Seoul - Ailing South Korean automaker SsangYong Motor Co is to receive 45 million dollars from its Chinese top shareholder Shanghai Automotive Industry (SAIC) Motor Corp, the company said Monday.

The measure showed SAIC's determination to keep the SUV maker going, SsangYong said. Also the company received an order for 2,000 cars and minivans from SAIC.

SAIC holds a 51-per-cent stake in cash-strapped SsangYong, which had been hit hard as car sales dropped at home and abroad. In 2008, sales of the smallest of South Korea's five automakers dropped by 29.9 per cent to 92,665 units.

Seoul  - Opposition lawmakers and security guards clashed in South Korea's parliament on Saturday during a sit-in by the members of parliament (MPs) and their supporters, according to media reports.

A scuffle erupted as more than 150 guards tried to clear the main meeting room of the National Assembly in Seoul of several lawmakers and their supporters.

The official Yonhap news agency said one MP and about 20 aides and guards were lightly injured.

Seoul  - Shares surged 2.9 per ce

Seoul  - South Korea on Friday posted its first trade deficit since 1997, as exports nosedived in November and December because of shrinking foreign demand, officials said.

Exports in 2008 grew 13.7 per cent to 422.4 billion dollars, the sixth year double-digit growth in a row, despite a sharp drop in the last two months of the year. Imports rose by 21.5 per cent to 435.4 billion dollars, leading to a trade deficit of 13 billion dollars, the Economy Ministry said.

Seoul - North Korea will use parliamentary in 2009 to prepare the country for the time after Kim Jong Il, South Korean analysts of the Stalinist state said Wednesday.

Pyongyang was likely to hold parliamentary elections to the Supreme People's Assembly in July or August 2009, the official Yonhap news agency and the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said, quoting a report by the Insitute for National Security Strategy.

The institute is the research arm of the South Korean intelligence service.

Seoul - A North Korean family of four managed to flee the Stalinist state's strongly-guarded sea border with South Korea in a wooden boat, news reports said Wednesday.

The refugees were picked up late Tuesday near the South Korean coastal town of Inchon, three hours after leaving the North Korean port of Haeju on the western coast, the official KBS radio station reported, quoting South Korean navy sources.

The family - a husband and wife, their son and daughter-in-law -said they wanted to stay in South Korea. The refugees were being questioned by army officials, the report said.