• South Korea falls to 45th in global corruption awareness ranking

    South Korea dropped two notches in a global corruption awareness ranking to place 45th among 176 nations in 2012, an international watchdog said in its annual report on Wednesday. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2012 issued by the non-governmental agency Transparency International (TI), South Korea scored 56 out…

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  • East Asia

    ‘We want to be a window of Asia’

    The AsiaN, a Seoul-based online media service published in four languages, aims at playing the role of “the window of Asia” by delivering news in the region from an Asian perspective, its head said. Lee Sang-ki, publisher of The AsiaN (http://theasian.asia), said foreign press tend to report Asian news from…

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  • East Asia

    Samsung speeds up power transition

    Junior Lee faces task of handling patent battle with Apple The promotion of Samsung Electronics Chief Operating Officer (COO) and President Lee Jay-yong to vice chairman came as a surprise because there had been speculation that he would maintain his current position. A Samsung executive said that the one-notch elevation…

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  • East Asia

    Smart payment service

    KT develops MoCa to beat Google in mobile payment KT introduced a new service called MoCa Wednesday in a bid to beat Google in the smart mobile payment service market. The new service comes as KT, Korea’s No. 2 mobile carrier after SK Telecom and leading broadband operator, has made…

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  • East Asia

    Samsung heir prompted to vice chairman

    Samsung Group promoted Lee Jay-yong, the only son of the group leader Lee Kun-hee, to vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, its flagship affiliate, Wednesday. The promotion comes two years after the 44-year-old chief operating officer (COO) was promoted to president at the world’s largest manufacturer of computer memory chips and…

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  • East Asia

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Pays An Official Visit To Kyrgyzstan

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (L) meets with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, Dec. 4, 2012. Wen Jiabao arrived here Tuesday to attend the 11th prime ministers’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and pay an official visit to Kyrgyzstan. <Xinhua/Xie Huanchi> Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao…

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  • Subprime ―Korean style

    Quick policy responses needed for soft landing Alarm bells are ringing louder for the possible eruption of a Korean version of the subprime mortgage crisis. Without prompt action and durable solutions, the nation might face another devastating economic crisis. According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), mortgages that were offered…

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  • East Asia

    Is Ahn Perot or Nader?

    The death of one opportunity often leads to the birth of another. When a person goes through such a process, it usually leads to transformation. This happened on Monday to Ahn Cheol-soo, former independent presidential candidate. It was captured in a speech he made during a ceremony to mark the…

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  • East Asia

    To be a good volunteer use your brain

    There is probably an unwritten rule that a celebrity offering to do volunteer work for a good cause should immediately be embraced. Well, that’s not what happened to Jeong So-dam, the glamorous Korean cable TV announcer when our paths crossed on Nov. 29. Ms. Jeong was the MC of an…

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  • Allies may sanction N. Korea

    North Korea notified nearby countries and an international agency of the trajectory of its planned long-range rocket launch this month, Tuesday, as South Korea sought consultations on how best to handle its neighbor’s actions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) said that Pyongyang stated that the launch slated from Dec. 10…

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