other important headlines_Nov 2

- President Roh is said to have talked to Rohsamo members in August that he would continue working for the government after his term expires. “I have been working very hard to enhance Korea’s press, politics, and environment to the levels of developed countries and I won’t give up those issues when my term as president expires.”

- The number of mobile phone subscribers is expected to be over 40 m within this year. The number as of the end of October stood at 39.8m, up by 0.16m from a month ago. An industry expert says “I expect the number to pass W40m within this month or next month given the recent trend.”

- Democratic Labor party members who are visiting North Korea are scheduled to meet Kim Young-nam, President of the Supreme People's Assembly, tomorrow. The DLP source said, “the exact time and attendants, however, have not been decided yet.”

- A job portal site Career polled 5,663 job seekers and found out that Kepco (40.4%) is the most popular company among government-run companies, SK Telecom (51.7%) among information technology companies, and Kookmin bank (35.8%) in the banking sector, Samsung Electronics (51.5%) in electronics, and Posco Construction (21.8%) in the construction field.

- Samsung Corporation’s planned sell-off of Samsung Plaze Bundang faces fierce opposition from employees and the company decided to push back the announcement of preferred bidder to next week in order to have more conversation with its employees. Aekyung is believed to offer the highest price for the take-over but employees strongly against the buyout by Aekyung.


- Former Kyunggi governor Shon Hak-kyu attacked Lee Myung-bak saying a government-led development system in the 1960-80s should be thoroughly reviewed. His remark is understood to aim at Lee’s project of ‘Korean peninsula canal,’ which is one of Lee’s election pledges in the next presidential election.

- According to parliamentary audit sources, the court has received a total of 225 divorce complaints from North Korean defectors since 2003. But only eight cases have been resolved while 217 cases (98.4 per cent) have not. The reason behind the late process is due to the current law under which a spouse who is practically responsible for the break-up can’t file a divorce lawsuit.

- The national tax office decided to levy a 250 bn tax on the KEB as a result of tax probe into the bank. A person close to the matter said “the agency notified the bank that it should pay tax of W250bn for corporation tax exemption it received during the merge process of the KEB Card.”

- Kim Soo-hyun, presidential secretary for social policy said the 8.31 real estate policy has failed and he was one of the masterminds of the policy.