Foreign vehicle brands in South Korea saw a steady rise in their sales last month from a year earlier, flashing a green light for their goal of selling over 100,000 cars in the local market for the first time, a trade association said Friday.   A total of 6,770 imported vehicles were sold here in February, up 5.2 percent from the same month last year, according to the Korea Automobile Importers

   GYERYONGDAE -- Attending an unprecedented joint commissioning ceremony of South Korea's major military academies Friday, President Lee Myung-bak urged his military to be reborn as an "advanced, strong armed forces" through sweeping reform and stressed the importance of teamwork among soldiers "wearing different colors of uniforms."   "The military should make a revolutionary change in its syste

U.S. President Barack Obama has suggested that Egypt could become a democracy modeled after South Korea, Indonesia and Chile.   Speaking at a meeting with American Jewish leaders at the White House Tuesday, Obama "elaborated on his optimistic vision for Egypt and for democratic change in the Middle East" and expressed optimism that "Egypt could transform itself into a democracy on the model of Ind

The Web sites of South Korea's presidential office, government agencies and financial institutions came under a cyber attack on Friday, industry sources said.   The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and top lender Kookmin Bank were among some 40 institutions whose Web sites were infected by the so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) from 10 a.m.,

(URGENT) Web sites of Cheong Wa Dae, 40 agencies come under DDoS

  A South Korean warship is on the way to Malta on Friday after departing from Libya with 32 passengers aboard as part of efforts to evacuate its nationals from the North African nation engulfed in bloody turmoil, an official said.   The 4,500-ton destroyer Choi Young left the port of Tripoli at 4 p.m. Thursday (11 p.m. Korean time) and is scheduled to arrive at the nearby island of Malta around 7

　Foreign fans of K-pop group JYJ said on Tuesday that they submitted a petition on Monday to the Seoul Central District Court and the Fair Trade Commission for the recognition and protection of the boy-band’s legal and human rights.　The petition urges prompt action by the South Korean government and justice system to “concretely block the illegal interferences and anti-trust activities of SM Enter

 South Korean President Lee Myung-bak reaffirmed Tuesday that Seoul was willing to hold "open-minded" dialogue with Pyongyang regardless of its timing, offering another olive branch to the communist neighbor that has been ratcheting up military threats.President Lee reaffirmed that Seoul was willing to hold "open-minded" dialogue with Pyongyang. (Yonhap News)   "Now is an opportune time to open a

South Korea's trade surplus reached $2.84 billion in February mainly due to solid export gains in the face of unfavorable global developments, a government report showed Tuesday.   The February trade surplus marked a slight dip from the $2.92 billion tallied for January, although on a daily basis exports reached a record 2.05 billion, the report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said, This mark

   WASHINGTON -- The United States has no plans to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea despite renewed threats from North Korea, the White House said Monday.   "Our policy remains in support of a non-nuclear Korean peninsula," Robert Jensen, deputy spokesman for the National Security Council, told Yonhap News Agency in an e-mail. "There is no plan to change that policy. Tactical nucle

   WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is working hard to clear the pending free trade deal with South Korea through Congress this spring so as not to lag behind the European Union, which ratified a similar deal with Seoul set to take effect in July, the chief U.S. trade official has said.   "The EU-Korea trade agreement is scheduled to take effect on July 1 of this year," U.S. Trade Representa

 South Korea expressed deep concern over the bloodshed in Libya and urged North Korea to improve its human rights conditions during a U.N. human rights meeting held in Geneva on Monday, the foreign ministry said.   Second Vice Foreign Minister Min Dong-seok made the appeal during a keynote speech at a high-level segment meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that opened in Geneva, Switzerland, o

North Korea on Sunday threatened to strike South Korean psychological warfare apparatus on the border “in light of self-defense,” in more tough rhetoric ahead of the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise to begin Monday.“Should the anti-North psychological warfare continue, our army will directly fire at the (Imjin) Pavilion and other origins of the psychological warfare to destroy them under t

   SEOUL -- The unification cost on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime is estimated to reach an astronomical 2,525 trillion won (about $2.14 trillion), a state-run think tank said Sunday.   Nam Sung-wook, director of the Institute for National Security Strategy, made the estimate in a report to be presented to a unification policy public hearing, which

  A disgraced South Korean clone scientist has won a research project from Libya amid growing unrest in the North African nation, colleagues at his research lab here said Sunday.   Under the 150-billion won ($133 million) project with the Libyan government, Hwang Woo-suk will conduct stem cell-related research activities for incurable diseases, according to Hwang's Sooam Bioengineering Research In

The Korea Herald guide to the nation’s most useful websitesIf you want to do a bit of research before taking a trip in South Korea, don’t settle for the standard Google search or hastily read travel books. Here are 21 cyber destinations covering Korean travel, history, society and language, targeting both tourists and expats. Non-Korean visitors ― and possibly many Koreans, too ― could find these

   WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ratcheting up the pressure, U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday said Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and urged the Libyan leader to leave power immediately.   It was the first time Obama has called for Gadhafi to step down, coming after days of bloodshed in Libya. Gadhafi has vowed to fight to the end to maintain his four-decade grip on power

  South Korea's police have asked the local court to issue an arrest warrant for a U.S. service member accused of breaking into the home of an elderly Korean couple in Dongducheon, north of Seoul, and assaulting them, officials said Sunday.   The unidentified 20-year-old American soldier stationed in Dongducheon, 70 kilometers north of the capital, is in detention on charges of intruding into the

 South Korean manufacturers' confidence inched down for the second quarter on jitters over currency volatility and rising costs of raw materials, a poll showed Sunday.   In its survey of 1,326 local manufacturers, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) said the business sentiment index slipped to 108 for the April-June period from 111 for the current quarter.   A reading above 100 means

 An Egypt Air chartered plane carrying 60 South Koreans left a central Libyan city on Sunday for Cairo, as Seoul continued to pull its nationals out of the African nation mired in a bloody anti-government revolt.   The foreign ministry in Seoul said the flight left Surte, central Libya, for the Egyptian capital around 11:15 a.m. Sunday, Korean time. A ministry official said the plane carried 60 So