Yonhap News Summary

The following is the first summary of major stories moved by Yonhap News Agency
on Monday.

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Biden reaffirms pledge to push ahead with sanctions
WASHINGTON -- The United States is determined to keep pressure on North Korea
with tougher sanctions to prevent the North from proliferating nuclear weapons
and missiles, Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday.
Appearing on NBC's Meet The Press, Biden said, "It is important that we make sure
those sanctions stick and those sanctions prohibit them from exporting or
importing weapons. This is a matter of us now keeping the pressure on."
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S. Korea, Germany, Britain working together to find their missing nationals
SEOUL -- South Korea is in close cooperation with Germany and Britain to locate
their citizens presumed to have been kidnapped by a group of insurgents in Yemen,
officials here said Monday.
A 34-year-old South Korean woman, a member of an international relief group, is
believed to have been abducted with eight others from Germany and Britain last
Friday when they went out for a picnic in the Sada province, about 200 kilometers
north of the Yemeni capital, Sanna. She was identified only by her surname Eom.
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South Korea to go ahead with talks on joint venture with North
SEOUL -- South Korea will hold talks with the North as scheduled this week
regarding a joint industrial park, a spokesman with Seoul's Unification Ministry
said Monday, as diplomatic tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear program escalate.
The inter-Korean talks set for Friday are a follow-up to last week's round, in
which North Korea demanded steep hikes in wages and rent from South Korean firms
operating at the industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong.
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President says Korea seeing 'light at end of tunnel'
SEOUL -- President Lee Myung-bak called for continued efforts and patience from
the people Monday, saying the country is beginning to see an end to a protracted
period of economic hardship, but that more is needed to be done before the
country can completely overcome the crisis.
"A relief is that our economy is beginning to see the light, though very vague,
at the end of the tunnel," the president said in his biweekly national radio
address, noting the country posted the only positive growth among members of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the first
quarter.
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S. Korea to keep expansionary economic policy: finance minister
SEOUL -- South Korea will maintain its expansionary macroeconomic policy until
the economy strengthens enough to recover on its own, the nation's top financial
policymaker said Monday.
The government will also watch for any steep one-sided moves of the local
currency though it believes such shifts reflect economic fundamentals and supply
and demand, Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun told a forum in Seoul.
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S. Korea to attain budget balance by 2014: IMF
SEOUL -- South Korea's fiscal status remains in better shape than other Group of
20 major economies and the country will likely achieve a balanced budget by 2014,
a report showed Monday.
According to the report by the International Monetary Fund, South Korea's fiscal
deficit will account for 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year
and rise to 4.7 percent next year.
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S. Korea's May import prices dip most in nearly a decade
SEOUL -- South Korea's import prices declined by the largest margin in nearly 10
years in May due to pullbacks in oil prices and slumping demand, the central bank
said Monday.
Import prices in local currency terms tumbled 13.9 percent last month from a year
earlier, compared with a 1.8 percent fall the previous month, according to the
Bank of Korea (BOK). The May figure marked the steepest fall since June 1999 when
such prices plunged 14.3 percent.
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(LEAD) Unionized truckers agree to end strike
SEOUL -- Unionized truckers in South Korea agreed with employers to end their
five-day strike after ironing out differences on the reinstatement of fired
workers, both sides said Monday.
The Korean Cargo Workers' Union, which claims about 16,000 members, launched a
nationwide strike on Thursday after talks with their top client, Korea Express
Co., broke down on the reinstatement issue and other demands.
(END)