South Korea's two main policy lenders announced plans Thursday to provide Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) with financial support worth a total of 3.2 trillion won (US$2.7 billion), urging the firm's labor union to refrain from taking collective actions and support its restructuring efforts.The Korea Development Bank (KDB), a main creditor of the troubled shipyard, said it will convert 1.8 trillion won of debt into equity. The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) also plans

North Korea's advancing ballistic missile programs pose the biggest challenge to the international regime for controlling the proliferation of missile technology, a high-ranking South Korean official said Wednesday. "Today, North Korea's ballistic missile program is undoubtedly the biggest challenge" facing the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam said in his opening remarks at the 30th MTCR general meeting held in the southern port city of Busan. The MTCR

A fourth South Korean cholera patient appears to have been infected with the waterborne virus during a recent trip to the Philippines, health authorities said Monday.South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an analysis of genetic fingerprinting of the 46-year-old man showed that his genotype matched 93 percent with that of a patient who was infected with cholera after a trip to the Philippines in 2005.The CDC said it believes that the fourth patient contracted cholera in the

Scholars, former government officials and politicians on Monday voiced differing views on whether or not Seoul should pursue a nuclear armament strategy, amid the rising calls from hawkish lawmakers from the ruling Saenuri Party that the country must take all steps to protect itself from Pyongyang's growing threat.The conflicting views came as North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test early this year, while continuing to take military action, including the launch of a submarine-launched ball

Seoul (AFP) -- North Korea is making progress on a submarine-launched ballistic missile system but any deployment of the technology is years away, a US think tank said, as the UN Security Council promised action over Pyongyang's latest test.The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said late Friday on its closely-watched website, 38 North, that the success of North Korea's SLBM test this week suggests the program may be progressing faster than originally expected."However, this does not