Korea Economy

With organized labor and the government in Seoul moving toward a showdown over a controversial new labor law, analysts say the next few days will be crucial in determining whether strikes threatening South Korea's economy will spread or fade away. Authorities and business leaders Monday signaled moves toward an aggressive strategy to suppress the actions, which come at a time when South Korea's economic growth is slowing and exports are weakening. The strikes began Dec.

Striking workers from unions representing 1.7 million members shut down much of South Korea's economy today in escalating protests against a new labor law and feared threats to civil liberties. The main target of worker fury was a law passed in a secretive predawn parliamentary session Thursday that makes it easier for employers to lay off workers and to hire replacements for strikers.

The career of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's "Dear Leader," was marked by a series of historical firsts — most of them dubious at best. He was, to begin, the first ruler of a Marxist-Leninist state to inherit absolute power through hereditary succession from his father, "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK. He was also the first ruler of an urbanized, literate society to preside over a mass famine in peacetime: The Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, which erupted shortly after his father's death, is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of his subjects, and perhaps more.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the mercurial strongman who styled himself as a "Dear Leader" while ruling over an impoverished police state, died at 69, according to North Korean state media. Kim was believed to have suffered from multiple chronic illnesses, but his death -- reportedly from a heart attack while traveling by train Saturday morning -- was sudden. He had been grooming a son to succeed him, and his death creates uncertainty about the future direction of a nation with few international friends but a nuclear weapons capability.

President Kim Young Sam was reportedly determined Monday to decide within 10 days whether to put his predecessor, Roh Tae Woo, on trial for accepting bribes, as a minister in Kim's Cabinet declared that the South Korean people will demand the arrest of the former president.

North Korea threatened Tuesday to withdraw from a 1994 accord with the United States under which it would freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two nuclear reactors. To preserve the agreement, Washington must compensate for the loss of electricity caused by the delay in building the reactors because a power shortage has "created grave difficulties" in North Korea's economy, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

South Korea's economy remains enviably healthy by the standards of most industrialized countries, but Korean officials and business leaders see a less happy picture. Korea's exporters have increasingly been losing markets to lower-cost Asian producers, and this has contributed to slower growth and a rising trade deficit. Partial blame falls on a paternalistic labor law that President Kim Young Sam and his supporters see as a drag on South Korea's economic competitiveness.

A North Korea that for decades posed before the world as the realization of paradise on earth has again been forced to admit it desperately needs food for its 23 million people and must appeal for international help. The United States is among those ready to lend a hand, with President Clinton approving the export of up to 500,000 metric tons of wheat and rice to its old enemy. But Pyongyang's negotiations on a barter deal with the big U.S. grain firm Cargill Inc. have not been easy.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the mercurial strongman extolled at home as the "Dear Leader" and reviled abroad as a tyrant, has died at 69, North Korean media reported Monday. Kim's death was announced by state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. No cause of death was reported, but Kim was believed to have suffered in recent years from diabetes and heart disease. The diminutive leader was believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but nonetheless appeared in numerous photos released by state media as he toured state facilities and in recent months embarked on rare trips outside North Korea -?