The South Korean economy grew at a slower pace than previously estimated in the second quarter on weaker facility and construction investment, the central bank said Thursday, cementing market expectations for a rate cut this month. South Korea's gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic performance, grew a revised 0.3 percent in the April-June period from three months earlier,

South Korea this year moved up five notches in terms of its global competitiveness from a year earlier, helped by improvements in the country's welfare and education systems, as well as its market efficiency, a report showed Wednesday.According to the annual report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the country's competitiveness index moved up to 19th place of the 144 countries studied this year.

One person was killed and another seriously wounded when a gunman opened fire during the victory speech of Quebec's newly elected separatist premier, who was unharmed, police said Tuesday.The shooting took place with Pauline Marois's Parti Quebecois projected to win Tuesday's elections in the mostly French-speaking province, ousting Premier Jean Charest from the legislature and his Liberals from p

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is calling for Southeast Asian states to present a united front to the Chinese in dealing with territorial disputes in the South China Sea.Clinton will be in Indonesia's capital Monday to offer strong U.S. support for a regionally endorsed plan to ease rising tensions by implementing a code of conduct for all claimants to disputed islands. Jakarta is

South Korean stocks opened higher on Monday but swung to negative territory due to losses in major blue chips, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 9.28 points, or 0.49 percent, to 1,895.84 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Samsung Electronics slumped 2.11 percent following Apple Inc.'s move to add more products to its patent infringement list. Top steelmaker

President Lee Myung-bak pledged Monday to make electronic anklets more effective, expand the personal information disclosure of sex offenders and consider all possible measures against rapists, including chemical castration, as public outrage runs high over the recent kidnapping and rape of a seven-year-old girl.Lee made the pledge during a biweekly radio address, calling last week's brutal rape,

South Korea's consumer prices grew at the slowest click in over 12 years last month amid government efforts to keep inflationary pressure down, a report showed Monday.The country's consumer price index rose 1.2 percent from a year earlier in August, compared with a 1.5 percent on-year gain the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea.The so-called core inflation, which excludes

Rep. Moon Jae-in, a lawyer-turned-politician, won his sixth straight victory in a regional primary of the Democratic United Party (DUP) on Sunday, coming closer to securing the party's ticket for the Dec. 19 presidential polls.Moon, formerly chief of staff to the late President Roh Moo-hyun, garnered 5,928 votes, or 50.1 percent, of the 11,834 cast in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul, the party'

Authorities in Florida said a man accused of attacking a pizza delivery driver said he punched the other man because he forgot the garlic knots.The Indian River County Sheriff's Office said the driver called 911 Aug. 19 and reported he had been punched in the face by Vero Beach customer Robert Wheeler, 48, because he hadn't brought garlic knots with Wheeler's order, TCPalm.com reported Thursday.Th