Seoul - Shares were sharply up Mo

Seoul - South Korea on Sunday welcomed the US government decision to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, saying the move promised important progress towards resolving the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

South Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Sook said he now expected the case to be that North Korea would soon resume work to dismantle its controversial nuclear facilities.

London, Oct. 11 : India, South Korea and Taiwan should join the global trend and immediately establish a moratorium on the death penalty, the rights group Amnesty International has said.

In an appeal to mark World Day Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty said these three nations had stopped executing criminals in recent years and should make that move official, setting an example for the rest of Asia.

Seoul - A South Korean appeals court on Friday upheld the tax-evasion conviction and suspended three-year prison sentence for the former chairman of the Samsung Group, Lee Kun Hee.

The Seoul High Court reaffirmed the 110-billion-won (80-million-dollar) fine levelled against Lee, 66, at his sentencing in July and also confirmed his acquittal on breach of trust charges.

Lee, once the most powerful tycoon in South Korea, was accused of being responsible for dubious stock transactions in the mid-1990s that were designed to illegally transfer powers at Samsung to his only son, Lee Jae Yong.

Both courts found the elder Lee guilty of evading taxes on profits made in the stock trades.

Seoul - Shares nosedived Friday on the Seoul stock exchange on persistent concerns over a global economic recession, following losses in the US market. South Korea's won soared against the dollar after highly volatile trading.

The benchmark Kospi index fell 53.42 points, or 4.1 per cent, to close at 1,241.47.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers 758 to 104.

The main index of the technology-heavy Kosdaq market fell 19.56 points to 350.28.

Hanoi - A South Korean condiments manufacturer is disputing media claims that it violated Vietnamese environmental laws, company officials said Thursday.

Several Vietnamese newspapers Thursday ran stories accusing South Korean-owned Miwon Vietnam of intentionally discharging wastewater into the Red River.

The newspapers said Miwon's substandard treatment system had pumped out about 150 cubic metres of wastewater per day since late 2007.

The company admitted to dumping wastewater beyond legal limits and said it had voluntarily reported the amount of discharges to government authorities.

The charges were unfair, the firm said, when it was working to solve the problem.