Foreign vehicle brands in South Korea saw a large boost to their sales last month, flashing a green light to their goal of selling over 100,000 cars in the local market for the first time, a local trade association said Tuesday.   A total of 8,659 imported vehicles were sold here in January, up 35.8 percent from the same period last year, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distribu

  South Korea will hold a fashion show and set up a showroom in the United States during the upcoming New York Fashion Week in a bid to promote and introduce Korean designers overseas, officials said Tuesday.   The "Concept Korea: Cultural Treasures 2011" project, a government-led plan, is designed to expand global recognition of rising Korean designers and their fashion work through the influenti

 Military officers from South and North Korea were set to hold working-level talks on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a meeting of higher-level officials, the first such cross-border meeting since the North's deadly artillery attack on a border island last November, officials here said.    The colonel-level talks to be held at the border truce village of Panmunjom separating the two Koreas are a

 South Korean football player Park Ji-sung has set up his own charity foundation to help the development of youth football.   Park announced Monday that he will serve as the executive director of the JS Foundation, named after his own initials. Park Ji-sung (Yonhap News)   "Our vision is to help globalize South Korean football and to share happiness through the sport," Park said through a statemen

  Hanbul Motors Corp., the local importer of French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, on Monday introduced the latest version of Peugeot's Smart Urban Vehicle, the New 3008, that comes with an astonishing 21.2 km/l fuel efficiency.   The top-rated fuel efficiency is a 10 percent improvement from the previous version as the vehicle comes with a new HDi engine that took nearly four years and 1.5 billio

A British restaurant promises a free meal to anyone who can finish a 4,200-calorie burger with side dishes under a time limit. According to the British Daily Mail, Oscar’s Diner, an American-themed burger restaurant, in Telford, Shropshire, offers a prize to anyone who can finish their mammoth Titanic burger in the given time.Weighing-in at 1.1 kilograms, the jumbo burger features 450 grams of bee

A German man had “MINI” tattooed on his penis in a bid to win a £20,000 ($31,800) Mini Cooper.According to the British Metro, Andreas Muller, 39, announced he would get the tattoo there and then at a radio station contest to see who deserved the prize.Muller’s high-pitched scream while getting the tatoo was aired live on radio, but the stunt nabbed him the prize.“Once I’m sitting in the car, it wo

   A prolonged anti-government protest in Egypt could deal a blow to South Korean exports to the North African state and hamper the recovery of Asia's fourth-largest economy by pushing up commodity costs, watchers said Tuesday.   Thousands of protesters took to the streets of major cities in Egypt last week, demanding their president, Hosni Mubarak, to end his iron-fisted rule of 30-odd years.   M

   Millions of South Koreans headed to their hometowns Tuesday, on the eve of the three-day Lunar New Year holiday, which will extend through the weekend.   This year's Lunar New Year holiday, which falls from Feb. 2-4, is followed by the weekend and could last for nine days for those who took off the preceding Monday and Tuesday.   According to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs

  South Korea's anti-trust regulator said Tuesday that it has placed 10 additional companies on its watch list that limits mutual business investments and loan guarantees.   The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said a total of 1,360 affiliates from 51 conglomerates, including Samsung, LG and Hyundai Heavy Industries were on its list as of Tuesday.    The FTC said 33 firms were included as affiliates of

   The Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed a government-proposed bill expanding the current benefits given to disabled people to include overseas Koreans residing in South Korea and foreign residents who registered themselves as disabled, a government spokesman said.   The welfare ministry proposed the partial revision to the law on the welfare of the disabled last month in response to the steady increase

   South Korea's trade surplus narrowed sharply in January from the previous month as soaring crude and commodity costs overshadowed record exports, a government report showed Tuesday.   The country's surplus reached $2.96 billion last month, compared with $4.08 billion in December, with exports surging 46 percent to $44.89 billion and imports gaining 32.9 percent to$41.93 billion, according to th

  The number of unemployed college graduates jumped to an all-time high last year despite faster-than-expected economic recovery, the nation's statistics agency said Tuesday.   According to data offered by Statistics Korea, the number of jobless people with college degrees totaled 346,000 last year, the highest ever since the agency compiled related figures in 2000.   The jobless people in the cat

  South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that North Korea has a "good opportunity" to break its diplomatic isolation through inter-Korean talks and the six-party negotiations on its nuclear program, but it should first avert the course of military brinkmanship.   "(I) can hold a summit (with the North Korean leader) if necessary," Lee said in a televised talk show. "For North Korea, now

LONDON (AFP) – A climber who fell around 300 metres from the summit of a Scottish mountain is lucky to be alive, his rescuers said Sunday.The helicopter crew sent to search for the man were astonished to find him standing up and reading a map.Adam Potter, 35, lost his footing on Saturday and fell down the craggy and near-vertical eastern face of Sgurr Choinnich Mor, a1,094-metre high mountain in the western Highlands."We got to an area where it is a bit more slippy and a bit icier... I slipped,

  President Lee Myung-bak has appointed Kim Dae-ki, a bureaucrat-turned-professor, as his new senior secretary for economic affairs, Lee's office Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday.   Kim, formerly the head of Statistics Korea and vice culture minister, replaces Choi Joong-kyung, who became the knowledge economy minister last month.   Kim, 55, now serves as a professor at Seoul National University's Gradu

  South Korea's consumer prices spiked in January mainly due to a rise in agricultural and energy-related product costs, adding to concerns that mounting inflationary pressure could undercut the nation's economic recovery, a government report showed Tuesday.   According to the report by Statistics Korea, the country's consumer price index surged 4.1 percent last month from a year earlier. The figu

  Plunging prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, a key component in personal computers, have hit the bottom line and will rebound soon, senior officials from Samsung Electronics Co. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said Monday.   The remarks from Kwon Oh-hyun, president of Samsung's semiconductor division, and Kwon Oh-chul, Hynix's chief executive officer, come after DRAM devices for PC

  South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan said Monday he will need plenty of work to stay competitive at this year's world championships.   Speaking to reporters before departing to Australia to begin his training, Park said despite his Olympic and world championships gold medals, he doesn't yet deserve recognition as a "top-class" swimmer.   "In terms of techniques, I am still at the lower rungs of th

  South Korean stocks ended 1.81 percent lower on Monday as foreigners dumped shares amid growing concerns over political protests in Cairo, analysts said. The local currency lost ground against the U.S. dollar.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) plunged 38.14 points to 2,069.73. Trading volume was moderate at 316.9 million shares worth 7.29 trillion won ($6.5 billion), with