The combined market capitalization of South Korea’s 10 largest conglomerates and their affiliates has shrunk 6.88 percent this year from the end of last year, data showed Monday.The market cap of the 10 conglomerates, including Samsung and Hyundai Motor, totaled 636.23 trillion won ($571.12 billion) as of Nov. 3, down from 683.22 trillion won as of end-2010, according to the data by the Korea Exchange.Nine of the 10 conglomerates saw their market cap fall amid economic uncertainties in the euroz

South Korea’s central bank forecast Monday that oil prices are likely to stay above $100 per barrel for a considerable period of time due to tight supply and a potential pick-up in speculative investment.The Bank of Korea said in a report that prices of Dubai and Brent crude are staying at a high level despite an end of political turmoil in Libya and market jitters stemming from the eurozone debt crisis.Prices of Dubai crude, South Korea’s benchmark, have been largely trading at more than $100 p

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Orion Corp., South Korea’s second-largest confectionery company, expects that its overseas sales will grow next year, largely driven by robust sales in China, company officials said Monday.The company, best-known for its hallmark “Choco Pie,” projected that its overseas sales will grow 28.4 percent to 1.31 trillion won ($1.17 billion), likely to surpass its domestic sales for the first time. Orion officials said China accounts for more than 80 percent of its overseas sa

Thai floodwaters today will test barriers protecting two Bangkok industrial parks near the main international airport as a deluge that has swamped hundreds of factories over the past month courses through the capital. A water mass north of Bangkok should reach Lat Krabang and Bang Chan industrial zones in the eastern part of the city, according to Jate Sopitpongstorn, a spokesman for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The estates include a factory operated by Honda Motor Co., which abandon

MONTREAL (AFP) ― The audience finds itself inside a giant uterus. Or it flies around cathedral ruins. Or it is transported to a dark, lonely forest.Such are the experiences offered by Satosphere, a new cinema with a massive dome screen in Montreal designed by the Society for Arts and Technology to provide spectators with a 360-degree view of art projections.Eight video projectors splash images over the entire surface of the steel-framed shell, which juts from the roof of the building, while 157

Members of the five opposition parties continued their “seizure” of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee chamber for a full week. They were trying to deter the ruling Grand National Party from passing the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the legislative panel. Lawmakers and staff from the opposition parties are joining in the illegal obstruction of the legislative procedures in violation of the National Assembly Law as well as Criminal Code provisions regarding the perfo

In 2008, government authorities fought a losing battle against the campaign of misinformation about mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease that fueled demonstrations against U.S. beef imports. Blogs and mobile phone text messages were widely used by the protesters. Two and a half years later, opposition parties and leftist civic groups have even more effective weapon in their fight against the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. They are liberally using social networking services, which have

DAMASCUS (AFP) ― The Arab League on Sunday called an emergency meeting on Syria’s failure to implement its peace plan, as forces reportedly killed at least 19 demonstrators after prayers on one of Islam’s holiest days.The announcement that Arab foreign ministers would hold the gathering came on the fourth straight day of deadly violence since Syria agreed to the League’s peace blueprint aimed at ending eight months of bloodshed.The Arab League said a meeting was called for next Saturday because

LAGOS (AP) ― U.S. officials warned after a weekend of violence and fear that luxury hotels frequented by foreigners and Nigeria’s elite may be bombed by a radical Muslim sect as the death toll from attacks in the country’s northeast rose to more than 100.The warning by the U.S. Embassy shows how seriously diplomats take the threat posed by the outlawed Islamist group known locally as Boko Haram, which previously bombed the United Nations headquarters in the capital, Abuja, killing 24.The unusual

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Herman Cain’s rise as a presidential contender was supposed to prove that race didn’t matter in the Republican Party. Cain is fast making it the only thing that does.The black conservative is trying to navigate around allegations that he sexually harassed at least three women, implying that the accusations surfaced because he is black. Hours after the claims were reported, Cain’s supporters branded his trouble a “high-tech lynching.” That’s the term coined 20 years ago by anoth

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) ― A former general promising to get tough on rampant crime and drug violence easily won Guatemala’s presidential election on Sunday, marking a shift to the right in the poor Central American nation.Otto Perez Molina of the conservative Patriotic Party won 55 percent of the vote, topping tycoon-turned-political populist Manuel Baldizon of the Democratic Freedom Revival party, who had 45 percent, according to Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal.Perez, 61, is the first former

PARIS (AP) ― Once among the world’s most feared masterminds of terror, the man known as Carlos the Jackal is now a graying convict who has been behind bars for 17 years. On Monday, he goes on trial for four deadly attacks that occurred nearly three decades ago, and the verdict could determine his chances of ever being freed.Defiant ahead of the proceedings before a special anti-terrorism court ― expected to last six weeks ― the 62-year-old whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez told a French r