Japan authorized a dozen new school textbooks renewing territorial claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo on Wednesday in a move sure to sour the warming relations between the two neighbors.   The approval was seen by many South Koreans as a slap in the face as it came at a time when they have been pouring out sympathy and support for their former colonial ruler as it suffers from a

   South Korea's military conducted a live-fire artillery drill on Wednesday on a border island shelled by North Korea last November, officials said, the second firing drill since the North's bombardment that inflamed tensions.   The firing exercise was started by marines on Yeonpyeong Island, near the tense Yellow Sea border with North Korea, at around 9:30 a.m. and was scheduled to last for abou

   South Korea's consumer prices grew at the second-fastest pace among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in February, data showed Wednesday.   According to the data offered by the OECD, South Korea's consumer prices jumped 4.5 percent last month from a year earlier, the second steepest hike among its 34 member nations. Estonia ranked first with 5.

The South Korean economy grew 6.2 percent last year, the fastest expansion in eight years, as exports remained robust and facility investment jumped amid improved consumer spending, the central bank said Wednesday.   The country's gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic performance, was revised up from an earlier estimate of 6.1 percent for last year, according to the Bank o

South Korea's current account surplus widened in February from the previous month mainly because spending on overseas travel decreased amid still brisk exports, the central bank said Tuesday.   The current account surplus reached $1.18 billion in February, up sharply from a revised $154.7 million the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure

   CHICAGO (AP) -- Add ``Facebook depression'' to potential harms linked with social media, an influential doctors' group warns, referring to a condition it says may affect troubled teens who obsess over the online site.   Researchers disagree on whether it's simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site.   But th

NEW YORK (AP) -- Here's some good news in the wake of Japan's isaster: A new study says big earthquakes don't set off other dangerous ones around the globe.Big quakes do trigger local aftershocks, but researchers found no sign of setting off moderate-sized events beyond about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away.That won't surprise most experts, said lead study author Tom Parsons. But it's different from his prior research, which did find a global effect for setting off small quakes, said Parsons,

  South Korea plans to hold an inter-agency meeting Monday to discuss responses in case Japan renews its territorial claims to the South's easternmost islets of Dokdo in a series of new middle school textbooks, official said.   The meeting of officials from the foreign ministry, the Prime Minister's Office and the education ministry will discuss bolstering Seoul's territorial control of the rocky

  Renowned South Korean director Lee Chang-dong's film "Poetry" was named best picture at the 25th Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland, the event's organizers said Monday.   The film, Lee's fifth feature, tells the story of a conflicted elderly woman who finds happiness in writing poetry for the first time, while a harsh reality simultaneously forces her to suffer guilt and fear.  

   South Korea's construction sector contracted at the sharpest rate in more than a decade in the fourth quarter of last year due mainly to a protracted property market slump, data showed Monday.   The construction sector shrank 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter from three months earlier, according to the data by the Bank of Korea and Statistics Korea. The on-quarter decline is the steepest since

South Korean stocks began marginally higher on Monday but traded in a narrow range as investors opted to take a breather following last week's climb, analysts said.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) inched up 0.51 points, or 0.02 percent, to 2,054.55 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Last week, the KOSPI finished up 3.68 percent from a week earlier.   Techs were bullish w

The government may have decided to scrap a plan to build a new international airport in the country's southeastern region due to economic considerations, sources in the ruling camp said Sunday.   The sources told Yonhap News Agency that a special panel set up to review the two candidate sites for the new airport have decided that it would be better to abandon the expensive building program.   "The

  A majority of South Korean exporters remain bullish about their business activity in the second quarter of this year, but they are worried about growing uncertainties like political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, a poll showed Sunday.   The Export Business Survey Index (EBSI) came in at 105.4 for the April-June period, down from 116.3 for the current quarter, according to the Korea

South Korea plans to begin full-scale work to renovate a heliport on Dokdo if Japan lays renewed claim to the rocky islets in the East Sea in its new school textbooks, officials said Sunday.   The planned renovation of the outdated, 20-square-meter heliport is among a set of countermeasures that are being considered if Tokyo presses ahead with the endorsement this week of middle school textbooks t

   SEOUL, March 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's central bank is expected to hike its key interest rate by 0.75 percentage point this year to fight oil and commodity price gains, a senior economist at HSBC Holdings Plc. said Thursday.   "South Korea's central bank may raise its interest rate 75 basis points further from where we are now through the course of this year," HSBC Group Chief Economist Step

   South Korea's top wire and cable maker LS Cable Ltd. said Thursday that it has changed its English name to LS Cable & System Ltd. to reflect the company's growing businesses.   Shareholders adopted the new English name on Wednesday as the new name better indicates the company's expansion into businesses that offer a package of applications, equipment, software and systems to clients, the compan

  Cumulative exports by South Korea's second-largest automaker Kia Motors Corp. surpassed 10 million units on Thursday, a feat achieved 36 years after it started overseas shipments in 1975, the company said.   It took 30 years for Kia Motors to reach the 5 million unit export mark, but only six years since 2005 to reach 10 million.   The number only includes vehicles shipped from South Korea.Overs

  Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top memory chipmaker, said Thursday that it has begun mass production of a new type of mobile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) that packs denser memory in a slimmer package.   Earlier this month, Samsung started mass producing the 4-gigabit, low power double-data-rate 2 (LPDDR2) DRAM based on 30-nanometer class technology, the company said in a statement.

  South Korea will take tougher steps to deal with illegal Chinese fishing activities in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to better preserve the country's marine resources, the government said Thursday.   The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said more boats and personnel will be assigned to cope with illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea up until the end of April, when Chinese b

   WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will likely visit North Korea next month to broker rapprochement in U.S. relations with the reclusive communist state, which have chilled over the North's nuclear and missile programs and other provocations, a diplomatic source here said Wednesday.   "It is highly likely that ex-President Carter will travel to North Korea in about a month as the