North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s days-long trip to China appears to have done little in securing a promise of reliable financial and diplomatic support from the longstanding ally, observers in Seoul said Friday.A special train carrying Kim and the 70-member entourage left the border region of Dandong Friday morning and is expected to arrive back in Pyongyang later in the day, the South Korean med

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top memory chip maker, will unload its solar battery business to its affiliate Samsung SDI Co. for 160.8 billion won ($147.6 million), the companies said Friday, in an apparent bid to revitalize the team’s disappointing performance, The boards of the two companies each approved the plan, which calls for Samsung Electronics to hand over its solar battery workfor

The number of Korean travelers going overseas rose 4.7 percent in the first four months of 2011 from a year earlier despite a recent earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, the top destination for outbound tourists, data showed Friday.According to the data released by the Justice Ministry and the Korea Tourism Organization, the number of Koreans going overseas came to 4.09 million in the January-Ap

Foreign investors have apparently been banned from participating in the coming bidding for Woori Financial Group, the nation’s largest financial company by assets.Financial Services Commission chairman Kim Seok-dong clarified Friday that the authorities will hand over the state-run financial group to a Korean bidder.His remarks came during the FSC’s report to the National Assembly on the financial

WASHINGTON (AP) ― From the United States to Europe and even to booming China, the global economy is showing signs of strain.Most major economies are expected to keep growing. But evidence is mounting that many around the world are struggling to expand as fast as they did last year.European governments are struggling with debts and squeezed budgets. Britain’s economy scarcely grew at the start of t

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has called for an early resumption of the stalled six-party talks. According to Xinhua News Agency, Kim expressed his view that “the six-party talks should be resumed at an early date” during his summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing on Wednesday.Kim, who returned home Friday wrapping up his eight-day visit to China, was also quoted as saying that “the

Prosecutors in the southern city of Changwon are expanding their investigation into the nation’s first match-fixing scandal involving K-League professional soccer players. They have already arrested two gambling brokers on charges of bribing two active players in their bid to rig match results and win Sportstoto lotteries. The brokers allegedly gave 120 million won to a goalkeeper of a K-League cl

Rarely have the differences between a U.S. president and an Israeli prime minister been so prominently displayed as they were last week when Barack Obama hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Netanyahu’s visit capped a week of activity: Jordan’s King Abdullah visited a few days before and then Obama delivered a speech outlining his views of an eventual peace agreement.To no one’s surprise,

My grandmother didn’t have much money. She was a widow who had raised five children on her husband’s paycheck from the textile mill. So when she tried to give me $1,000 not to go into the Peace Corps, it was a very big offer.I told her that I wanted to serve and that it wasn’t about money.And I went ― to Togo, West Africa, in 1983. My grandmother’s fears were about the kind of men I would meet the

Earlier this month, The China Post reported that a meeting was held by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) to discuss the possibility of relaxing some of the current restrictions on hiring foreigners as “white-collar” employees. Immigration officials and others in the fields of education and economics attended the conference, but the report stated that the meeting concluded without any consensus be