South Korean Park In-bee came up well short in her bid to win her fourth LPGA major in a row on Sunday, finishing tied for 42nd at the Ricoh Women's British Open.Park closed out the tournament with a 6-over 78 on Sunday at the par-72 Old Course at St Andrews, 14 shots behind the champion, Stacy Lewis of the United States. Park ended her tournament at 6-over 294.Having captured the first three majors of 2013, Park was trying to become the first golfer, male or female, to win four straight profes

South Korean stocks got off to a weak start Monday led by a loss in Samsung Electronics, analyst said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 1.24 points, or 0.06 percent, to 1,922.14 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The world's leading smartphone maker, which takes up about 17 percent of KOSPI's market cap, slid 0.7 percent, after the U.S. government overturned its trade panel's sales ban on older devices made by Apple Inc.The veto from the Obama administration on Satur

South Korea's foreign-exchange reserves rose to a record high in July following the largest fall in 13 months in June as a weaker U.S. dollar raised the conversion value of non-dollar assets, the central bank said Monday.The country's foreign reserves reached US$329.71 billion as of end-July, up $3.27 billion from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).The FX reserves fell by $1.66 billion in June, the largest monthly decline since May 2012, due mainly to repayment of maturing

 배우 이보영과 지성의 결혼 소식이 전해진 가운데 지성이 최근 드라마 ‘너의 목소리가 들려' 촬영장을 오가며 데이트를 나눈 것으로 알려졌다. 지성 측 관계자는 “이보영이 드라마 촬영으로 인해 너무 바쁘지 않나. 지성이 마침 작품을 하고 있는 상황이 아니기 때문에 시간적으로 여유가 있어 촬영장에 직접 갔다고 한다”고 뉴스엔을 통해 전했다.교제한 지 7년째인 장기커플이지만 관심사도 비슷하고 공연관람을 좋아하는 것도 유사해 여전히 알콩달콩한 연애를 즐겼다는 목격담이 이어진다.이보영과 지성의 결혼 소식이 드라마 종영후 발표된 것도 최대한 드라마에 피해가 가지 않기 위함으로 보인다. 이보영과 지성은 드라마 종영 하루 후인 2일 결혼 소식을 공식 발표했다. 이에 관계자는 “결혼 준비는 이미 3월부터 시작했지만 드라마 투입이 결정돼 미룰 수 밖에 없었다”며“최대한 드라마에 피해가 가지 않게 하려는 두 사람의 뜻이었다”고 설명했다. 지성과 이보영은 오는 27일 결혼 소식을 전하면서 “오랜 시간 쌓

South Korean stocks closed 0.14 percent higher Friday on better-than-expected economic data from the United States, analysts said. The local currency ended lower against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 2.64 points to close at 1,923.38. Trading volume was low at 293.6 million shares worth 3.98 trillion won (US$3.54 billion), with gainers outpacing losers 460 to 321."The better-than-expected manufacturing data from the U.S. and China added to investor

 패혈증 증세로 입원치료 중이던 배우 박용식이 2일 오전 별세했다. 향년 67세.박용식은 이날 오전 7시께 경희대학교병원 중환자실에서 입원 치료 중 숨을 거뒀다. 고인은 최근 해외촬영차 캄보디아를 다녀온 뒤 패혈증 증세를 보인 것으로 알려졌다. 빈소는 서울 강남구 일원동 삼성서울병원 장례식장에 마련될 예정이다.박용식은 1967년 TBC 공채탤런트 4기로 데뷔, 전두환 전 대통령을 닮은 외모로 드라마 ‘제3공화국’, ‘제4공화국’, ‘선덕여왕’ 등에 출연했다. 최근에는 KBS 1TV ‘6시 내고향’ 등에서 리포터로 활동했다.고인은 특유의 외모로 인해 피해를 본 적도 있는데, 지난 6월 한 케이블 TV 방송에 나와 자신이 전두환 전 대통령과 너무 닮았다는 이유로 1980년대에는 방송출연금지를 당한 적도 있다고 밝혔다. 그는 이로 인해 생활고를 겪었으며 방앗간 기술을 배워야 했다고 회고했다. <관련 영문 기사>Actor Park Yong-sik dies at 67South Korean a

Prosecutors on Friday sought an arrest warrant for an embattled former head of the national tax agency on charges of accepting massive bribes from food and entertainment conglomerate CJ Group.Jeon Goon-pyo, 59, is accused of taking US$300,000 in U.S. bills and high-end watches from CJ Group officials in exchange for favors during a tax audit into the conglomerate in July 2006, shortly after he was named the commissioner of the National Tax Service (NTS), prosecutors said.Prosecutors detained Jeo

South Korean fishery products are nearly free of radiation and safe to eat, the government said Friday, amid renewed public scare over possible contamination from radioactive leakage in Japan over two years ago.So far, South Korea has tested 165 samples of 15 species, including mackerel, cuttlefish and various species of seaweed that are popular delicacies here, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.The results showed that 14 species tested were completely free of radiation with what

South Korean stocks opened higher Friday due mainly to investor sentiment being boosted by better-than-expected economic data from the United States, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 15.09 points, or 0.79 percent, to 1,935.83 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Shares gathered ground across the board, with Samsung Electronics adding 1.02 percent and leading carmaker Hyundai Motor climbing 2.16 percent. Top steelmaker POSCO moved up 0.76 percent.The U.S.

Stocks roared back to record highs on Thursday, driven by good news on the economy.The Standard & Poor's 500, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Russell 2000 index set all-time highs. The S&P broke through 1,700 points for the first time. The Nasdaq hit its highest level since September 2000.The gains were driven by a steady flow of encouraging reports on the global economy.Overnight, a positive read on China's manufacturing helped shore up Asian markets. An hour before U.S. trading starte

About two-thirds of smartphones shipped globally in the second quarter ran on Google Inc.'s Android platform, data showed Friday, further cementing its dominance over other operating systems (OS).Shipments of Android-powered smartphones totaled a record 183 million units in the April-June period, according to the data by Strategy Analytics.That translates into the Android platform powering 79.5 percent of smartphones shipped during the cited period, also a record high, the data showed.The surge

Defying the United States, Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary asylum on Thursday, allowing the National Security Agency leaker to slip out of the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for weeks in hopes of evading espionage charges back home. The 30-year-old former NSA contractor now has plenty of room to roam throughout the sprawling country and continue the bizarre journey that has already stretched across half the planet _ from Hawaii to Hong Kong to the Russian capital.The move infu

A former Goldman Sachs trader who earned the nickname “Fabulous Fab” was found liable Thursday in a fraud case brought by federal regulators in response to the 2007 mortgage crisis that helped push the U.S. into recession.A jury reached the verdict at the civil trial in Manhattan federal court of Fabrice Tourre _ a French-born Stanford graduate described by Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers as the face of  “Wall Street greed.” Tourre's attorneys portrayed him as a scapegoat in a downtur

Allegations of vote-rigging flowed in Zimbabwe on Thursday, with reports of fake registration cards, voters turned away from the polls and people appearing on voters' lists four times with different IDs. Even before results were announced, the main opposition camp said longtime President Robert Mugabe stole the election, which his supporters denied.Either way, the country faces fresh political uncertainty. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the main challenger to Mugabe, said the elections on Wed

For the first time in decades of criminal prosecution, a conviction against former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi finally stuck on Thursday, leaving the media mogul with a four-year prison sentence for tax fraud with all of his appeals exhausted. But it's highly unlikely the man who long was Italy's most powerful politician will actually serve out the sentence behind bars.  And while upholding his tax fraud conviction, Italy's supreme court ordered another court to recalculate the duration of

KT Corp., South Korea's top fixed-line and No. 2 mobile operator, said Friday its second-quarter net profit plunged 44 percent from a year earlier due to increased marketing costs on long-term evolution (LTE) service and one-off costs.Net profit reached 133 billion won ($118 million) in the April-June period, compared with 237 billion won a year earlier, the Seoul-based company said in a regulatory filing.Sales edged up 0.4 percent on-year to reach 5.76 trillion won over the cited period, and op

Prosecutors sought an arrest warrant Friday for a former chief of the national tax agency on charges of accepting bribes from food and entertainment conglomerate CJ Group.Jeon Goon-pyo, 59, is accused of taking US$300,000 in U.S. bills and high-end watches from CJ Group officials in exchange for favors during a tax audit into the conglomerate in July 2006, shortly after he was named the commissioner of the National Tax Service (NTS), prosecutors said.Prosecutors detained Jeon shortly after midni

A U.S. federal agency on Thursday postponed a final ruling on Apple's patent infringement complaint against Samsung until Aug. 9, apparently reflecting the sensitivity and complicity of the issue.The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it has decided to extend its deadline to determine whether some smartphones and tablet PCs made by Samsung Electronics Co. infringe on Apple Inc's patents.It gave no specific reason for the delay.In a preliminary ruling in October, the ITC fou

Samsung Group said Thursday that it fired the chief of its engineering unit Samsung Engineering Co., holding him responsible for a water tank explosion that killed three workers Friday.A water tank burst during a stress test at a polysilicon plant construction site inside Samsung Fine Chemicals in Ulsan, about 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The accident also injured more than 10 workers.According to the police, the 1,300-ton water tank was being filled for the third day to detect any cracks

민주당이 목요일 새누리당 국가정보원 국정조사 정상화를 위한 압박을 극대화 시키면서 여야의 갈등이 고조되고 있다.국정조사 만료시점이 오는 8월 15일까지인데 반해, 국정조사가 제대로 이루어질지조차 모르는 상황이다. 민주당은 목요일 오전 10시 시청 앞 서울광장에서 ‘민주주의 회복과 국정원 개혁 국민운동본부’를 설치하고 장외투쟁에 나섰다. 김한길 민주당 대표는이 자리에서 “민주당은 국민과 함께, 당원과 함께, 소속 의원들의 지혜를 모아서 반드시 무너진 민주주의를 회복하고 국정원 개혁을 이루어낼 것”이라고 강조했다.김대표는 이어 “새누리당의 국정조사 거부 행태는 분명한 국정 농단이다. 무엇이 두려워 원세훈 전 국정원장과 김용판 전 서울경찰청장을 증인대에 세우지 못하는 것인지 이해할 수가 없다”고 말했다.이에 새누리당은 민주당 스스로 국정조사를 파탄내는 것으로 보아, 민주당이 자신들에게 유리한 정치공세 장을 마련하지 못할 것이라는 판단에 판을 뒤엎으려는 정치적 의도가 개입된 것이 아닌지 의