Han Seung-Soo

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak Thursday named an economist as new prime minister and replaced five other ministers in his first major cabinet reshuffle since taking office 18 months ago. Chung Un-Chan, 63, an economics professor and former president of the prestigious Seoul National University, replaces Han Seung-Soo as prime minister, the presidential Blue House said. "The prime minister-designate, as an economist who has provided the Lee government with constructive policy ideas, will push forward pragmatic centrist policies," it said in a statement. Lee also named new chiefs of the ministries of defence, justice, knowledge economy, labour and gender equality. General Kim Tae-Young, current ... Read Full Story

South Korea's first space rocket blasted off successfully Tuesday, six days after a last-minute software glitch had halted a previous launch. Television pictures showed the first stage of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 separating from the second stage, less than five minutes after the rocket was launched at 5 pm (0800 GMT). The engines of the second stage were seen igniting and a satellite was successfully placed in orbit, according to media reports from the launch site at Goheung on the south coast. "The rocket was successfully launched. I congratulate our people," Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo said on TV. The project to put a ... Read Full Story

South Korea's military is looking to launch a cyber warfare command designed to fend off computer attacks from North Korea and other countries, officials said. The plan will be included in a military reform package to be presented to President Lee Myung-Bak, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. South Korea's military computer networks are under ever-growing cyber attack. The South's military security unit said in a report last month that every day the military counters an average of 10,450 hacking attempts and 81,700 computer virus infections. Experts say South Korea -- one of the world's most wired societies -- needs an integrated unit to ... Read Full Story

South Korea and the United States have agreed to cooperate in fighting cyber attacks against their defence networks from countries including China and North Korea, officials said Monday. The April 30 deal calls for an exchange of information on detecting and fighting cyber attacks against information systems used by the militaries of the two allies, the defence ministry said. At least once a year the two countries will hold a conference on joint readiness against computer hacking, it said. "The deal covers cyber attacks in general, including those from North Korea and China," a ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Last year ... Read Full Story

South Korea's government and ruling party agreed Monday on an extra budget worth 28.9 trillion won (20.5 billion dollars) to pull the economy back from the brink of recession, officials said. The agreement was announced after a meeting of top government and Grand National Party (GNP) officials, including Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo and GNP chairman Park Hee-Tae. "The government and the GNP shared a consensus on exerting greater fiscal efforts to help create more job opportunities, stabilise public livelihood and speed up economic recovery," GNP spokesman Yoon Sang-Hyun said afterwards. "The volume of the supplementary budget will eventually be set at around 29 trillion ... Read Full Story