Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top maker of memory chips, liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and TVs, estimated Thursday it had posted an operating profit of 2.9 trillion won (US$2.67 billion) for the January-March period.    The preliminary estimate represents a 34.2 percent drop from an operating profit of 4.41 trillion won a year ago, Samsung said in a regulatory filing. It is also th

  South Korea will launch a task force to handle possible contingencies from Japan's recent discharge of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, an official said Wednesday.   The decision came after a series of inter-agency meetings held earlier in the day, where officials from relevant ministries agreed to coordinate their response, the foreign ministry official said on the condition of anonymi

(MCT)Man kills friend after 30 years of bullying: police Seoul police have arrested a 47-year-old man on charges of stabbing his high school friend to death.Seoul Suseo Police Station said the man, surnamed Yoo, stabbed him with a 30 cm knife at a bar in Gangnam, southern Seoul, on March 31. The victim, surnamed Lee, died at the site.Yoo did not attempt to escape, said police. After being arrested

A monument for octopus Paul is pictured at the aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Paul became a world wide phenomenon during the last soccer world cup, when predicting the correctly results. A new exhibition "Octopus Garden", named after the Beatle's song, shows the life of the sea animals in Oberhausen. (AP-Yonhap News)

In this publicity image released by ABC, Hines Ward, right, and his partner Kym Johnson perform on the celebrity dance competition series, "Dancing with the Stars," Monday, April 4, 2011 in Los Angeles. (AP-Yonhap News) 

The girl who hasn't brushed her teeth for 10 years appeared on the popular TV program "Martian Virus."Everyone has a special habit. However, sometimes they get so carried away as to shock others. “Martian Virus,” a popular TV program from tvN based in Seoul, introduces those with habits or characteristics that are grotesque, but those they are proud of nonetheless.The show is to introduce a girl w

Young souvenir vendor walks along an almost empty road to the Giza pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. (AP-Yonhap News)When people think of Egypt’s representative animal, they usually think of cats. But they may change their minds, as about 8 million dogs were found in an underground tunnel in northern part of the country. The Daily Mail reported that scientists from Cardiff University inve

Sprite advertisement (YouTube)Although Kim Jong-il is the most influential and even sacred figure in North Korea, he is treated as a hilarious icon outside of the hermit kingdom.A new Sprite advertisement which features a dictator clearly modeled after Kim is popular among Chinese websites.Produced in Israel, the advertisement depicts the dictator dancing wildly after taking a sip of the drink. It

Let to speak on broken election pledge FridayRep. Park Geun-hye, currently the ruling Grand National Party’s strongest presidential hopeful, on Thursday expressed regret over the government’s decision to chuck President Lee Myung-bak’s election pledge to build an airport in the southeastern part of the country, adding that Korea should keep pushing for it.The GNP’s factional leader and Lee’s polit

   TOKYO (AP) _ Seawater outside the hobbled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan was found to contain 3,335 times the usual amount of radioactive iodine _ the highest rate yet and a sign that more contaminated water was making its way into the ocean, officials said Wednesday.   The amount of iodine-131 found offshore some 300 yards (meters) south of the coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant

 South Korean researchers said Wednesday that they have developed a highly sensitive biochip capable of precisely detecting diseases and environmental pollutants.   The new biochip has been tested to be 100,000 times more sensitive in detecting individual molecules of diseases and pollutants compared to conventional screening devices, said the state-run Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and B

Sohn Hak-kyu, Chairman of the Democratic Party (Yonhap News)The leader of the main opposition party has decided to run in next month's by-elections to pick three lawmakers and several local administrative chiefs, his aides said Wednesday, making the elections largely unpredictable.Sohn Hak-kyu, chairman of the Democratic Party (DP) and former governor of Gyeonggi Province, will challenge for a leg

  South Korea's top central banker has stressed the need to steadily tackle growing household debt, which market watchers fear will undercut the country's economic growth momentum.   South Korean household debts came to nearly 800 trillion won ($721.8 billion) as of the end of last year, which analysts say had been stoked by the country's low borrowing costs.     In a dinner meeting with reporters

    Renault Samsung Motors Co., the South Korean unit of French automaker Renault SA, said Wednesday it will cut its output by about 20 percent from next month due to an undersupply of parts from quake-hit Japan.   The company is said to import up to 18 percent of all parts for its vehicles from Japanese suppliers, largely because of Renault's strategic alliance with Japan's Nissan Motor Co.   Ren

   South Korea's quarantine agency said Tuesday it found bacteria that may be harmful to babies in a powdered milk product imported from Japan.   The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said enterobacter sakazaki bacteria was detected in powdered milk made by Wacodo Co. Ltd.    The discovery was made when inspectors checked samples from a 50-box shipment containing 222 kilo

Motorola Mobility Inc. said Tuesday that the company will roll out its first tablet computer in South Korea in April, heralding stiffer competition among tablet makers.   The Xoom tablet computer, built on the latest version of Google Inc.'s Android platform called Honeycomb, will be launched through SK Telecom Co., the country's top mobile operator, the company's Korea unit president said in a pr

 NCsoft, a local online game company, received its final stamp of approval Tuesday to launch a new professional baseball team in South Korea.   The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced that NCsoft met the required support from owners of the league's eight existing teams. The league office said seven owners approved the expansion, and the company needed two-thirds of support.   After the com

Amid the flooded mobile application market, already awash with new creative programs, another app has been introduced -- to help parents better understand their children.The “Woteva” (slang for “whatever”) app, expected to be officially available by summer, will provide users with definitions of teenagers’ slang, reported the Daily Mail.Due to the Internet and the use of text messages, youngsters

A woman fired four bullets at her neighbor’s home after he refused to give her a kiss, news reports said.Helen Staudinger, 92, from Florida, was having an “affair” with her 53-year-old neighbor, Dwight Bettner. She maintained that the reason she fired the shots was because lying had soured the relationship, the reports said.However, Bettner gave a different story. According to him, the relationshi

(Yonhap News)Two students in Busan were arrested Sunday on charges of causing a forest fire, police said on Monday.According to the Busan Haeundae Police, a 15-year-old high school freshman, surnamed Yoon, attempted to burn his old test sheets with a friend. Police said Yoon did this as a “ceremony” to make a new resolution for his high school life, as his grades during his middle school years wer