U.S. intercepted N. Korean ship suspected of carrying military contraband

The United States recently intercepted a North Korean ship suspected of carrying military-related contraband, causing the vessel to eventually sail back home, a U.S. official said Monday. The remarks by Gary Samore, special assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama, came after local media reported that the North Koreans turned back after apparently sensing their cargo would be inspected if they stopped at a foreign port. ----------------- (LEAD) Scandal-tainted university president found dead in apparent suicide SUNCHEON -- A former agriculture minister under a probe on suspicions of bribery and his alleged involvement in an unfolding savings bank scandal was found dead in his car in an apparent suicide on Monday, police said. Im Sang-gyu, president of Sunchon National University, is presumed to have killed himself by inhaling toxic fumes from burning coal briquettes inside the car parked at his family grave site in this southwestern city, 415 kilometers south of Seoul, police said. ----------------- (LEAD) Lee calls for calm approach to college tuition issue SEOUL -- President Lee Myung-bak instructed the government Monday not to rush to come up with measures to lower college tuitions, saying that hastily made policies could devastate the country, according to the presidential spokesman. The remark was seen as a warning that solutions to the tuition issue could involve an enormous amount of money and that the government and the ruling party should guard against making populist policies just to calm intensifying calls for lower tuitions ahead of major elections next year. ----------------- S. Korea to put Japanese textbooks laying claims to Dokdo on display SEOUL -- Japanese school textbooks laying claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo will be on display during a government-organized exhibition opening in Seoul this week to raise public awareness of how Tokyo distorts history, officials said Monday. The exhibition, set to open Tuesday at Seoul's War Memorial of Korea, is part of South Korea's campaign to counter Japan's claims over Dokdo after Tokyo's education ministry authorized a series of textbooks portraying the islets as Japanese earlier this year. ----------------- (LEAD) Seoul shares inch up on institutional gains SEOUL -- South Korean stocks ended 0.1 percent higher on Monday as institutional investors' buying of steelmaker and bank shares overshadowed losses of refiners and machinery stocks, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar. After trading in negative territory, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) climbed 2.07 points to 2,048.74. Trading volume was light at 215 million shares worth 5.51 trillion won (US$5.07 billion), but losers outnumbered gainers 551 to 274. ----------------- (LEAD) Likelihood of 'surprise provocation' by N. Korea on rise: defense chief SEOUL -- South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin warned Monday that the likelihood of a "surprise provocation" by North Korea against the South is on the rise, after Pyongyang's barrage of fiery rhetoric aimed at Seoul. In an apparent change of its push for talks, North Korea has threatened to cut off a military hotline with South Korea and declared last month that it won't deal anymore with the South. The communist regime also vowed an indiscriminate retaliation against the South's military for its use of headshot photos of the North's top leaders as targets for shooting practice. ----------------- S. Korea blocks civic activists' plan to visit N. Korea SEOUL -- South Korea rejected a request by nearly 100 civic activists to visit North Korea this week for a joint ceremony that will mark a landmark inter-Korean summit held more than a decade ago, an official said Monday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il held summit talks with two liberal South Korean presidents, first in 2000 and again 2007. ----------------- S. Korea's automobile sales to inch up in H2: report SEOUL -- South Korea's automobile sales are expected to grow at a rather disappointing rate in the second half of the year on rising energy prices and an ensuing economic slowdown, a report said Monday. The Korea Automotive Research Institute, an industry think tank run by Hyundai Motor Group, said in the report that sales of new automobiles will grow a mere 1 percent from a year earlier in the last six months of this year. (END)