other important headlines September 4

- Reuters and AFP quoted a US defense official as saying “there was no sign spotted, indicating another missile launch in the Kittaeryung missile launch pad in North Korea.”

- It was reported that US President Bush will announce at the end of this month a set of economic sanctions measures against North Korea. The measures will, however, within the framework of UN resolution adopted after the regime’s firing of seven long and medium range missiles in July.

- KOTRA announced this morning that Korean government’s homepage ranked No.1 among 198 countries worldwide followed by Taiwan, Singapore, and the US, in “Global E-Government 2006” by US Brown University which studied the level of convenience of government websites. Meanwhile North Korea stands at 17th in the evaluation, seeing its rank skyrocketing from the last year’s 183rd among 198 countries.

- Korea’s 200-member FTA negotiation team will fly to the US this afternoon to attend the third rounds of negotiation which is slated to be held for three days in Seattle.

- The result of prosecutors’ investigation into the defamation lawsuit filed by Korea’s famous actress Kim Tae-hee against a netizen will be out this week. The netizen is accused of floating groundless rumors that the actress is going to get married to Chung Yong-jin, vice-president of Shinsegye and former husband of Miss Korea Pageant winner-turned-actress Ko Hyun-jung.

- The average apartment price in Seoul amounts to W420 m, up by W55.82m from the average price of W363 m at the time of government’s 8.31 property measures announcement. The Kangnam–gu saw the biggest leap in the price, followed by Seocho-gu, Songpa-gu, and Youngsan-gu.

- A prison university, designed to provide inmates with social and job skills, is reported not to quite run according to its original purposes. Inmates from organized crime groups are taking by force all merits such as scholarship and other powerless inmates are forced to do gang members’ homework or report. Also cheating is prevalent and professors are reported to turn a blind eye to it.

- Male cosmetics market is growing more than 20 per cent annually as the increasing number of appearance-conscious man spends chunk of their time in adorning themselves.