Seoul - The German solar energy firm Conergy has signed a 29.8-million-dollar agreement to extend a South Korean solar energy plant which is already Asia's largest, the company said Wednesday.

The 19.6 megawatt capacity plant at Sinan in the south-west of the country became fully operational in June and will be expanded by 4.35mw by the end of the year.

When completed, the plant will cover an area of 720,000 square metres, equivalent to 96 football fields and produce 33,000mw hours of electricity, or enough to supply 
7,200 households.

Seoul - North Korea said it will expel all "unnecessary" South Koreans from a mountain resort on the east coast of the communist country, the official North Korean news agency reported Saturday.

"The measure of expelling personnel of the South side unnecessary in the tourist area of Mount Kumgang shall take effect from August 10," the North's official KCNA news agency cited a military official as saying.

Seoul - Shares jumped 2.8 per cent Wednesday on the

Seoul - US President George W Bush met Wednesday in Seoul with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and called for North Korea to meet its denuclearization pledge.

"I'm concerned about its uranium enrichment activities as well as its nuclear testing and proliferation, its ballistic missile programs," Bush at a news conference after meeting with Lee.

"The best way to approach and answer those concerns is for there to be strong verification measures," Bush said.

Washington - US President George W Bush heads to Asia later Monday for a seven-day journey that will take him to South Korea, Thailand - where he is to deliver a major policy speech and liaise with Myanmar dissidents - and finally China for the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics.

Bush was to arrive Tuesday in Seoul, where he will meet with President Lee Myung Bak, who visited the US in March at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. The two men are marking the 55th anniversary of US-South Korean ties.

Seoul - South Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo Sook was barred Friday from returning to human stem-cell research, two years after a scandal over manipulated data in studies in which Hwang had claimed to be the first to clone human stem cells.

The Health, Welfare and Family Affairs Ministry in Seoul said it rejected the application of Hwang's research lab to begin such research.

"The decision was made as Hwang still stands on trial on charges that he violated the nation's bioethical laws and was fired from his school for paper fabrication and other unethical problems in obtaining eggs in relation to his research on stem cells in 2006," the ministry said.