Korea’s major automakers once again recorded contrasting sales performances at home and abroad in November.Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors saw their exports increase in November from a year earlier, but their sales at home dropped.Hyundai Motor sold 320,790 units, including exports and overseas production, abroad last month, up 26.1 percent from a year ago.Five major overseas plants in the U.S., China, India, Russia and the Czech Republic posted steady growth in sales, the company said in a stateme

BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Eurozone inflation hit 3.0 percent for the third month running in November, official data showed on Wednesday, but analysts expect the European Central Bank to slash its main rate due to the debt crisis.The ECB, the guardian of euro price stability, wants to keep inflation below 2.

BEIJING (AP) -- China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex.The official Xinhua News Agency said a report from the Ministry of Health and the United Nations estimate

Hana Financial Group has reportedly been striving to ask Lone Star Funds to agree on lowering the takeover price of Korea Exchange Bank.The alleged price negotiation between Hana Financial and the U.S.-based equity fund comes after the Financial Services Commission instructed the financial group to submit a revised application for the deal.Though Hana Financial applied for the FSC’s regulatory approval in acquiring a 51.02 percent stake in KEB from Lone Star one year ago, the regulator has yet t

Financial Services Commission chief Kim Seok-dong pushed ahead with the decision to impose a “mild sanction” on Lone Star Funds despite some working-level officials’ resistance, financial sources said.The sources said Kim finalized the heated issue on how to sanction the U.S. buyout fund, convicted of stock manipulation, despite reluctance among a group of investigators in the FSC.“I have found that the staff were unwilling to (issue a light sanction),” a former high-ranking official of the FSC

The Financial Supervisory Service has launched a probe into the local brokerage industry to weed out irregularities and prevent financial accidents.The regulator is targeting 62 securities firms and eight futures trading firms, chiefly their internal controlling.The companies have been ordered to submit reports on their operations for internal monitoring by Dec. 10.The irregular practices also include unauthorized insider trading with major shareholders and unfair sales of retirement pension fun

FSC official says the U.S. fund was ‘financial investor’ between 2003 and 2006The Supreme Court ordered the Financial Services Commission to make public the fund’s eligibility as the biggest shareholder of Korea Exchange Bank on Thursday.The FSC, which lost the original trial in 2007 and the second trial in 2009 in a lawsuit filed by Solidarity for Economic Reform, appealed to the highest court two years ago. The FSC and the Financial Supervisory Service are poised to clarify their stance on Lon

FSC might be ordered to decide on the fund’s shareholder eligibilityThe Supreme Court will deliver a verdict on a key issue regarding Lone Star Funds on Thursday, possibly forcing the Financial Services Commission to make public the fund’s eligibility as the biggest shareholder of Korea Exchange Bank.The FSC, which lost the original trial in 2007 and the second trial in 2009 in a lawsuit filed by Solidarity for Economic Reform, appealed to the highest court two years ago.Before the suit, the reg

Regulator expected to be ordered to reveal the fund’s bank shareholder eligibilityThe Supreme Court will deliver a verdict on a key issue regarding Lone Star Funds on Thursday, possibly forcing the Financial Services Commission to make public the fund’s eligibility as the biggest shareholder of Korea Exchange Bank.The FSC, which lost the original trial in 2007 and the second trial in 2009 in a lawsuit filed by Solidarity for Economic Reform, appealed to the highest court two years ago.Before the