Seoul will conduct its first ever census of North Korean defectors to determine their quality of life, the North Korean Refugees Foundation said Monday. According to the public organization, they have conducted interview surveys of all North Korean refugees over 8 years old on family conditions, standard of living, education and other factors. This is the first time the government has held a censu

Outside the classroom a hot summer day beckons, but fourth-grade teacher Yeon Eun-jung’s students are glued to their tablet PCs as they watch an animated boy and a girl squabble about whether water becomes heavier when frozen.The small scene in this rural town is part of something big: South Korea is taking a $2 billion gamble that its students are ready to ditch paper textbooks in favor of tablet

 

Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co.’s second quarter sales came in at 1.48 trillion won ($1.4 billion), rising 21.17 percent from a year ago, the company posted in a regulatory filing on Monday.Over the same period, the company’s operating profits fell 11.68 percent to 144.5 billion won while its net profits soared 158.04 percent to come in at 158.3 billion won.Compared to the first quart

Korea plans to set up high-tech facilities to stave off flooding at the country’s seaports, including flap gates similar to those being built in Italy’s Venice, the government said Monday.The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs unveiled a package of measures to minimize the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, typhoons and tidal waves, which are increasingly freque

The average age of new smartphone owners has risen, according to a recent report.A report entitled “Mobile divide in the smartphone era,” recently announced by KT’s DigiEco and the office of research affairs at Yonsei University, said that the portion of new smartphone users in their 40s has jumped to 24.7 percent in November last year, from 11.6 percent earlier in May.The percentage is higher tha

STX Offshore and Shipbuilding Co. will face punitive measures for unfairly reducing subcontracting fees to a service provider, a state-run antitrust regulator said Monday. The nation’s leading shipbuilder, based in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, had signed a contract with a subcontractor, identified by its initial H, since 2008 for the work of putting vessels together to be moved.For six mon

The possibility that the Korean currency will rise in value up to nearly 1,000 won against the U.S. dollar is growing with recent stronger position of the won.The dollar has slid to around 1,050 won, the cheapest level in nearly three years due mainly to the combination of a strong trade balance and policy factors. Research analysts say the won’s gain is logical. They cite three reasons in particu

The nation’s biggest credit card firms are expected to receive regulatory punishment for unauthorized sales activities.The Financial Supervisory Service has uncovered about 20,000 irregular cases including reckless issuance of credit cards.Since May, the regulatory agency has been probing six major credit card issuers ― Shinhan, Hyundai, KB Kookmin, Samsung, Lotte and Hana-SK ― in a bid to curb ex

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that the country’s free trade deal with South Korea is a “model agreement” for the world’s largest economy.The Korea-U.S. FTA, known as KORUS FTA, was signed in 2007 and supplemented last December. It has been awaiting approval from the legislatures of both countries. “We consider KORUS a model agreement,” Clinton said i