Other interesting headlines

- As for arresting of union leadership involved in the Posco illegal strike, Bae Sung-won, director of Pohang division of Korean Federation of Trade Unions, strongly complained about the government’s measure and said the government broke its promise not to arrest strikers as long as they voluntarily disbanded.

- Kim Byong-joon, Education Minister, is found out that he plagiarized the doctorate thesis of his students and submitted it to a conference in 1988 when he was a professor of Kookmin Univesirty, raising serious doubts on his moral and consciousness as a scholar.

- Lieutenant-colonel Park Young-hee was dispatched July 9 to the Korean Zaytun Division in Iraq as a staff officer in charge of troop information and education, for the first time as a female solider. Currently 39 female soldiers are serving in the division, who run classes for illiterate local women and children and help them find employable skills.

- The government decides to set up a “Korea-US FTA Supporting Committee’ and tentatively appoints Han Duk-soo as a commissioner. Cheong Wa Dae Press Secretary Chung Tae-ho said in a briefing “regarding the Korea-US FTA negotiations, the committee will try to collect public opinions from all walks of life, encourage healthy debate, and dismiss splits of public opinion by providing the truth and correct information to the people.”

- As Kim Ok appears to be as the new first lady of North Korea, observers are getting interested in how she might affect the succession process within the regime. She has started working for Kim Jong-il in her 20s and is believed to know well about North Korean politics and power struggle. Whether there is a child between the two is not known, but she might exert influence on Kim not to hurriedly transfer power to one of his three sons.

- As the medical industry is struggling with 3,000 new doctors being churned out from university, doctors try to do anything to revive the performance of their hospitals. According to Korea Hospital Association, 8.1 per cent of hospitals shut down in 2004 due to miserable performance. Some look for good places to move and even go to a fortune teller to get advice. Others even go under the knife to change their conservative images and look young and nice to their patients.

- Dong-a pharmaceutical’s Bacchusd, the most popular invigorating drink among Koreans, has been sold over 15.2 bn since it was first introduced in 1961.
- Among government agencies, Industrial Bank is reported to give the highest average salary with W85.4 m. The average salary of Financial Supervisory Service is W75.4 m while Bank of Korea gives W69.7 m.