Portal sites headlines

- Korea Art and Culture Organization, a profit –making company, is reported to misappropriate W150 million donations it received from a big company for organizing a cheering event during Korea and Togo football game. The company is reported to have used the money for paying the salary for its employees.

- Kim Kwang-hyun, who is believed to be involved in abducting Kim Young-nam and currently lives in Seoul, didn’t come to work on the day when Kim Young-nam met his mother. He goes to work today but strongly rejects an interview request.
He was picked as a special North Korean agent in 1965 and said to have abducted Kim Young-nam to the North. He said in an interview in April, “I only worked in a ship and the abduction was carried out by a special force. I don’t even know the face of Kim Young-nam. But anyway I helped the kidnapping operation so I feel really sorry for parents who lost their child.” He was arrested in 1980 by South Korean police during a secret infiltration mission off the west coast of Korea.

- If you have long-overdue, unpaid mobile phone bill, you will get penalized when you get a job or take a loan from a bank. Korean telecom companies are considering the introduction of a system under which telecom companies can report people with unpaid bills for more than 13 months to credit information institutions so that the person becomes registered as ‘Person on the Credit Black List.’

- The prosecution raided this morning into Korean Exchange Bank main office in Uljiro and seized documents related to the 2003 KEB sale to Lone Star. The CEO room of the bank and former KEB CEO’ Lee Kang-won’s house were also searched.
- Cheong Wa Dae will announce a new national tax commissioner as early as possible. Cheon Gun-pyo is likely to succeed Lee Ju-sung.

- From next January, the minimum wage is set to increase to W3,480 per hour and W27,840 per day, 12.3 per cent up from an existing wage.