South Korea has asked its major trade partners including China and the United States for cooperation in its upcoming negotiations to set tariff rates on its rice imports, the trade ministry said Sunday.South Korea on Friday announced that it will open its rice market to tariffed imports, ending a 20-year waiver that had capped the import of the grain to a set minimum. It now has to negotiate the tariff rates with the World Trade Organization before the market opening from Jan. 1 next year.In a b

Politics July 20, 2014

Relations between Argentina and China are poised to reach unprecedented "new horizons," Chinese President Xi Jinping told lawmakers in Buenos Aires during a summit visit Saturday.Xi is on a Latin American charm offensive to secure bilateral trade deals -- particularly coveted raw materials -- from governments throughout the region.China is Argentina's third-largest trading partner behind the South American Mercosur bloc and the European Union, and one of its main destinations for food exports."O

World News July 20, 2014

Fourteen people who became trapped when a railway tunnel they were working on in China collapsed were freed Sunday after five days of rescue operations.Emergency responders had battled since Monday to free the workers after the tunnel collapsed in southwestern Yunan province, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.Rescuers managed to drill a hole through the debris to the stranded crew on Tuesday, passing them food, water and flashlights. They were finally freed "in the early hours of Sund

World News July 20, 2014

South Korea and China have reached a consensus on establishing a military hotline between their defense chiefs this year to further boost cooperation, a Seoul government source said Sunday.After agreeing on "the necessity for the hotline, the two countries began discussing the issue in earnest from the end of last year and have reached a consensus to set it up within this year," the source said. He declined to be named."The two are likely to reach a final decision during their fourth round of th

Defense July 20, 2014

North Korea on Saturday denounced a move by the U.N. Security Council to discuss its recent launch of short-range missiles, calling it a U.S.-led provocation.In a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, the North Korean foreign ministry accused the U.N. Security Council of ignoring what it called U.S. military exercises aimed at invading the North while making an issue of what it claimed to be an inevitable choice."All military actions taken by our army, including t

North Korea July 20, 2014

Foreign investment banks showed mixed views on the future direction of South Korea's key interest rate, a report said Thursday, with the country's central bank facing growing pressure on a rate cut. Earlier this month, the monetary policy committee of the Bank of Korea decided to keep the base rate unchanged at 2.5 percent for a 14th straight month. The report released by the Korea Center for International Finance showed that BNP Paribas projected the BOK is unlikely to cut the rate as Asia's fo

July 17, 2014

More than four in 10 South Koreans would rather have a foreign coach take over their men's national football team than a local figure, a poll showed Thursday.Gallup Korea said in its survey of 681 adults, 43 percent said they'd like to see a foreign national lead the football team, compared with 39 percent who said they wanted a South Korean at the helm.The job has been vacant since last Thursday, when former national team captain Hong Myung-bo resigned in the wake of the country's subpar perfor

Soccer July 17, 2014

South Korea's business community on Thursday protested proposals by the government to tax corporate cash reserves, stressing that such actions will only hurt investment and not benefit the economy.The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), which represents the interests of the country's large family-run conglomerates known as chaebol, said companies need cash reserves to deal with potential uncertainties in the future and that most of the money set aside have already been earmarked for use to bu

July 17, 2014

South Korea and the United States are likely to seek to promote "strategic cooperation" in civilian nuclear energy areas as they are discussing renewing a bilateral nuclear energy pact, sources said Thursday.South Korea and the U.S. have been in talks on the renewal of the 1974 accord over Seoul's civil nuclear energy use, also known as the "123 Agreement," which bans Seoul from enriching uranium and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel on proliferation concerns.South Korea has been seeking to revise

Foreign Affairs July 17, 2014

North Korea has proposed fostering cooperation with China to jointly fight water pollution on cross-border rivers, China's state media reported Thursday. The proposal was made by Pak Ho-yong, vice minister of North Korea's Ministry of Land and Environmental Protection, to China's vice minister of Environmental Protection, Li Ganjie, during their talks in Beijing earlier this week, the China Environment News reported, quoting the two officials. North Korea and China share a 1,334-kilometer-long b

North Korea July 17, 2014

KT&G Corp., South Korea's largest tobacco manufacturer, said Thursday its second-quarter net profit decreased 4.3 percent from a year earlier due to stronger local currency.Net income stood at 184.3 billion won ($179.2 million) in the April-June period, compared with 192.7 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Sales, however, rose 8.5 percent to 992.3 billion won in the cited period, and operating profit surged 15.1 percent to 286.3 billion won. The numbers reflect

Industry July 17, 2014

South Korea should encourage local brokerage houses to seek more mergers and acquisitions (M&A) by offering incentives and foster investment banks with diversified asset businesses in a bid to reorganize the faltering financial market, a ruling party lawmaker said Thursday.South Korean brokerage houses have been in a prolonged slump due to decreasing brokerage fees stemming from slow trading on the stock market. Out of 62 brokerage houses, about 10 have been put up for sale in the local M&A mark

July 17, 2014

Nearly half of the teenage boys in Seoul think they could go under the knife to make themselves look better, a poll showed Thursday, in a growing sign of their liberal attitude toward a once-taboo subject.According to the survey by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 49.4 percent of the male adolescents between 15 and 19 in Seoul said "yes" when asked if they would get surgery to enhance their looks. Only 16.9 percent answered "no." It marks a sharp turnaround from 2007, when 38 percent rejected

Social Affairs July 17, 2014

President Park Geun-hye removed the education and culture ministers from office on Thursday, her office said, despite a delay in the formation of her new Cabinet.Education Minister Seo Nam-soo and Culture Minister Yoo Jin-ryong were both subject to a partial Cabinet reshuffle last month, which came in the wake of a deadly ferry sinking in April that claimed the lives of more than 300 people, mostly high school students.Park informed Seo and Yoo of their dismissals earlier in the day, her office

Politics July 17, 2014