A Chinese man booked for throwing firebombs at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul has reportedly been hailing Korea and showing signs of other bizarre behavior, officers reported Monday.According to the Jongno Police Station, 38-year-old Liu who was arrested last week for throwing four Molotov cocktails at the embassy here has been singing Korea’s national anthem and cursing Japan in fluent Korean.The Chinese, here on a tourist visa, has gained popularity among the officers as an “eccentric” individu

The government plans to renew the employment contract of 340,000 irregular workers at government and public organizations on a regular basis, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said Monday. Those irregulars whose job status will be upgraded to quasi-regular with a contract renewal guarantee will be able to retire at the same age as other regular workers, but will be paid less than them.The Labor Ministry asked government agencies and their affiliate organizations, including public corporations

On welfare...Welfare will probably be a key issue in this year’s elections in Korea, and it should: particularly in these extremely challenging times, it’s not only a matter of social security, but a matter of national security, about the social and financial sustainability of a nation.If Korea is not the only country facing similar challenges in this electoral year, it must also cope with rather depressing demographic trends, and an utterly polarized political landscape. Last year, even the tra

Korea’s gasoline consumption hit a 14 year high in 2011 despite record high prices, data from a state-run oil company showed Monday.The country’s average gasoline sales hit 189,707 barrels per day in the first 11 months of last year, the highest consumption since the 195,501 barrels sold in 1997, and surpassing the daily 188,852 barrels consumed in 2010, the Korea National Oil Corp. said.The surge in sales was noteworthy because the price for a liter of gasoline stood at an all time high of 1,92

Millennium Partners, a fund managed by the U.S.-based Millennium Management LLC, is considering tapping the Korean hedge fund market, sources said Monday, in what would mark the first local entry of an overseas fund.Millennium Partners, which manages funds valued at around $13 billion, reportedly plans to set up a local affiliate and seek regulatory approval as early as this month in a bid to operate its hedge fund here.“The regulator has been in talks with the company, although an official docu

Samsung Heavy Industries Co., a South Korean shipbuilder, said Monday it has received a letter of agreement to build an offshore facility for around $2.26 billion.Under the agreement with Inpex Corp. of Japan, Samsung Heavy will construct the offshore gas processing facility by the end of 2015, the company said.Both sides will officially sign the deal this month, Samsung Heavy said.French supermajor Total and Inpex are working on a $34-billion liquefied natural gas project in Australia.Samsung H

Samsung Electronics said on Monday that it will issue foreign bonds worth $1 billion to raise money for operating its semiconductor line in Austin, Texas.The technology giant confirmed that it plans to issue bonds in the global markets for the management of the firm’s System Large Scale Integrated Circuit line in the United States.“However, the time of bond issuance and its exact scale are yet to be unveiled,” said a Samsung official.It is the first time since the 1997 financial crisis that Sams

Government agencies are looking into possible distortions in beef pricing as hanwoo meat remains expensive despite a plunge in homebred cattle prices.Beef cattle prices have fallen sharply as a result of an oversupply of cows raised in Korea over the past two years, weighing heavily on cattle breeders.The ministries of agriculture, home affairs and the nation’s antitrust watchdog are also reviewing ways to curb beef prices by fostering a large distributor run by groups of cattle breeders to simp

South Korean stocks ended 0.87 percent lower on Monday as a massive eurozone credit ratings cut battered investor sentiment, raising fears the region is far off from solving its debt crisis, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar. After tumbling as much as 1.7 percent at one point, the benchmark KOSPI closed down 16.41 points at 1,859.27. Trading volume was moderate at 382.9 million shares worth 3.88 trillion won ($3.36 billion), with decliners outnumbering gainers 586 to

Foreign investment banks predict South Korea’s export growth will likely top those of its Asian peers mainly due to increased demand from China and a free trade pact with the U.S. set to take effect early this year, data showed Monday.Global investment bank HSBC expected Korea’s export to grow 9.7 percent on-year in the first quarter of 2012, with the figure to stay above the 9 percent through most of the remainder of the year, according to the data by the Korea Center for International Finance.

Korean banks’ short-term overseas borrowing climbed in December as lenders rushed to secure foreign currency liquidity amid concerns over a deterioration in external conditions, the financial watchdog said Monday.A total of 16 local banks refinanced 120.3 percent of their maturing short-term foreign debts through fresh borrowing last month, compared with 95.9 percent in November, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.The rollover rate gauges the percentage of fresh overseas borrowing ag

Foreign investors scooped up Korean Treasuries last year as Korean debts emerged as relatively safer assets compared to those in slumping Europe and the U.S., data showed Monday.The outstanding amount of South Korean Treasuries held by foreigners reached 61 trillion won ($53.1 billion) at the end of last year, up 27.8 percent from a year ago, according to the data by the Korea Exchange. The proportion of foreign investors in the Korean bond market stood at 15.6 percent. Foreign investors’ won-de