Korea’s overall corporate profitability worsened in the first quarter from a year ago as oil costs rose and the local currency’s gain dented prices of export goods, the central bank said Tuesday.The average ratio of operating profit to sales, a key barometer of profitability, reached 6.3 percent in the January-March period, down from 7.2 percent from a year earlier, the Bank of Korea said in a rep

Charges on imports dropped on shortage items as prices soarThe government plans to extend tariff cuts for 35 out of 46 items due to expire this month and add 14 more items to the list to ease import cost burdens on local consumers, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.Under the plan, items such as pork, garlic, mackerel, wheat, soybean oil, sugar, and coffee will continue to enjoy lower tariffs. The

SK Communications said Tuesday it has launched a website that provides scholarship information involving 63 scholarship foundations and 110 different academic funding programs.The country’s online portal, which runs Cyworld, said it would also hold a briefing session in Seoul and Busan this week at two universities to explain how students could easily access information on various scholarships ava

 

As social and political debates on cutting university tuition fees rages on, the restructuring of higher education has emerged as an urgent issue. There is a need to strengthen university finances in general and concentrate state support on more viable institutions. While the Board of Audit and Inspection is checking the financial, personnel and academic affairs of all 200 four-year universities,

North Korea again blared out warnings of “merciless retaliation,” this time against the move here to pass the North Korean human rights bill at the National Assembly. Their language grew harsher as with a change in activities in the South that they consider to threaten the stability of their system.Jopyeongtong, Pyongyang’s mouthpiece on South Korean affairs, said the bill represented Seoul’s atte

In large swaths of the nation, life expectancy has stopped increasing and even declined slightly over the decade that ended in 2007, particularly among women. This historic reversal of a long-time trend toward longer life expectancies in the world’s richest nation is virtually unique in the developed world and appears largely due to the growing inequality of American society.To be sure, this week’