Seoul - At least seven people have died in several days of storms and heavy rain sweeping across South Korea, with a further six people still missing, local media reports said Saturday.

The district of Bonghwa in North Kyongsang province, the hardest- hit area, saw four people killed and four missing, including a 77- year-old woman and her 54-year-old daughter crushed by a crumbling rail bridge.

Seoul - South Korea's economy grew 0.8 per cent from the first quarter to the second quarter as robust exports made up for a drop in consumer spending, the central bank said Friday.

The gross domestic product saw a 4.8-per-cent increase from 2007's second quarter, down from the 5.8-per-cent jump between 2007's and 2008's first quarters, the Bank of Korea said.

Exports of goods, which account for about 40 per cent of South Korea's GDP, rose 3.7 per cent in the second quarter from the quarter before after falling 1.3 per cent in the first quarter.

Seoul - Six people were killed in a fire early Friday in a 10-storey boardinghouse in the city of Yongin, 40 kilometres south of Seoul, local media reported.

Four people were injured in the fire, and some are in critical condition, according to Yonhap news agency.

The fire broke out at 1:20 am on the ninth floor of the residential building as guests were sleeping. Inhalation of toxic gas was believed to have caused the deaths, reported Yonhap from police sources.

Seoul - Shares surged 2.2 per cent Thursday on

Seoul - The South Korean semiconductor manufacturer Hynix plans to close a factory in the US state of Oregon by the end of September because of a steep decline in the price of memory chips, the co

Seoul  - South Korean concern LG Electronics posted profits for the second quar