• Business

    Wrong message

    Kakao Talk scrambles after service disruption Millions of smartphone users complained of disruption Saturday after Kakao Talk, the country’s leading instant messenger service for mobile Internet devices, was paralyzed for several hours. Kakao Talk, which boasts more than 40 million subscribers here, abruptly alerted its users around 2:50 p.m. that…

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  • Column

    N. Korea’s verbal threats

    South Koreans have long been accustomed to abusive verbal threats from the North, most of which end in provocative rhetoric. They have also wisely avoided some deadly North Korean provocations from escalating into a major war. However, many people are perplexed about the latest verbal threats. The latest ones came…

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  • Politics

    Chung announces presidential bid

    Chung Mong-joon, a businessman-turned-lawmaker, announced Sunday he will run in the Saenuri Party primary in the run-up to the December presidential election. Chung is also chairman of the world’s largest shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries. He promised to fight against the widening income gap. “As a presidential hopeful, I would like…

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  • North Face slapped with biggest price-fixing fine

    Korea’s best-selling U.S. outdoor clothing brand, The North Face, was slapped with a fine of 5.24 billion won ($4.62 million) for fixing prices of products available at its retail stores. It is the largest fine levied on a company for retail price fixing. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Sunday…

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  • East Asia

    Stars & Stripes In Flames

    MANILA – A Filipino protester burns a U.S. flag to express his disgust on what he says are interference of U.S. and China on a disputed shoal outside the Chinese consulate in suburban Makati, south of Manila, Philippines on Monday April 30, 2012. The impasse began on April 10, 2012…

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  • East Asia

    Smile with Confucius’ Style

    Pupils acting as ancient boy servants recite the analects of Confucius during the spring sacrificing ceremony for Confucius in Tianjin, north China, April 29, 2012. <Xinhua/Liu Dongyue> news@theasian.asia

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  • East Asia

    Major news in Japan on April 28

    Top news in <The Mainichi> : 9,000 U.S. Marines to be shifted out of Okinawa under force realignment news@theasian.asia

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  • East Asia

    Major news in China on April 28 : China-Russia on deepening strategic partnership

    Top news in <Xinhua> : Chinese vice premier meets Russian president on deepening strategic partnership news@theasian.asia

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  • iPhones to be banned in defense ministry

    The Ministry of National Defense (MND) plans to prohibit the use of Apple’s iPhones in two of its major buildings from August, military officials said Friday. They said other smart devices will continue to be allowed after installing a mobile device management (MDM) system, an application that would automatically disable…

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  • ‘Korea’ offers guide to expatriates

    There are a lot of guidebooks on Korea but many of them seem nothing more than quick cut-and-paste jobs from information gleaned from the Internet ― dull and lacking first-hand experience. Robert Koehler’s “Korea” is not that type of book. Koehler, who has been collecting information for this book for…

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