[News Briefing] S. Korea proposed summit with N. Korea, WikiLeaks reports

Posted on : 2010-11-30 13:45 KST Modified on : 2010-11-30 13:45 KST

South Korea contacted North Korea for an inter-Korean summit late last year, a U.S. diplomatic cable showed Tuesday.
The cable, first obtained by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and released by the Guardian and the New York Times reveals that Kim Sung-hwan, then-national security adviser to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and current Foreign Minister, and Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Easy Asian and Pacific affairs discussed the issue on Feb. 3.
According to the cable, the talks failed because Seoul rejected Pyongyang’s demand for economic aid as a precondition.
The context of the diplomatic cable is as follows.
“During a February 3 meeting with Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, on prospects for a North-South summit, ROK National Security Adviser Kim Sung-hwan clarified remarks that President Lee made in an interview with the BBC in Davos. Kim said that, beginning last fall, the ROK has had contact with the DPRK about a summit. The North, however, has demanded that Seoul provide a certain amount of economic aid prior to any summit. That precondition was unacceptable, Kim stressed, noting that the Blue House had emphasized to the ROK press this week that President Lee would never ‘buy’ a summit with the North.”
   
KBS provides subtitles in four foreign languages   
South Korea’s national broadcaster KBS said Monday it will provide multi-lingual subtitles for its television programs through the Internet or Video on Demand services to reach out to the growing international residents in the country and multi-cultural families.
Starting Tuesday, subtitles in English, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese will be provided for 2,009 previous and ongoing KBS dramas, documentaries, and entertainment shows, including “Star Golden Bell,” “A Chat With Beauties: Female Foreigners Speaking Korean,” the broadcaster said in a press release.
The audience can change the subtitles while watching a program and look up words in an electronic dictionary provided by the multi-lingual service.
 
Foot-and-mouth disease returns after two months 
The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service confirmed an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease Monday, in two months after it gained the status clear of the disease, saying that it inspected the previous day two pig farms in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, and the test on the disease turned out to be positive.
The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ordered North Gyeongsang government to restrict the movement of people and livestock in the area where the disease broke out, according to the guidelines. Some 23,000 animals within a 3-kilometer radius from the two farms, designated as a dangerous area, will be slaughtered as well as some 21,000 animals raised in the two farms.

Major banks win the KIKO lawsuits
The Seoul Central District Court Monday ordered financial institutions to pay damages to 19 of the 118 corporate plaintiffs for their failure to provide sufficient notifications on the potential risks of KIKO contracts, dismissing most of the complaints filed against financial institutions for selling “knock-in, knock-out” (KIKO) currency derivative contracts to domestic small and mid-size companies.
In the protracted legal dispute of 141 lawsuits filed by 118 firms demanding reparations from the major financial institutions, including Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, Korea Exchange Bank and SC First Bank, that had unfairly profited from selling the speculative derivative contracts, the court ruled that in most cases it did not find evidence that the structure of the KIKO contracts was unfair or violated regulations.
  
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