Korea posted a record current account surplus with China in 2010 as exports to the world’s fastest-growing economy hit an all-time high, the central bank said Tuesday.Korea’s current account surplus with China reached $52.8 billion last year, compared with a $37.9 billion surplus in 2009, according to the Bank of Korea.It marked the largest surplus since 1998 when the BOK began to compile related

 

Korea plans to beef up efforts to curb the growth of household debt and mend the practice of extending home loans in a bid to prevent household indebtedness from increasing market instability, the financial watchdog said Tuesday. Korea’s household debt stood at 801.4 trillion won ($738.2 billion) as of the end of March, accounting for 86 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The number

 

LONDON (AFP) ― International donors pledged $4.3 billion to vaccinate nearly 250 million children against life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, at a London conference Monday.GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), the group backed by Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, said the funding would save more than four million lives over the next four years.Britain pledged $1.3

Former Agriculture-Forestry Minister Im Sang-gyu should have secured a place in the annals of Korean bureaucracy as a model public administrator, if only he had a little more courage to escape the temptation of corruption. He called it “the devil’s snare” in his suicide note found Monday. Suicide is not rare in this country. But in most corruption scandals, the accused bureaucrats or politicians e

If the political atmosphere between China and North Korea may at times be changeable, the two neighboring countries have been strengthening their economic cooperation steadily and substantially, particularly across the Tumen River. Some of the South Korean media saw political significance in the postponement of the official launches of the Hwanggeumpyeong and Hunchun-Raseon projects last month, bu

The charges filed recently against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn have perpetuated a myth: that the U.S. justice system moves swiftly and effectively to resolve allegations of sexual assault.In the wake of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the media, particularly in Europe, have highlighted the perceived equality and fairness of a justice system that allows an immigrant single mother with relatively

Republicans and Democrats alike need a significant deficit-reduction package. It is increasingly elusive. President Barack Obama and his congressional allies face a sputtering economic recovery that signals an inhospitable election environment next year, a bad situation getting worse. They need an infusion of confidence that most analysts say a serious debt deal would achieve. Republicans need to