hankyoreh

North Korea and South Korea agreed to hold working-level military talks on Feb. 8 in Panmunjom, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.
The ministry said in a press release that South Korea accepted in a reply message to the North's proposing the new date for the preliminary talks that would be their first dialogue since the North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island last November.

College graduate unemployment records all-time high
The number of jobless college graduates totaled 346,000 last year, Statistics Korea said Tuesday. It is the highest ever since the agency began compiling data on unemployment in 2000.
The number, remained between 220,000 and 250,000 from 2000 to 2008, skyrocketed to 321,000 in 2009 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. According to the data, the number of jobs at public organizations or big corporations, which are favored by college graduates, decreased from 4.12 million in 1995 to 3.72 million in 2008. In contrast, the college entrance rate in the country saw a remarkable increase from 51.4 percent of high school graduates in 1995 to 83.8 percent in 2008.
The number of jobless people with lower education, however, decreased to 420,000 last year from 437,000 in 2009.

Bad loans of domestic banks surge to six-year high
The non-performing loans among the 18 domestic banks hit a six-year high last year, the Financial Supervisory Service said Tuesday.
The bad loans, defined as overdue for three months or more, amounted to 24.4 trillion Won (21.8 billion) at the end of last year, an increase of 8.4 trillion Won from a year earlier. In particular, the amount of problematic PF loans rose from 1.2 trillion Won in Dec. 2009 to 6.2 trillion Won last December. The amount of bad loans in last December accounted for 1.86 percent of the total loans, the highest since 2004 when the bad loan ratio was 1.90 percent due to the 2003 credit card crisis.
But, the amount at the end of the fourth quarter last year was lower than in the previous quarter as banks sold or wrote off some bad loans.
By bank, Woori Bank, topped the list at 5.4 trillion Won, followed by Kookmin Bank at 3.6 trillion Won, Shinhan Bank at 2 trillion Won and Hana Bank at 1.6 trillion Won.

S. Korea 4th biggest provider of adopted children for U.S.: State Dept.
South Korea was the fourth biggest source of children adopted in the United States last year even as the Seoul government encourages domestic adoption of orphans due to low birthrates, the U.S. Department of State said Tuesday.
As many as 863 South Korean children found new families in the U.S. last year, the department's report on 2010 Inter-country Adoption said.
China was the biggest provider of children in 2010, with 3,401, followed by Ethiopia (2,513) and Russia (1,082). U.S. families adopted 11,059 children from abroad last year, not including 1,100 Haitian children adopted after the devastating earthquake in the Caribbean island. A total of 43 American children were adopted abroad last year, with 19 children going to Canada and 18 to the Netherlands.
(Yonhap News Agency)

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