South Korea’s most powerful businessman announced on Tuesday he is stepping down after 20 years at the helm of the Samsung group, following his indictment for tax evasion and breach of trust. A sombre Lee Kun-hee made the shock announcement at a press conference called to announce reforms to the scandal-tainted group.
A South Korean jewel thief who said he was inspired by the 1996 hit movie <i>Mission: Impossible</i> found his crime really was impossible when he triggered an alarm system, a report said on Tuesday. The man, identified only as Weon, used a hacksaw and screwdriver to break through the roof of a Seoul jewellers’ shop and then lowered himself by rope.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has hailed his troops as ”invincible” during a military inspection, official media announced on Sunday amid a war of words and growing tensions with South Korea. Pyongyang in recent days has threatened to reduce the South to ”ashes” and called its new conservative president, Lee Myung-Bak, a traitor.
North Korea announced on Thursday it was suspending all dialogue with South Korea after failing to win an apology for remarks by a Seoul general, its toughest action in a week of growing cross-border tensions. The communist state’s Korean Central News Agency blamed Seoul for the North’s decision to suspend dialogue and contacts.
North Korea test-fired several short-range missiles on Friday, South Korea said, in what analysts saw as a show of anger at Washington and the new conservative government in Seoul. The launch comes a day after the North expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex north of the border.
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/ 20 February 2008
North Korea has been trying to ease American fears of a secret atomic weapons programme and also denies sharing nuclear technology with other countries, said the United States pointman. Christopher Hill said the North has been trying to show that equipment it purchased was not for use in a covert uranium enrichment programme.
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/ 11 February 2008
South Koreans mourned the loss of a 600-year-old building designated as the nation’s top cultural landmark, which collapsed in ruins early on Monday after catching fire. Police said they are investigating whether arson sparked the blaze at the Namdaemun gate in the heart of Seoul.
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/ 25 January 2008
An ageing South Korean crooner stunned a national TV audience on Friday by dropping his trousers and saying he was ready to prove he had not been castrated or dismembered in a love quarrel. Na Hoon-a spoke at a packed news conference to deny rumours he had been castrated.
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/ 16 January 2008
North Korean athletes will enter the 2008 Beijing Olympics with pluck, a soldier-like fighting spirit and a completely different concept of international sport to the one embraced by former Cold War allies. Eastern Bloc states used to spend heavily on sports systems that turned out Goliaths, whose victories at the Olympics were used to validate what they argued was a superior political system.
A fire tore through a South Korean refrigeration warehouse under construction south of the capital on Monday, killing 40 people, injuring 10 and sending toxic fumes into the air, officials said. Kim Jung-geun, a local fire official, said late on Monday that no more bodies were expected to be found.
At least seven people were killed and 32 others reported missing on Monday after a fire ripped through a frozen goods warehouse under construction near Seoul, a fire official said. The blaze in Icheon, about 60km south-east of the capital, has led to several explosions.
International efforts to put an end to North Korea’s nuclear programme appeared to hit a snag on Saturday after Pyongyang defiantly insisted it had lived up to its end of a six-party disarmament deal. North Korea agreed last February to give up its nuclear-weapons programmes in return for one million tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid.
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/ 31 December 2007
North Korea appeared certain to miss a year-end deadline to finish disabling its atomic plants and declare all its nuclear programmes, a key element in a six-nation disarmament accord. After almost two decades of confrontation over its nuclear ambitions, the communist state in 2007 took an unprecedented step.
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/ 19 December 2007
Right-wing businessman Lee Myung-bak won South Korea’s presidential election by a landslide on Wednesday with his promises to make voters better off and stand up to North Korea, TV exit polls showed. The wide margin of victory put to rest concerns in his camp that a probe in allegations of fraud by Lee might deter voters.
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/ 19 December 2007
South Koreans went to the polls on Wednesday expected to choose as president a former CEO vowing to knock the economy into shape and stand up to the North, but whose authority could be weakened by a fraud investigation. The last legally allowed opinion polls a week ago showed former Hyundai Group executive and ex-Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak on course to to victory.
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/ 7 December 2007
A large oil tanker was gushing thousands of tonnes of oil off South Korea’s west coast after being hit a barge, South Korea’s maritime ministry said on Friday. The Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit was struck while at anchor off Daesan port in the Taean region and the ministry said it had already leaked about 10 800 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.
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/ 27 November 2007
Universal Studios and its partners will build a 2,9-trillion won (,1-billion) theme park in South Korea by 2012, its largest project in terms of investment size. The park, spanning 4,7-million square metres and featuring hotels, golf courses and rides based on popular movies and TV shows, would be similar in scale to the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida
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/ 22 November 2007
Lack of proper toilet facilities and sanitation kills almost two million people a year, most of them children, the World Toilet Association said at its first meeting on Thursday. ”It is regrettable that the matter of defecation is not given as much attention as food or housing,” said Sim Jae-duck, the association’s South Korean head.
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/ 21 November 2007
Oil soared to record highs on Wednesday, drawing within a hair’s breadth of the milestone as the United States dollar plumbed new lows and the onset of cold weather stirred anxiety over winter supplies. US light crude for January delivery surged to a record of ,29 a barrel early in the session, but pared those gains to stand 61 cents higher at ,64.
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/ 20 November 2007
The world’s former number one tennis player, Pete Sampras, was no match for current champion Roger Federer when they met on court Tuesday for only the second time. In an exhibition match in the South Korean capital, Seoul, Federer beat Sampras 6-4, 6-3 in a match lasting just 61 minutes.
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/ 20 November 2007
The chief of the world’s biggest mining group, BHP Billiton, pushed his case for a mega-merger with rival Rio Tinto on Tuesday in the face of growing opposition from big Asian customers. Rio Tinto, meanwhile, was considering offering joint ventures with BHP as an alternative to its bigger rival’s takeover offer.
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/ 19 November 2007
Roger Federer and Pete Sampras are without doubt two of the greatest tennis players the world has ever seen, but they only ever faced each other once. All that will change this week when 12-time Grand Slam winner Federer plays his idol, who has 14 Grand Slams to his name, in three exhibition matches across Asia, starting in Seoul on Tuesday.
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/ 29 October 2007
A defector who was born and spent 22 years in a North Korean prison camp said on Monday his motive in writing a book is to speak out for the children who grow up behind barbed wire. Shin Dong-Hyuk said that at the age of 14 he was forced to watch the execution of his mother and brother.
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/ 11 October 2007
Sun Microsystems and Samsung are jointly developing a cellphone to challenge Apple Inc.’s iPhone, a South Korean newspaper reported on Wednesday, quoting Sun chairperson Scott McNealy. McNealy said on Tuesday in Seoul that the companies are working on a ”Java phone” that would surpass Apple’s iPhone in functionality.
Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has boasted of being an "internet expert," reports said on Saturday. The communist state keeps itself closed to the outside world to prevent so-called spiritual pollution from subverting its hard-line socialist system.
South Korean media questioned on Friday whether the two Koreas’ summit pledge to seek a formal end to their 1950 to 1953 war could be realised given Pyongyang’s record of broken promises. The ambition was spelled out by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in a joint statement signed in Pyongyang on Thursday.
Fresh from summit diplomacy with North Korea, South Korea’s government now faces an entirely new challenge — trying to set international quality and size standards for condoms. The five-day meeting, organised by the International Organisation for Standardisation and the Seoul government, will begin next Monday on the southern resort island of Jeju.
South Korea’s president arrived in hermit North Korea’s capital on Tuesday to cheering crowds and a dour leader Kim Jong-il for only the second summit between two states still technically at war. South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun has billed his first trip to the communist North as a chance to end animosity born with the partition of the Korean peninsula.
South Korea’s president said on Monday he would use the second summit between the leaders of the divided Koreas to press for peace and an eventual arms cut. Roh Moo-hyun will lead a motorcade from Seoul on Tuesday, which includes business leaders, bureaucrats, poets and clerics.
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/ 30 September 2007
It was much tougher than she had bargained for but Venus Williams got the job done in the end, beating Russian Maria Kirilenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in Sunday’s final of the WTA Korea Open in Seoul. It was the third singles title in 2007 for Williams, the reigning Wimbledon champion who was top seed here.
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/ 3 September 2007
Some of the South Korean Christian aid workers held hostage by Afghanistan’s Taliban said they were beaten for refusing to convert to Islam and protecting female captives, a hospital chief said on Monday. ”We found through medical checks that some male hostages were beaten,” Cha Seung-Gyun told reporters.
Taliban insurgents will release 19 South Korean Christian volunteers they have been holding for more than a month in Afghanistan, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said on Tuesday. The announcement followed the resumption of negotiations that had been on hold for two weeks.