Genji, Millennium Seoul Hilton’s Japanese restaurant, is offering a special “Nabemono promotion” through the end of February. The perfect antidote to the cold winter, Nabemono is a Japanese-style one-pot meal. Seafood, vegetables and noodles are added to a ceramic pot to create a savory and nourishing broth for a satisfying meal that is sure to warm one’s body as well as the soul. Nabemono specials to be featured at Genji include, Hot Pot Medley, Seafood and Udon in a Hot Pot, and Blowfish in a

Over 3,000 people were killed in South Sudan in brutal massacres last week in an explosion of ethnic violence that forced tens of thousands to flee, the top local official in the affected area said Friday."There have been mass killings, a massacre," said Joshua Konyi, commissioner for Pibor county in Jonglei state."We have been out counting the bodies, and we calculate so far that 2,182 women and children were killed and 959 men died."United Nations and South Sudanese army officials have yet to

The total number of registered vehicles in Korea rose to a new high last year as the number of people purchasing new vehicles also climbed to a 10-year high, the government said Friday.The number of registered vehicles grew 2.8 percent on-year to a little more than 18.43 million, with nearly 1.6 million new cars purchased in 2011, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.It said people writing off older cars also surged to an all-time high of some 1.1 million, up 18.4 pe

Angry farmers protest over cattle price fall, hike of feeding costs The nation’s cattle breeding farms are being severely hit by the fall in beef cattle prices as a result of an oversupply of homebred cows and by soaring animal feed prices. Male dairy calves used for veal are put up for sale at 10,000 won per head, but it is still not easy to find buyers.A cattle breeder in Sunchang, North Jeolla Province, buried nine cows that starved to death earlier this week as he could no longer afford to f

South Korean exports of agricultural and fishery products jumped 30.8 percent on-year to a record $7.69 billion in 2011 thanks to greater demand, the government said Friday.Of the total, $4.37 billion were processed farm products, with fresh produce exports reaching just over $1.01 billion. Overseas shipments of fishery goods totaled just under $2.31 billion, according to the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.The strong exports were propelled by the popularity of cigarettes,

Korea’s bourse operator said Friday it plans to open a spot oil electronic trading system in a bid to bolster the local transaction market and help stabilize energy prices. The trading system will begin preliminary operations in late March after test runs are conducted next month, with oil refiners and exporters expected to be the main sellers, according to the Korea Exchange. Franchise dealers and gas station owners will take part as buyers through the trading system. Any entrepreneur in the oi

North Korea on Thursday dismissed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak‘s recent New Year speech as nothing but “sophism,” saying that it will strengthen its nuclear power status if its “enemy” continues its provocative action.This strong word is the first official response by the North to President Lee’s speech on Monday, in which he said that South Korea has left a “window of opportunity” open to improve relations with North Korea.But Lee repeated his previous stance that the six-party talks on

The government unveiled a set of plans on Friday to nurture 12 globally competitive pharmaceutical companies by 2020.The plans are intended to develop Korea into the seventh-largest power in the industry. Under the arrangement presented by Health and Welfare Minister Rim Che-min to President Lee Myung-bak, 12 firms will develop 10 new drugs, and the country will take up 5.4 percent of the global pharmaceutical export market in eight years. Its current market share is 0.2 percent.The ministry wil

HELSINKI (AFP) ― Sixty-nine Patriot missiles impounded in Finland after being found on a merchant vessel in mid-December were headed for South Korea, the Finnish government said Wednesday, granting their transit through Finnish territory.“The missiles in question had been sold to the Republic of Korea by Germany,” the government said in a statement, adding that it had granted a license to Seoul’s “Defense Acquisition Program Administration to transit through Finnish territory 69 Patriot missiles

New regulations will put in place stricter requirements for search warrants issued in criminal investigations to prevent personal and irrelevant information from being leaked by prosecutors, the Supreme Court said Thursday.Taking effect this year, the revised Criminal Procedure Law will include a new article pertaining to the seizure of electronic storage devices, designed to prevent irrelevant information from being seized by prosecutors.“This will compel more care in prosecutors’ searches and

The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea said Thursday it has issued dollar-denominated bonds worth $2.25 billion, the single biggest debt sale by a Korean institution excluding the government.The debt is composed of two-tranche global bonds maturing in five years and 10 years and three months, respectively, the policy lender said.The five-year bonds worth $1.25 billion carry an interest rate 3.15 percent above the corresponding U.S. state bond yields. The other tranche, worth $1 billion, are p

Korean securities firms saw losses at their foreign operations widen in the first half of fiscal 2011 from a year earlier due mainly to heightened market uncertainties, the financial regulator said Thursday.The 93 foreign units of 19 local brokerages saw their combined net loss reach $43.3 million in the April-September period of last year, compared with $17.3 million a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service. The firms close their books on March 31.The weak bottom line came

Korea’s information technology exports reached a record high of $156.97 billion in 2011 mainly due to strong overseas demand for smartphones and system semiconductors, a government report showed Thursday.The figure is a 2 percent gain from the $153.94 billion tallied in 2010 and marks the second year in a row that outbound shipments of IT products set new records, the report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.Imports grew 7.8 percent to $81.52 billion with the country posting a trade surp