Creditors of Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. (Hyundai E&C) were to sign a preliminary deal later Friday with Hyundai Motor Group to sell the leading builder in South Korea.   On Jan. 7, creditors, led by Korea Exchange Bank, picked South Korea's top automotive group as the preferred bidder for a 35 percent stake in the builder following a court rejection of Hyundai Group's request to salvag

The Obama administration wants Congress to ratify the free-trade deal with South Korea before a similar pact between Korea and the European Union goes into effect in July, the chief U.S. trade official said Thursday.“Our goal is to hand this agreement to Congress before the EU trade agreement goes into effect on July 1,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told a forum in Washington. “Everything we

 WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- North Korea will be on the agenda next week when U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House, Obama's spokesman said Thursday.   "There will be discussion on global economic issues as well as security issues like North Korea and Iran and important issues of political reform and human rights," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The Obama administration wants Congress to ratify the free-trade deal with South Korea before a similar pact between South Korea and the European Union goes into effect in July, the chief U.S. trade official said Thursday.   "Our goal is to hand this agreement to Congress before the EU trade agreement goes into effect on July 1," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told a forum here. "Everything we

About 110 young South Korean students have been held in the capital of the Philippine for allegedly studying English at a language school there without permits, Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday. Immigration officials rounded up the Korean students, who are all minors, at an English-language learning center in Manila on Jan. 7 for violating the Philippine immigration law, an official at Seoul

  South Korea has blocked its people in the South from accessing Web sites using North Korea's national Web domain name, saying the sites contain "illegal information" under the nation's anti-communism and security laws, officials said Thursday.    The blockage by the South's state-run Communications Standards Commission came less than a day after an expert said North Korea had renewed the use of

ULLEUNG ISLAND/SEOUL -- South Korean and Japanese maritime police were jointly investigating whether a South Korean fishing boat violated Japanese waters near the South Korean islets of Dokdo, officials said Thursday.    The two sides began the joint probe around 2 p.m. in waters about 69 kilometers southwest of Dokdo in the East Sea off the Korean Peninsula after the 29-ton South Korean fishing b

Four workers were trapped five meters underground after scaffolding collapsed at a reservoir construction site in eastern South Korea, police officials said Thursday.   Police and firefighters are trying to find the best approach to rescue them, but rescue efforts were complicated by huge amounts of debris, officials said. Two other construction workers near the site of the collapse were injured a

Heads of South Korea's largest conglomerates on Thursday vowed efforts to outperform expectations for the country's economy this year and urged an early implementation of a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States to help achieve their goal.   The ambitious plan came from the executive council of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the largest industry lobby in South Korea with a m