South Korea plans to bolster the country’s financing capabilities, aiming to back its firms with more plant-building projects overseas, the government said Wednesday. The government said it is planning to launch a task force led by the Ministry of Strategy & Finance, in collaboration with the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and financial institutions such as Financial Services Commission, Ex-Im Bank

The eight existing teams in the top-division South Korean professional baseball league decided on Tuesday to supply an expansion team with extra rookies and foreign players to help smooth its entry into the league.During their six-hour meeting over the future of the new club, to be run by local online game company NCsoft, the eight team presidents of the Korea Baseball Organization agreed that the

The Ministry of Health and Welfare on Wednesday denied allegations that the government may scrap a plan to allow multiple charity organizations to receive donations.The denial came after a U.S. charity leader was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying that Health and Welfare Minister Chin Soo-hee agreed with his view that the country needs no second charity organizer.“Increasing the number of

Asian tourists have picked Seoul as their favorite destination for the third consecutive year, a recent survey found Wednesday. The survey, commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, questioned 3,200 people in China, Japan and Thailand and 600 others visiting Seoul last year.Of 1,050 Chinese surveyed, 16.4 percent picked Seoul as the city which they wanted to visit within a year, followed

The Gyeonggi police agency said Wednesday that it had found letters thought to be written by the late actress Jang Ja-yeon.The letters had been sent to Jang’s acquaintance, known as Jeon, who is currently serving a jail term. The police inspected Jeon’s cell Wednesday morning and found 20 letters and five envelopes, believed to have been sent by the actress, and several newspaper articles. “The le

Carnival has returned to Haiti, a year after the devastating earthquake, but this time it is darker and more menacing rippling with violent under tones as Haitians seek to exorcise their demons.Papier-mache artist Jean-Marc Turin created a sculpture dubbed “Haiti Kolera” for this year’s carnival in the coastal town of Jacmel.The striking cardboard figure of a red and blue woman, vomiting down her front representing the cholera epidemic stalking the nation, is a far cry from the happy, fantasy-fi

MANILA (AFP) ― Like some bad science-fiction movie, Philippine fishermen are encountering strange alien creatures: tough, speckled fish with sharp spines that tear and rip their nets.These suckermouth catfish from South America are just one of a growing number of foreign species that are spreading in local waterways and forests, threatening to edge out the country’s indigenous plants and animals.The catfish, locally known as “janitor fish,” were originally introduced locally for aquariums but ca

The sun is shining on the tourism trade in Asia-Pacific with double-digit growth notched up in 2010, spurred largely by Chinese and Indian middle classes packing their bags for a break abroad. Strong economies, the proliferation of low-cost airlines and a burgeoning constituency of online shoppers are adding to the region’s rosy outlook.There was an 11 percent rise in arrivals in the region overall last year, according to preliminary data from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). And 2011