A KTX train was brought to an abrupt halt inside a tunnel near Busan on Sunday, rekindling concerns over the accident-prone Korean high-speed rail system.About 400 passengers were stranded for one hour due to the stoppage believed to have been caused by a defective motor system. Train services from Busan were delayed.The incident occurred around 11:00 a.m. when the Seoul-bound train was passing th

Galaxy S II, Samsung Electronics’ second-generation of Android-powered smartphones, will be sent up to 30 kilometers above ground as part of a “Space Balloon” campaign launched at Samsung’s Japan offices, the company said Friday. Attached to a small balloon, the phone will be launched from the Nevada desert in the U.S. from Friday to Monday for two hours each day. Messages posted on Twitter and Fa

 

The Coca-Cola Company officially denied the local news reports on making inroads into the North Korean market.“No representative of The Coca-Cola Company has been in discussions or explored opening up business in Pyongyang, North Korea,“ Kent Landers, a PR official of the company, told the Korea Herald via email on Friday.Meanwhile, Park Chul-soo, president of Chosun Daepoong Group also denied the

Daum Communications, the nation’s second-largest Internet portal, has introduced a new service called “Daum store view” which enables people to view inside registered stores online.Store view shows a 360-degree panorama view of inside the store by clicking air tags on the street view. This means people can virtually experience the interior, seating, layout, menu and prices of the selected store.Th

Hyundai’s Sonata gets top marks in U.S. consumer surveyKorea’s Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister company Kia Motors Corp. ranked as the best-selling passenger carmakers in Canada in the first half of this year, industry sources said Thursday.The two leading automobile makers in South Korea sold a combined 64,671 passenger cars in the North American country in the January-June period for a market sh

GIHEUNG, Gyeonggi Province ― Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor manufacturing lines were not responsible for or directly linked to leukemia and related cancers diagnosed in former company employees, a report by an independent agency showed on Thursday. Representatives of Environ, a U.S.-based consultancy specializing in environmental and health issues, announced the results of the study commission

Sales at Korea’s major discount outlets and department stores rose from a year earlier in June on growing demand for groceries and goods for outdoor activities, a government report showed Thursday.Combined sales of the country’s three major discount outlets rose 2.7 percent in June from the same period last year with those of three leading department stores rising 8.2 percent on-year, according to

POSCO, Korea’s leading steelmaker, said Thursday that its Canadian unit will set up a joint venture with Canada’s Fortune Minerals Ltd. to acquire a stake in a Canadian coal mine development project.POSCO said that POSCO Canada Ltd. will invest a total of 181 million Canadian dollars ($189 million) for a 20 percent stake in the Mount Klappan coal project. POSCO will pay 30 million Canadian dollars

The non-governmental organization Beautiful Community Forum announced Thursday that it will host photo and sculpture exhibitions as part of the 2011 Philip Morris Korea Clean Beach Campaign.The exhibitions will be at Sokcho Beach in Gangwon Province and Hamdeok Beach in Jeju from July 30 through Aug. 1 to raise awareness for preservation of sea resources.For the photo exhibition, the forum is hold

The National Tax Service said Thursday that it would launch a large-scale investigation into offshore bank accounts with lump-sum deposits this year. “The agency’s crackdown on tax evasion using tax havens abroad has seen some achievements in the first half of the year,” said an NTS official. “In the second half, we will step up efforts to probe further into people who have deposited more than 1 b

The nation’s antitrust watchdog and eBay Inc. signed Thursday an agreement for fair trade in the growing online ecommerce market ― the first of its kind here. The U.S.-based company, which owns Gmarket and Auction, the nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 online marketplaces, will adopt a “Consumer Complaints Management System” to better protect consumer rights, the Fair Trade Commission said.The agreement ca