SOUTH KOREA popularity and SOUTH KOREA trends

According to the Japan-China Economic Association, there are now 200 Japanese firms in Chengdu and more will come in the wake of the latest round in western development.

Japan is becoming increasingly "eager" to join a free trade agreement with China and South Korea while it is unable to join a broader Asian trade pact.

After decades of indifference government is turning up the heat on smokers in South Korea, a nation with one of the highest male smoking rates.

The remains of 12 South Korean soldiers return home, in the first repatriation of soldiers from the South killed during the Korean War 60 years ago.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Sanofi-Aventis plans to begin testing a novel compound that is designed to starve liver cancer to death in a phase one human clinical trial in China and possibly South Korea in 2013.

Pyongyang's increasingly harsh Invective against South Korea appears to be a sign of growing anxiety in the authoritarian regime.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said during a speech at the Seoul Digital Forum in South Korea that 500 million users are expected to have a device…

South Korea is set to carry out the chemical castration of a serial rapist later this week, implementing recent legislation for the first time.

South Korea will this week chemically castrate a man repeatedly convicted of sexually assaulting children in the country's first use of the punishment, an official said Wednesday.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has ramped up work at its nuclear test site over the last month, according to an analysis of satellite images released Tuesday, a day after the top U.S. envoy for North Korea warned Pyongyang that an atomic test would unify the world in seeking swift, tough punishment.Glyn Davies' comments after meetings Monday in Seoul with his South Korean and Japanese counter...

The recently completed Daeyang Gallery and House in the hills of Seoul, South Korea is itself a work of art worthy of being shown in a museum, but it's also designed specifically with the purpose of holding private exhibitions and events. More »

Nepalese sources say four climbers - from Germany, South Korea, China and Canada - died while returning from the summit.

South Korea urges North Korea to follow a 'different path to peace' at the start of talks with the US and Japan, amid fears of a third nuclear test.

THE US, South Korea and Japan hold talks with North Korea amidst concerns it would launch another nuclear test.

Consumers should not eat shellfish from South Korea and retailers should stop selling it, federal and state regulators said Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration yanked firms that transport Korean shellfish off its list of approved shippers on May 1 and said it may launch “a fairly extensive recall of the product” — specifically fresh, frozen or processed oysters, clams, mussels and scall...

The police of South Korea investigate the reasons of a bizarre car accident, which occurred to the latest model of Hyundai Sonata

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korean handset maker LG Electronics Inc. has upgraded its flagship smartphone model with a faster chip and a longer battery life, hoping to regain ground lost to more nimble rivals....

TOKYO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean businessmen, typically clad in uniform dark blue suits, are being urged to dump their jackets and ties as the summer looms in a bid to save electricity amid tight supplies as offices turn up the air conditioning.

The House is off next week, and that means, even in an election year, members will be required to travel in search of elusive facts. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is leading a group taking off Friday for a week in Taiwan and South Korea, looking at three days in Seoul and three in Taipei. Read full article >>

Soccer:Fernando Torres and Juan Mata have been left out of the Spain squad for the upcoming friendlies against Serbia and South Korea. The Chelsea duo are absent to allow them to continue their preparations for Saturday’s Champions League final against Bayern Munich.

Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea has been handed a maiden call-up to the Spain squad for the friendlies against Serbia and South Korea which precede Euro 2012.

Young apprentice monks couldn't hold back the tears as their locks were chopped off for their initiation to the Jogye order at the Jogye temple in South Korea's capital of Seoul.

The toy tower was built by 4,000 children and measures a dizzying 31.9 metres high. It was made from more than 500,000 bricks and was unveiled on Sunday by Danish Crown Prince Frederik (pictured).

Emirate to sign partnership with South Korea life insurer amid efforts to create launch pad for Asian companies moving into Africa and the Gulf

BEIJING (Reuters) - China, Japan and South Korea agreed at a summit on Sunday to launch negotiations for a three-way free trade pact they said could help fend off global economic chills, but the talks are expected to be long and difficult because of decades of rivalry.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Less than two weeks after being punished with new U.N. sanctions, North Korea has sent its ceremonial head of state and two top economic officials to Singapore and Indonesia on a trip that appears aimed at drumming up outside investment....

YEOSU, South Korea (AP) -- Expo 2012 has opened in South Korea's coastal city of Yeosu for a three-month run....

South Korean marine kicks off with spectacular high-tech opening ceremony.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Six leaders from South Korea's biggest Buddhist order have quit after secret video footage showed some supposedly serene monks raising hell, playing high-stakes poker, drinking and smoking.

(Phys.org) -- When creating nanomaterials, cracking is generally considered a problem; it usually means something has gone wrong and the result, as with other material making processes such as glass or ceramics, almost always means either reprocessing or sending the sample to the trash bin. Now however, a research team in South Korea has found a way to cause cracking on purpose when fabricating...

Fluffeh writes "North Korea has been looking for new and inventive ways to mess with South Korea. It seems that their missile launch fizzled a bit though, so those wacky folks from the North have bought a few GPS jamming trucks from Russia and are now blocking GPS signals around their city of Kaeson. While Kaeson is around 60 Km inside their borders, the jamming circle is around 100 Km, so it a...

The week in science: Japan switches off its last nuclear power reactor; South Korea passes carbon-trading laws; and French-Algerian physicist Adlène Hicheur is sentenced to prison for plotting terror attacks.

MUNGYEONG, South Korea (Reuters) - A year ago, South Korean executive Chung Man-gyoo spent weekdays driving his Hyundai Grandeur sedan through the jammed streets of Seoul to his suburban office. At...

A U.N. nuclear inspector from South Korea was killed Tuesday and a colleague was injured in a car crash near a reactor site in central Iran.

China will re-investigate allegations that Chinese-made drug capsules containing powdered flesh from dead babies are being smuggled into South Korea, state media reported Tuesday.

With its offer of more than $2.5 billion for the Japanese chip maker, Micron Technology vaulted ahead of SK Hynix of South Korea.

Two more acts are through to the Britain's Got Talent final and Will Smith is in South Korea for the Men in Black 3 premiere plus the rest of the day's entertainment news

CUSTOMS officials confiscate 17,450 capsules containing powder made from human FLESH

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council urged North Korea on Thursday to refrain from any new nuclear tests amid speculation Pyongyang may soon carry out such an explosion

South Korea's parliament has approved a long-delayed bill to start trading carbon dioxide emissions in 2015, joining the vanguard of countries battling climate change. The legislation approved late Wednesday means it will become one of the first Asian countries to implement a nationwide cap-and-trade system.

Hundreds of commercial flights forced to switch off global-positioning devices

North Korea has sent out jamming signals since Saturday in an apparent attempt to disrupt civilian and military air and ground traffic in South Korea, officials said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States, European Union, South Korea and Japan have submitted a list of about 40 North Korean companies to the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee for possible blacklisting due to Pyongyang's recent rocket launch, envoys said on Tuesday.

A dozen Iranian officials were likely involved technically in recent missile test; meanwhile tensions between North and South Korea soar.

EUROPEAN TOUR: BERND WIESBERGER cruised to his first career European Tour title as he won the Ballantine’s Championship in Icheon, South Korea by five shots from Scotland’s Richie Ramsay.

Christian groups in South Korea called on Friday for pop icon Lady Gaga to cancel her concert here saying it was "pornographic" and promoted homosexuality.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Bernd Wiesberger of Austria shot a second straight 7-under 65 Saturday to open up a five-shot lead after the third round of the Ballantine's Championship....

Lady Gaga opened her Born This Way Ball tour in Seoul South Korea despite protests from Christian groups who claimed that the pop star's performance would be "obscene" MTV reports The protests resulted in authorities making the concert at the Olympic Stadium an adults-only event for a crowd of 45000...

SEOUL (Reuters) - Christian groups in South Korea called on Friday for pop icon Lady Gaga to cancel her concert here saying it was "pornographic" and promoted homosexuality. South Korea's government has already bowed to public pressure and banned under-18s from attending the 26-year old's concert, but protesters gathered outside the venue said that was not enough. "Some people can accept this a...

South Korea is seeking to boost its domestic demand in a bid to offset a slowdown in exports.

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is warning North Korea not to engage in any further provocation on the heels of the country's latest threats against South Korea....

Scores of conservative South Korean Christians will pray together on Sunday against Lady Gaga's Seoul concert, organisers said, accusing the US pop star of advocating homosexuality and pornography.

Countries such as Britain, South Korea and Australia all pledged to build a stronger firewall against the threat poised by the Europe’s financial crisis, but Canada maintained its months-long attack on the bigger members of the euro zone

I posted a few minutes ago on Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney’s new foreign policy spokesman, and his penchant for tweeting about the Gingriches. But the former Bush administration official has tweeted about far more than just that happy couple, in some cases weighing in on weightier policy issues via Twitter. He has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration’s foreign policy in harsh terms, a...

A robot exhibition which is expected to attract 10 million visitors is gearing up for launch in South Korea with robot fish, starfish, dancing robots and robot footballers.

South Korea unveiled new cruise missiles on Thursday that it said could hit any target in North Korea.

What is incredible is that the two 'halves' of the Korean peninsula have fostered such disparate systems when they're populated by people of the same ethnic origins.SEOUL — North and South Korea played their own distinctive games of power politics last week. The processes of leadership selection were enacted almost simultaneously, a coincidence that defined them so sharply as to provide a class...

Experts see the Chinese proposal for the observatory as an attempt to complicate the Aksai Chin dispute by drawing in Japan and South Korea.

Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters in a nationally televised news conference that the rocket was fired at 7:39 local time.

South Korea warned that North Korea may test a nuclear weapon after a planned missile launch this month that has raised regional tensions and drawn US warnings on the eve of parliamentary elections tomorrow in the South.

South Korea has warned that its northern neighbour is preparing a third nuclear test, raising tensions ahead Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch.

South Korea warned that North Korea may test a nuclear weapon after a planned missile launch this month that is already raising regional tensions.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp has approached SK hynix of South Korea about bidding jointly for Japanese memory chip maker Elpida Memory, an industry source said, after its solo bid was reportedly...

A North Korean defector is jailed in South Korea for plotting to kill a high-profile activist with a poison-tipped needle.

Grab your flip-flops and fedora, Jason Mraz is coming to a stage near you! On June 8th, Mraz kicks off his global Tour Is A Four Letter Word tour in South Korea, stopping in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Hawaii. From August through October, Jason is getting ALL up in the US and [...]

United States and Britain remain leaders, but South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are emerging destinations for higher education.

Anniversary of Falklands battle sparks new rows, as Nobel Prize winners ask British prime minister to open dialogue with Argentina

ISLAMABAD  - Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is personally monitoring the issue of shortage of electricity in the country from South Korea where he is presently attending the Nuclear Security Summit. Gilani directed that remedial measures may be taken on most urgent basis to lessen the sufferings of the people and reduce the gap in the supply and demand of electricity. As a result of ...

ISLAMABAD  - Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is personally monitoring the issue of shortage of electricity in the country from South Korea where he is presently attending the Nuclear Security Summit. Gilani directed that remedial measures may be taken on most urgent basis to lessen the sufferings of the people and reduce the gap in the supply and demand of electricity. As a result of ...

Release Time:  For Immediate Release The President and Ukrainian President Yanukovych spoke today at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.  President Obama expressed appreciation to President Yanukovych and the  Ukrainian people for the complete removal of highly enriched uranium from their country as a sign of Ukrain...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- President Barack Obama says the threat of nuclear weapons remains a potent challenge for the globe to confront and is telling foreign leaders that "the security of the world depends on the actions that we take."...

Indicative of a growing closeness, India and South Korea Sunday aimed to double their annual trade to $40 billion by 2015, boosted military ties and eased visa norms to promote more business contacts.

Signalling an end to the Fukushima gloom that overhang the global nuclear sector, South Korea has offered to build nuclear reactors in India and sought land for the project.

US president marks stark differences between North, South Korea in terms of freedom, prosperity; North mourns Kim Jong-il.

Amid global worries about threat of nuclear terrorism and concerns over safety, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will unveil before the world the steps conceived by India to meet these challenges when he attends the Nuclear Security Summit in South Korea on Monday.

Privacy concerns in India, Japan and South Korea have dogged recent rollout’s of the search giant’s mapping products

The Internet is contributing more to the American economy than the entire federal government, according to a new study by the Boston Consulting Group. The Internet accounted for $684 billion, or 4.7% of all U.S. economic activity in 2010, according to latest report released by Boston Consulting Group. The Internet economy in the U.K. accounted for the highest percentage of national GDP in 201...

Heather Nedohin's team still shares lead at 4-1 alongside South Korea and Sweden

NEW YORK/SEOUL, March 19 (Reuters) - South Korea state oil company Korea National Oil Corp is in talks to join a private equity-led consortium that agreed to buy El Paso Corp's oil and gas assets...

Your humble blogger is currently knee-deep in a pedagogical project on the foundations of economic prosperity.  You can imagine my delight, then, that Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have a new book coming out on that very topic:  Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.  There's an excerpt in the Montreal Review...

When a company in Illinois shipped 800 tons of green, stringy, wood fibers to South Korea on Tuesday, its foreign distributor was slammed with the usual $2,100 tariff.

Only South Korea and Taiwan have more Olympic taekwondo medals than the Lopez family. This summer, they will return to the games once again.

New boss Choi Kang-Hee got the job done but it wasn't easy after a tense, goalless first 45, before the vital goals arrived.

Had I known half of the "adventures" that awaited me, I would have come up with a post-college Plan B. And had I done so, I would have lost out on, well, remember the slogan? "The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love."

Headline Title:  South Korean activist charged over Kim Jong-il tweet 01 February 2012 The South Korean authorities should immediately release a social media activist accused of helping "the enemy" for re-tweeting messages from North Korea’s official government Twitter account...

Former owner would be team's chief executive, and E-Land would provide major financing; group also would include L.A. investors. O'Malley is one of at least eight prospective owners to make first cut.Peter O'Malley's bid to buy back the Dodgers is supported by financing from the South Korean conglomerate E-Land, two people familiar with the Dodgers' sale process said Monday.

JI-SUNG PARK has made it clear he has no intention of coming out of Korea retirement

South Korea faces a triple whammy of slowing economic growth, falling exports and weakening consumer demand. But it's still too early for Seoul to hit the panic button.

Forbes.com just covered the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ) (ACTA) which is an Agreement or treaty if you will, which contains some provisions “which are similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA.” The ACTA is being treated as by the US as an Executive Agreement rather than a treaty.  A treaty would have to be approved by the Senate, while an Executive Agreement can ...

SEOUL - North Korean refugees living in South Korea launched balloons carrying cakes across the heavily fortified border Friday to help their former compatriots celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday. Most balloons dispatched across the frontier by activists carry propaganda leaflets calling for the overthrow of the North's regime.  But on Friday about 20 large balloons released from Gangwha ... ...

South Korea's government drug agency cleared the way Thursday for commercial sales of what it called the world's first approved medicine using stem cells collected from other people.

Pregnant women could find out whether they are carrying a boy or a girl as early as five weeks, after scientists from Cheil General Hospital in South Korea developed a pioneering non-invasive test.

1. Bolt disqualified. It was a bit like seeing Old Faithful oversleep or Big Ben lose track of time. At the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in August, Jamaica's Usain Bolt, the Olympic champion and world's fastest man, false-started and watched the final of the men's 100 meters from the sidelines. In his absence, Bolt's 21-year-old teammate, Yohan Blake, won the race in 9.92 seconds ...

In the wake of scientific fraud in South Korea, researchers are renewing their race to clone stem cells.

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea Tuesday put the body of late leader Kim Jong-Il on display in a glass coffin and heaped praise on his son and successor, amid world wariness at the transition in the nuclear-armed nation.US President Barack Obama pledged to defend regional allies such as South Korea and Japan after the reclusive communist state Monday made the shock announcement of Kim’s death at the a...

Golf superstar Rory McIlroy thinks he might have picked up a virus while playing in South Korea or China.

New Zealand have shown us how to capitalize on opportunity to boost their stocks in the international hockey arena.By reaching the medal round of the Champions Trophy hockey, the Kiwis, hosting the elite tourney for the first time ever, responded superbly to a huge challenge. The Black Sticks fought back from a 0-3 deficit to hold oft-crowned champions The Netherlands 3-3 and shunt out Olympi...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Vancouver Whitecaps have agreed to contract terms with veteran South Korean midfielder Young-Pyo Lee. The 34-year-old has earned 127 international appearances for South Korea and played in the last three World Cups. Vancouver coach Martin Rennie said Lee can also play defender and will help strengthen the team’s defensive backline. Read full article >>

Qatar bested South Korea in a competition to serve as the site of the 2012 United Nations climate negotiations.

BUSAN, South Korea (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged developing nations on Wednesday to be "smart shoppers" on foreign aid, warning that powerful emerging economies such as China may be more interested in exploiting natural resources than promoting real development.

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the White House have said that Bonn conference is in Pakistan's broad interests and it needed to review decision of boycott.Speaking at an aid conference in South Korea, on Wednesday Clinton voiced regret that Pakistan had announced a boycott of meeting on Afghanistan in Germany and urged it to consider.Clinton reiterated the US stance that the border ...

Three elements from the Republic of South Korea (ROK), one from Spain and one from Turkey were added today to the United Nations-backed list of the world’s outstanding examples of intangible heritage.

Reprinted from HUFFPOST EDUCATION: The U.S. is becoming increasingly concerned over learning among the country's youth in areas of science and math. International testing has shown that American students fall behind foreign counterparts in a number of subjects. But is it just about the text and the test? Students in Shanghai who took international exams for the first time ou...

Goldman Sachs Asset Management chief Jim O'Neill on why Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea and Mexico, along with the four BRIC markets, will power global growth.

Perfect World Company Limited, an online game developer and operator in China, has formed a new joint venture with Nexon Korea Corporation, a global online entertainment company and publisher of micro-transaction-based massively multiplayer online games, to manage and operate online games in South Korea. Chi Yufeng, chairman and chief executive officer of Perfect World, said [...]

Brad Pitt wasn't putting an "exact deadline" on when he'd retire from acting when he said he'd be quitting in three years. Brad Pitt explained his earlier remarks in South Korea, before the "Moneyball" premiere in Seoul.

The future of cinema stood on a chair and slipped its head in a noose yesterday when Benjamin Buttons declared that he'll turn in his SAG card when his 50th birfday rolls around in 3 years. Crazed Brangeloonies who can't leave their houses due to a court order hired professional mourners to weep at the Hollywood sign and the MGM lion let out a "WHY ME?!!!!" roar. Well, everybody can get ...

A national anti-spam plan is being drawn up by South Korea that would impose a nationwide block on a common way of sending email.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea, heavily dependent on energy imports, will invest about 10.2 trillion won ($9 billion) in building a 2.5-gigawatt wind power generating complex through 2019 to diversify...

Al Sadd of Qatar won the penalty-kick shootout, 4-2, over Jeonbuck Motors of South Korea Saturday to win the Asian Champions League final.