Retail investors' turnover in South Korea's stock market reached a six-year high in 2015, apparently boosted by low interest rates and efforts to search for high-yield investment tools, data showed Friday.   The investors took up 67.6 percent of the daily turnover of 8.88 trillion won ($7.54 billion) on the main bourse and the secondary Kosdaq market last year, the highest since 67.7 percent tallied in 2009, the Korea Exchange data showed.   Their portion has been on a constant decline, reaching

Jan. 1, 2016

Authorities in southern China have formally arrested 11 people for their role in a landslide unleashed at construction waste dump last month that killed 12 people and left 62 others missing and presumed dead.    Prosecutors in the southern city of Shenzhen said in a statement late Thursday that a dispatcher and supervisor of the landfill, the chief and deputy manager of a company in charge of the landfill, and seven other people were arrested.    In the Dec. 20 disaster, a mountain of constructi

World News Jan. 1, 2016

Europe welcomed in the New Year on high security alert, with Munich stations evacuated over an imminent terror threat and fireworks cancelled in Paris and Brussels, while a huge fire ripped through a Dubai hotel.   German police warned people to stay away from two of Munich's railway stations and avoid large gatherings after "indications that a terror attack" was being planned by Islamists in the southern German city.   Authorities said early Friday the threat involved a suspected suicide bomb a

World News Jan. 1, 2016

German officials said Friday they had information indicating the Islamic State group was planning a suicide bomb attack on New Year's Eve in the southern city of Munich.   "The Federal Criminal Authority informed Bavarian police... of indications provided by a friendly intelligence service that the IS was planning an attack tonight at midnight at Munich main rail station and/or Pasing station," interior minister for the southern state of Bavaria Joachim Herrmann said.    Munich police chief Hube

World News Jan. 1, 2016

A gauge of Chinese factory activity  ticked up slightly in December but continued to indicate contraction for a  fifth straight month, official data showed Friday, underlining weakness in the  world's second-largest economy.   China is a key driver of global growth and investors closely watch the Purchasing Managers' Index -- which tracks activity in the factories and workshops sector -- as a barometer of the country's economic health.   The mild improvement follows a string of stimulus measures

World Business Jan. 1, 2016

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plans to deliver his New Year’s address at 12:30 p.m., later than in previous years, Pyongyang's state media said Friday.   Kim's New Year’s message will be announced at noon (Pyongyang Time), the North's Korean Central Television said without elaborating. Usually, the North’s leader delivers his message early in the morning on the first day of the new year.   It also did not clarify whether Kim will deliver a verbal message.   Since 2013, Kim has issued a verbal

North Korea Jan. 1, 2016

An organization of Korean Americans in Los Angeles plans to stage a campaign to send emails to California's government in support of new school curriculum guidelines calling for teaching students about Japan's wartime sexual slavery, an official said Thursday.   California's Department of Education has been collecting comments from the public on the 2014-2016 Draft History-Social Science Framework that includes the so-called "comfort women" issue in the world history curriculum for grade 10.   "

Defense Jan. 1, 2016

A major shift in North Korea's policy toward South Korea could suggest that Pyongyang's top negotiator with Seoul, Kim Yang-gon, could have died by causes other than a car crash, a U.S. expert said Thursday.   The North announced Wednesday that the 73-year-old Kim died in a traffic accident, a cause that immediately raised doubts as some other top officials have died similar deaths in a nation known for scant traffic, including the 2003 death of Kim Yong-sun, who was also in charge of inter-Kore

Defense Jan. 1, 2016