Theresa Kim Hwa-young

Bank of Korea report warns that costs of reunification could top US$ 900 billion. Instead, new areas of economic cooperation should be set up to reduce the gap between the two sides.

Farmers and lawmakers fear trade liberalisation would kill thousands of jobs in industry but especially in agriculture.

Mr Ban Ki-moon goes to Washington for the first time since becoming the UN’s boss. In the US capital he agrees both his organisation and US share the same objectives: peace, democracy and freedom.

Taken to North Korea in 1975, he escaped on the night of December 25. At the age of 67 he is now back home. however, about a thousand other South Koreans are still held in the North.

Director of US National Intelligence John Negroponte states North Korea and Iran represent greatest threat to US and Japanese stability.

In his first news conference, the new UN secretary general calls for greater collective involvement in solving crises like the North Korea stand-off, Sudan, Middle East, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. He states his first policy goals as the UN calls on the Iraqi president to suspend death sentences.

The new foreign affairs minister of Seoul talked about the issue in his first official press conference. South Korea is ready to use its privileged ties with Pyongyang and Washington to try to reach a peaceful solution.

Hwang Woo-suk, disgraced after his fake experiments on embryonic stem cells, claimed that he could produced cloned cells "to measure" within six months, starting out from embryonic stem cells.

This was revealed in a survey commissioned by the Health Ministry of Seoul that is doing its utmost to make the country aware of the serious consequences of an extremely low birth rate and aging population.

The restoration of Shingye temple, destroyed during the 1950 war, had been foreseen in the joint declaration signed by Seoul and Pyongyang in 2000.

A South Korean defence expert said the only way out of the crisis sparked by Pyongyang's nuclear test was to match North Korean escalation. Tokyo said it had the right to self-defence, even through nuclear means.

A report by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency said around 6,000 small South Korean companies had left because of restrictive decisions taken by Beijing. Their preferred destination for relocation is Vietnam.