South Korea

Dealing a blow to a major Western Maryland manufacturer, the U.S. International Trade Commission decided not to slap tariffs on cheaper Asian paper imports. The 5-1 decision to overturn a decision by the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on coated and glossy paper from China, Indonesia and South Korea could have repercussions for NewPage Corp.'s Luke paper mill, with 950 employees the largest manufacturing plant in Allegany County. NewPage had filed the complaint seeking punitive tariffs, claiming the imports were being illegally subsidized and sold at unfairly low prices.

SEOUL, South Korea -- Under normal circumstances, South Korean presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak's overwhelming lead in the polls would leave him coasting to victory in December's election. Instead, he sees nothing but land mines on the path to power - from a threatened late entry of a heavyweight challenger to the possibility that he soon might be under investigation for financial fraud. Lee won a bitterly contested race to become the nominee of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP)

The Naval Academy has agreed to temporarily return a Korean flag captured by Marines in an obscure 1871 battle, in response to requests from a South Korean cultural delegation that visited Annapolis this year. "It will mean a great deal to Koreans when they see this flag come back," Thomas Duvernay, a professor of English and Korean history at Handong Global University in Pohang, South Korea, said in a telephone interview. "This flag is like Old Glory or the Liberty Bell." The giant banner is scheduled to reach Seoul on Oct. 19, he said, and three days later it will be unveiled at a news conference before being displayed in the city's National Palace Museum.

Some people just go to the grocery store and buy food. Others read the labels to make sure that what they're getting has the ingredients they're looking for. When it comes to mutual funds, however, labels can be a bit deceiving, and they can change. The results can leave an investor queasy. It may be a bit hard to follow - and there's no question that the story is a bit technical - but one indication of this is that many experts expect South Korea this week to be moved from the ranks of "emerging markets" into the higher ground of "developed nation."

WASHINGTON -- An announcement that North Korea has agreed to reveal and disable its nuclear programs by the end of this year represents progress on one of the Bush administration's few major diplomatic initiatives. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, announced yesterday in Geneva that North Korea had agreed during two days of talks to reveal all its nuclear programs and disable them by Dec. 31. "One thing that we agreed on is that the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]

PHILADELPHIA -- We all know the famous phrase of philosopher George Santayana, who warned: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But those who raise false historical analogies may harm their cause as much as the memory-challenged. Such is the case with President Bush, who last week compared Iraq to Japan, South Korea - and Vietnam. We are engaged in a national debate of huge importance over how to rescue our Iraq policy from pending disaster. Republican stalwarts, whose support may be fraying, are mostly willing to back Mr. Bush's call to "stay the course," while the Democratic base believes we must leave Iraq as soon as possible.

SEOUL, South Korea -- Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency have confirmed that North Korea has shut down its weapons-making nuclear reactor, the agency said yesterday. But the communist North warned the United States that the real bargaining for its nuclear disarmament has just begun. North Korea told the United States over the weekend that it had shut down the nuclear reactor and had readmitted a permanent international inspection team. The confirmation of that claim yesterday by the International Atomic Energy Agency makes official a hard-won, yet fragile, diplomatic victory for the Bush administration.

SEOUL, South Korea -- The chief U.S. nuclear envoy, returning from the first visit to North Korea by a ranking U.S. official in five years, said yesterday that Pyongyang had assured him it was ready to shut down its main nuclear reactor and would ultimately disable it. In the course of a two-day trip, Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, met with his counterpart, Kim Key Gwan, and Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun....

WASHINGTON -- Ten years ago this month, a financial crisis began in Asia and quickly spread, rocking economies and triggering political upheavals around the globe. Today, Asian economies are again growing quickly as stock prices shoot to record highs. Some are wondering: Could there be another meltdown? While economists say government actions can never entirely banish bubbles, many believe reforms are in place to prevent the latest regional boom from ending with the kind of bust seen in 1997.

The battle rates as barely a footnote in history, but the U.S. military had scored a decisive victory that would become a part of Marine Corps lore. The proof: a giant yellow and blue flag, used to rally a band of soldiers, "tiger hunters" and peasants in a futile effort to repel a powerful American force that sacked a Korean citadel in 1871. The flag has been on display for decades at the Naval Academy, one of more than 100 seized from conflicts large and small.