Korea's February 1 headlines

- In the weekly briefing, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said the government’s goal in the upcoming multinational talks is not to turn the situation back to before 2002, but to scrap North Korea’s all nuclear programs.

- Samsung Electronics’ export volume passed $50bn last year for the first time as a Korean company.

- The government announced another sets of real estate measures which include expanding the number of long-term leased public apartment to 3.4m by 2017 and establishing W90 tr worth of fund by 2019.

- The six party talks scheduled to be held next week will run for 3-4 days.

- Online frauds using bank accounts under other people’s name are reported to be increasing.

- A Seoul high court ruled for the first time that illegally staying foreign workers should be allowed to form a labor union.

- GNP representative Chung Hyung-keun argued that “as far as I know, President Roh, despite his denial, is in talks with the North regarding a summit meeting possibly to hold on August 15.” He added he heard the intelligence from a “credible source.”

- The RFA reported that human trafficking victims in China are in most cases found to be North Korean women.

- Hallyu, Korean Wave, is said to be sweeping through North Korea as well, which causes a headache to the regime. A South Korean government official said “there are increasing testimonies from North Korean defectors that amid mounting South Korean dramas coming to the North, young people who don’t watch them are often ‘ostracized’ by their peers” The North regime is said to be pains at fending off ‘outside culture.’

- A recent poll by the paper shows Lee Myung-bak(46.4%) to lead with a wide margin in the popularity rating among presidential hopefuls, followed by Park Geun-hye (20%), and Shon Hak-kyu (5.8%).