evaluating more than 1,800 regulations and guidelines governing business investments.It will then draw up comprehensive measures aimed

June 11, 2013