other important headlines_Nov 15

- A job portal site Career found out that 78.6 per cent of 1,133 office workers who responded to a poll have thought about getting plastic surgery for self-satisfaction and better impression to others, with 89.8 per cent among female workers and 62.1 per cent among male.

- In concert with government’s announcement of new property measures, National Tax Office is set to start rigorous tax probe into people suspected of evading property taxes. The agency is expected to announce a detailed plan today.

- Asking where the blind date partner comes from becomes increasingly a thing of the past among young generation. Old generation, however, still tend to prefer their offspring to get married to a person from the same hometown.

- Lexus is set to top in the list of best-selling foreign cars in Korea but the car price actually almost double Lexus sold in the US and Japan, which demonstrates ‘high-price marketing strategy’ still goes down well with luxury goods consumers. Toyota Korea said “the Korean car market is smaller in size compared to that of the US and Japan, and that is why Lexus is more expensive here.”

- Former president Kim Dae-jung expressed his hope for US’s softer stance toward North Korea as Democratic Party achieved a sounding victory in the mid-term elections. He lectured to Kongju University in Chungman “I hope the newly structured US Congress to peacefully solve North Korea’s nuclear problems by taking more reasonable and flexible attitudes.”

- Attending a seminar hosted by the GNP on Nov 6, Hwang Jang-yeop said “ in the eyes of China, Kim Jong-il is nothing more worth than just a blockage for ‘capitalistic free democracy’ flooding into China. In order to get rid of Kim’s regime, China should cut off its alliance with North Korea. When and if the US agrees with North Korea’s Chinese-type of market opening while not intervening into Chinese domestic affairs by refraining from asking China to accept more democratic value, North Korean problems will be solved.” Military pressure or economic sanctions on the regime can have some effect but only up to a point, and it is also not very likely that North Koreans stage any kind of upheaval by themselves since they are cut off from the outside world, he argued.

- Minority Democratic party leader tries to woo Shon Hak-kyu for political alliance, by saying that his belief that people with same thoughts and value should stay together didn’t change. He said on Nov 9 that the middle-of-the-road line the Democratic Party has been pursuing was shared by Mr. Shon.

- The Labor Ministry set to investigate the allegation that some of big hospitals asked newly-hired nurses to write a pledge not to marry and get pregnant for the next two years.

- Seoul National University might raise its enrollment fee for freshmen by up to 20 per cent to solve budget shortage.