North Korea has once again accused U.S. troops of trespassing into the Demilitarized Zone, saying that South Korea would take the responsibility for all the results from the “provocations” including “human damage.”The communist state’s military has sent a notice containing such a threat to the South, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Sunday.In the notice, the North cl

Destroyer on standby near EgyptSouth Korea is ready to pull out all of its nationals from Libya if necessary after examining safety conditions, an official here said Monday as allied forces launch powerful strikes against the Libyan leader’s military. To assist the possible mass evacuation of Korean nationals to neighboring states, Seoul’s 4,500-ton destroyer Choi Young has been on standby off the

Korea will seek to share meteorological information with Japan or China in case their weather agencies are hit by a natural disaster such as the recent massive quake in Japan, Cho Seok-joon, chief of the Korea Meteorological Administration, said Monday. Talks are underway for a joint study-observation-forecast-alarm system among the three countries, which will enable them to send warnings or advic

The Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a global alliance Monday aimed at fostering the burgeoning convention industry along with six major cities abroad.The “Future Convention Cities Initiative” started last July along with four founding member cities ― Seoul, London, Sydney and Toronto.During Monday’s launch ceremony, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi and Durban, South Africa newly signed an agreement

TOKYO (AP) ― At a bustling Tokyo supermarket Sunday, wary shoppers avoided one particular bin of spinach.The produce came from Ibaraki prefecture in the northeast, where radiation was found in spinach grown up to 120 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Another bin of spinach ― labeled as being from Chiba prefecture, west of Tokyo ― was sold out.“It’s a little hard to say this, bu

Korea’s state-run Korea Gas Corp. said Monday that it has developed a design technology for the world’s largest liquefied natural gas tank. The tank has a storage capacity of 270,000 kiloliters, up 35 percent compared with that of the largest existing tank, helping reduce the construction cost per LNG tank by 23.5 billion won ($20.9 million), KOGAS said in a statement. The company said it is consi

With President Lee Myung-bak’s appointment of a new government financial regulator earlier this year, reform is once again a serious topic in Korea’s one-step-forward, two-steps-back financial services industry.“The most revolutionary area (of reform) will be the introduction of hedge funds,” said Ernst J. Lee, spokesperson for the Financial Services Commission, echoing recent pronouncements by hi

Korea needs to engineer the local currency’s ascent against the U.S. dollar rather than raise interest rates to contain inflation more effectively, experts said Monday.The government, however, remains opposed to the idea, saying the currency issue should be approached in a broader context as it could have far-reaching ramifications over the overall economy.The argument comes as Korea’s inflation l

Hyundai Motor Co., Korea’s largest automaker, saw a great boost to its sales in China last month, becoming the third best-selling brand in the world’s largest market for automobiles, company officials said Monday.The company sold 50,717 vehicles in China last month, up 36.7 percent from the same period last year.The figure represents a near 30 percent drop from a month earlier when the company sol

The Korean unit of General Motors said Monday it would reduce production this week by up to 10 percent because of a possible lack of parts from Japan following the devastating earthquake.GM Korea ― formerly GM Daewoo ― said it would stop four hours a day of overtime work from Monday at its plants in the western city of Bupyeong and in the southwestern port of Gunsan.The company said it would also

Managers at Hansalim, Korea’s biggest cooperative of consumers, recently realized the depth of the food scare when they took a look at the surging number of their cooperative’s members. Established in 1986, Hansalim saw its membership swell by nearly 20 percent to 250,900 in January from a year ago, just by word of mouth. It spends almost nothing on public relations.The sharp increase in membershi