Local paper headlines August 30

1. Chosun Ilbo

- Grand National Party’s planned meeting aimed at urging the government to stop pursuing wartime command transfer was botched due to internal disputes and lack of party members’ participation. The party leadership is supposed to issue a statement that Korea and the US should stop discussing the transfer and rather come up with a blueprint for stronger Korea-US alliance.

- A research by Seoul National University shows that the birth rate is lower in areas with high unemployment rate.

- Stuart A. Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said North Korea is financially isolated more than ever as many countries follow US-led economic sanctions on the regime.

- Prime Group is named as a preferred bidder in the takeover of DongA Construction Co. The price tag will be around W650 bn- 700bn.

2. Maeil Business Daily

- SK Telecom is to help China develop 3G mobile technology standard known as TD-SCDMA and signed a preliminary contract with China’s National Development and Reform Commission yesterday.

- Korea’s big electronics companies won a series of international patent lawsuits, which demonstrates that Korean companies have obtained high-level of technology. LG Electronics won a patent lawsuit filed by Whirlpool while Samsung Electronics received a court ruling that Samsung didn’t infringe on Matsushita’s patent on D-ram.