South Korea Friday rebuffed North Korean pressure to lift a tourism ban which has cost Pyongyang millions of dollars, and a Seoul official said trade worth millions more dollars could dry up unless ties improve. The shutdown of the Mount Kumgang resort has intensified an acute hard currency shortage in the impoverished North, which was also hit by tougher UN ...

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Friday criticised excessive bank profits following the global slump and said tougher financial regulations would be the key issue at this year's G20 summit. "Look at the profit of the banking sector this year following the crisis: this is unacceptable. We must be strongly determined to balance this within the G20," Kouchner said ...

North Korea has executed a top financial official in a desperate attempt to quell public anger at its bungled currency revaluation, South Korean news reports and analysts said Thursday. Pak Nam-Ki, who was earlier reported sacked as chief of the ruling communist party's planning and finance department, was shot dead last week at a military range in Pyongyang, Yonhap ...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has executed a ruling party official blamed for a botched currency reform, in a desperate attempt to quell public unrest and stem negative impact on Pyongyang's power succession, a news report said on Thursday. The execution by firing squad in Pyongyang last week of Pak Nam-ki, Labour Party chief for planned economy, was for the ...