Maekyung headlines

- Due to flexible tax rates for property, some expensive apartments in Gangnam area pay less property tax than cheaper region. Each ward can autonomously apply different property tax rates within the range of 10-50 per cent.

- As early as next month, it will be easier to build a small-scale plant with less than 3027 pyong in land earmarked for farmland.

- Naver, the biggest portal site by user number, crashed on Sunday morning for 5 hours. The company blamed network equipment error provided by IBM Korea, IT service provider, for the cause of crash.

- Many provincial cities are having a major city development plan. Spurred by Seoul’s development plans in Gangbuk area such as Cheongyecheon and new town projects, other cities such as Seongnam, Pusan, Incheon to say the least are trying to follow suit.

- North Korea’s deposit freezed at Macao Bank is believed to be around $24 M and some suspect the money might be Kim Jong Il’s personal management budget. It is also said that Kim has said there would be no concession made for the US and ordered his subordinates to get the money back no matter what.