South Korea takes "major step" to accepting Canada beef

Via www.reuters.com

By Rod Nickel

(Reuters) - South Korea has taken a "major step" to ending an eight-year-old ban on imports of Canadian beef, Canada's agriculture and trade ministers said on Friday.

The South Korean Parliament ratified import health requirements for Canadian beef under 30 months of age on Friday, one of the final steps to ending the ban, the ministers said in a release.

South Korea is the last major beef-importing country to agree to lower its restrictions on Canadian beef, since a 2003 case of mad-cow disease (BSE) in Canada.

"This has been a long journey and today's announcement is a big step forward for our hard-working beef producers to once again bring their world class product to the South Korean marketplace," said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Canada is the world's third-biggest beef shipper and in 2002, prior to the ban, South Korea was Canada's fourth biggest beef market.

South Korea also initially banned U.S. beef but later allowed in U.S. beef within the 30-month age limit.

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South Korea says 'new era' possible for Koreas

News article from ap.org

By: OSTER KLUG and HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's president urged North Korea on Monday to embrace a "new era" by using its recent leadership hand-over as an opportunity to transform Korean ties, but warned that Seoul would respond sternly to any provocations.

Lee Myung-bak's comments in a nationally televised speech come as the young son of Kim Jong Il takes power in North Korea as supreme commander of the military and ruling party leader after Kim's death last month. The North said Sunday that its citizens should turn themselves into "human shields" to defend the son, Kim Jong Un, "unto death."

Lee said Kim Jong Il's death is "portending a sea change" for theKorean peninsula. "If North Korea comes forward with a sincere attitude, it will be possible for us to work together to open a new era," he added.

North Korea said last week that it would never deal with Lee, but Kim Jong Un's rise could offer a chance to improve ties that have suffered since Lee took office in 2008 and ended a no-strings-attached aid policy toward the North.

The young Kim had a brief meeting in Pyongyang late last month with a former South Korean first lady and a business leader who were leading private mourning delegations to pay respects to Kim Jong Il.

Lee said the Korean peninsula is at a turning point and "new opportunities always emerge amid such changes."

However, he also warned that South Korea would sternly respond to any North Korean provocation. In 2010, 50 South Koreans died in attacks blamed on the North, though the Koreas have met in recent months for preliminary nuclear discussions.

North Korea, which has tested two atomic devices since 2006, has said it wants to return to long-stalled six-nation talks on halting its nuclear weapons program in return for aid. Washington and Seoul, however, have insisted that the North first show progress on past disarmament commitments.

If North Korea halts its nuclear activities, Lee said in his speech, negotiations could resume.

"We are ready to resolve security concerns on the Korean peninsula and provide assistance to revive North Korea's economy through agreements in the six-nation talks," Lee said.

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Korean fugitive escapes from BI escorts

News article from Philstar

By: Cecille Suerte Felipe, Rudy Santos - By Evelyn Macairan

MANILA, Philippines - Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. recently ordered agents to launch a manhunt for a South Korean who was arrested but reportedly escaped from his two jail guards on Christmas Eve while he was confined at a private hospital in Taguig City.

David said 54-year-old Kim Taedong escaped from the St. Luke’s Medical Center.

Kim had been confined at the hospital since Aug. 26 after he complained of hypertension, diabetes and abdominal pain.

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South Korean Scientists made Glowing Dog

Seoul - Research team in Seoul National University have created a glowing dog using cloning methods that could help find cures in human diseases and illnesses according to Yonhap News


The South Korean scientists said that the genetically modified female beagle - named Tegon and was born in 2009 has been found glowing with a green fluorescent color when put under an ultraviolet light after giving doxycycline antibiotic. 


The researchers said that the ability of the dog to glow can be turn on and off by adding the drug to its food.


"The creation of Tegon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases," the news agency quoted lead researcher Lee Byeong-chun as saying.

He said the dog was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that the university team used to make the world's first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005.

The scientist said that because there are 268 illnesses that humans and dogs have in common, creating dogs that artificially show such symptoms could aid treatment methods for diseases that afflict humans.

The latest discovery published in 'Genesis', an international journal, took four years of research with roughly 3.2 billion won ($3 million) spent to make the dog and conduct the necessary verification tests, Yonhap said. — Reuters


from gmanews.tv


------
new breakthrough!
it will be a big help if they would find ways to cure incurable human diseases but not make a human glow. That would be an advance Halloween costume.

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China holds back on blaming NKorea in ship attack

SEOGWIPO, South Korea – China held back from joining the chorus of nations condemning North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship, making quick international sanctions unlikely but perhaps buying time while China quietly leans on its unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbor.

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with his South Korean andJapanese counterparts Sunday, tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in their capital, clapping their hands, pumping their fists and and shouting slogans against South Korea and America, according to video footage from APTN in Pyongyang.

South Korea has taken punitive measures against the North since a team of international investigators said this month that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine tore apart and sank the warship Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. North Korea vehemently denies attacking the ship and has warned that the South is risking war by attempting to punish it.

Read more at news.yahoo.com

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UN Command to launch armistice violation probe

By SANGWON YOON, Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea – The top U.S. diplomat said Friday that North Korea should face international consequences over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship, while the South said the U.N. would investigate whether the attack violated the Korean War truce.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the sinking a "military provocation" and said it violated the U.N. Charter as well as the truce that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 conflict. But he called for a cautious response to this "serious and grave" issue.

Arriving in Tokyo ahead of a visit to Beijing and Seoul, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that U.S., Japan, South Koreaand China are consulting on an appropriate reaction to an international investigation that blamed North Korea for the incident.

She said the report announced Thursday proves a North Korean sub fired a torpedo that sank the ship, the Cheonan on March 26 and that it could no longer be "business as usual" in dealing with the matter and that there must be "an international response."

While it was "premature" to discuss exact options or actions that will be taken in response, Clinton said it was "important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences.

"The evidence is overwhelming and condemning. The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan ... was fired by a North Korean submarine," she told reporters.

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Activist: NKoreans fired torpedo at SKorean ship

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SEOUL, South Korea – A Seoul-based activist alleged Tuesday that a squad of North Korean soldiers was behind last month's deadly sinking of a South Korean frigate. The activist cited a North Korean military officer claiming knowledge of the plot.

The unidentified officer said a North Korean semi-submersible vessel carrying 13 crewmembers fired a torpedo at the Cheonan, according to Choi Sung-yong, who said he had spoken to the officer by telephone several times in recent days.

The claim could not be verified, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said it could not confirm the allegation.

An explosion split the 1,200-ton Cheonan in two on March 26 while the ship was on a routine patrolling mission in the western waters near the tense maritime border with North Korea. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued, but at least 38 died and eight are missing.

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Former Samsung chairman Lee returns to top post

SEOUL, South Korea – Lee Kun-hee, the former chairman of Samsung Electronics convicted of tax evasion and later pardoned by South Korea's president, has returned to lead the company after a nearly two-year absence.

The 68-year-old Lee, a South Korean corporate icon, was indicted in April 2008 and resigned from his post before being found guilty, fined and given a suspended three-year prison sentence. Lee, who was also convicted of breach of trust, fought on appeal to overturn the convictions but failed.

Speculation that Lee would make a comeback increased after he received a special amnesty from President Lee Myung-bak in December last year. The pardon was given to allow the billionaire business magnate to rejoin South Korea's efforts to host the Winter Olympics after the country failed twice to bring them to PyeongChang, a mountain resort east of Seoul.

Samsung's Lee is a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Presidential pardons for convicted tycoons are not unusual in South Korea. The country has struggled with a legacy of political and corporate corruption under military-backed governments in the 1960s that helped spearhead its rise from one of world's poorest countries to an industrial powerhouse.

The decision to call Lee back as chairman came at a meeting Wednesday of a committee of presidents of various Samsung businesses, said company spokesman James Chung. Lee has long been considered the driving force behind Samsung's rise to global prominence.

Lee, said last year by Forbes Asia to be South Korea's richest person, is the son of the founder of theSamsung Group, a massive conglomerate consisting of dozens of companies with interests in areas as diverse as shipbuilding, construction, fashion, leisure and finance. Samsung Electronics Co. is the group's flagship business.

"We are facing a real crisis," Lee said in an English-language statement issued by Samsung. "Many global companies are experiencing enormous challenge and uncertainty of the future, and Samsung is no exception."

Lee's return comes after a record year for sales in 2009. Samsung said Friday at its annual meeting of shareholders — where nothing was announced about Lee's impending return _that it expects double-digit percentage growth in sales this year as the global economy continues to recover.

Samsung posted record revenue of 136.29 trillion won, or $119.72 billion at current exchange rates, last year on a consolidated basis — which includes the performance of its overseas and domestic subsidiaries excluding financial businesses.

Over the past decade Samsung has become one of the world's top technology companies in both consumer electronics as well as some of the key components that make them work.

The Suwon, South Korea-based corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of flat screen televisions and the biggest producer of computer memory chips and liquid crystal displays. It ranks second behind Finland's Nokia Corp. in mobile phones.

South Korean business leaders welcomed Lee's return.

"I think it's a good decision for him to come back to the business because he is the leader of that business and he has been the person to pull Samsung up (to where it is) today," Park Yongmaan, chairman and CEO of Doosan Corp., South Korea's oldest conglomerate with a history going back to 1896, told The Associated Press. "Samsung is a global company and it certainly has to have management stability."

But questions about Samsung's corporate governance and its influence in South Korean society due to its size have long cast a shadow over its success.

"I think it's a very pivotal point in Samsung's history right now," said Kim Joongi, a professor at Yonsei Law School in Seoul.

"I think they really have to transform themselves to demonstrate to the markets that they've really turned a corner in terms of transparency, accountability and integrity," Kim said. "Because there is a considerable question mark as to whether they've been able to really reinvent themselves after this very embarrassing episode."

Lee is just the most recent of a number of influential captains of industry to be pardoned. Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo received one in 2008 after a conviction for embezzlement. Two other prominent business leaders received similar amnesties at the same time.

Critics have said judges in South Korea are too tolerant of crimes committed by heads of the largely family-controlled industrial conglomerates, known as chaebol.

Investors appeared to take the news positively, pushing shares in Samsung Electronics 1.2 percent higher to close at 819,000 won. The company's stock price soared 77 percent last year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100324/ap_on_bi_ge/as_skorea_samsung;_ylt=Audq808cG7h3z.A7l2wRqt4jtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTJtNm5wZGFxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzI0L2FzX3Nrb3JlYV9zYW1zdW5nBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN5bl9hcnRpY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDZm9ybWVyc2Ftc3Vu

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Report: NKorea has medium-range missile division

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking US forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said Tuesday.

The report came as North Korea is stepping up its war rhetoric against the US and South Korea after the allies started their annual drills Monday aimed at improving their defense capabilities.

The North's People's Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) that it had developed in recent years, Yonhap news agency reported citing an unidentified South Korean government source.

The missiles could pose a threat to US forces in Japan, Guam and other Pacific areas that are to be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula, Yonhap said.

The report, however, didn't provide further details like how many missiles the new division possesses and where they are positioned.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it couldn't confirm the Yonhap report. However, a ministry document published last year showed that the North deployed a new type medium-range missile believed to the same type it displayed during a military parade in 2007.

If confirmed, the division's launch could suggest that the North has succeeded in developing more medium-range missiles since 2007 and it needed a bigger unit to manage them, said Ohm Tae-am of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

The division's "primary role is to contain the reinforcements of US troops" in the Pacific to the Korean peninsula as its missiles put US bases in Japan and Guam within striking distances, Baek Seung-joo of the same institute said.

North Korea's missile program is a major regional security concern, along with its nuclear weapons development program. Last year, the North conducted a prohibited long-range rocket test and later detonated a nuclear device, inviting worldwide condemnation and tighter U.N. sanctions.

On Tuesday, the North continued its salvo against the US and South Korea over their military drills that the regime has long slammed as a rehearsal for invasion.

"This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It said the North will continue its nuclear capability as long as the US military threats persist.

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