Laser in situ keratomileusis and laser epithelial keratomileusis, both myopia correctional treatments, are effective and safer than many people think, the National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency said Wednesday. According to its research of 2,638 people who have received these eyesight-correctional treatments between 2002 and 2004, about 95.2 percent of LASIK patients and 90.3 per...

SANDWICH, England (AFP) ― Choi Kyung-ju believes the demanding conditions at this week’s British Open can level the playing field to the benefit of the Asian contingent at Royal St. Georges. The veteran Korean star, riding high after his victory at the Players Championship in May, is preparing for a searching examination of his talents on the wind-swept 7,211-yard, par-70 layout. “The condition...

Woori Finance Holdings Co., South Korea’s No. 2 banking group, ranked 72nd last year on the list of the world’s 1,000 largest lenders by core capital, the highest spot among local lenders, the central bank said Wednesday. A total of nine South Korean banks made the list last year, the same number as the year before, the Bank of Korea said in a report based on the July edition of The Banker magaz...

CJ O Shopping said Wednesday that its Chinese joint venture launched its second home shopping channel in China and started digital broadcasts. Dongbang CJ, the joint venture with Shanghai Media Group in China, has acquired channel number 20 and broadcasts its home shopping programs digitally around the clock to 2.5 million digital cable TV viewers in Shanghai, according to CJ O Shopping, formerl...

Korea’s money supply grew at the slowest clip in more than seven years in May as the government’s tax receipt rose and foreign stock funds flowed out of the country, the central bank said Wednesday. The country’s M2, a narrow measure of its money supply, reached 1,690.5 trillion won ($1,587 trillion) in May, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea. The May number slow...

LG Display Co., the world’s second-largest maker of liquid crystal display panels, will likely break ground on a new plant in China before December, an industry source said Wednesday. The company pushed back an initial plan to start construction of its eighth generation LCD plant in Guangzhou during the first half of this year, as panel prices continued to trend downwards. Despite the downturn ...

TOKYO (AFP) ― Support for the cabinet of Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has plunged to 15 percent, the lowest level since his center-left party took power in 2009, a newspaper poll said Tuesday. Seventy percent of voters want Kan ― under pressure over his handling of the March 11 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster ― to resign before parliament enters a recess late next month, said the Asahi S...

Korea’s imports of pork and beef surged in the first half of the year from a year earlier due to the spread of foot-and-mouth disease that led to the culling of millions of animals here, a state agency said Tuesday. South Korea imported 219,681 tons of pork in the January-June period, up 120 percent from 99,899 tons a year earlier, according to the Animal, Plant and Fisheries Quarantine and Insp...