Seoul  - South Korea is offering its communist neighbour economic aid if North Korea resumes talks, a senior government official said Wednesday.

But if Pyongyang refuses to change its current position, then Seoul would not budge either, Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong said in a report to President Lee Myung Bak, outlining the tasks and goals for 2009.

Seoul, Dec 25 : A team of archaeologists has unearthed the Royal Palace Keeper's Bureau during the Chosun Dynasty and the site of a tobacco factory of the Japanese colonial period near the royal shrine of Jongmyo, Seoul, in South Korea.

According to the Hanul Cultural Property Research Center, it discovered a site of two buildings from the early Chosun period, a building belonging to the Royal Palace Keeper's Bureau, and remnants of a tobacco factory that was built after the bureau was demolished in the early 20th century on the 3,230 sq. m site in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

The bureau, established in 1628, the sixth year of the reign of King Injo, was part of five military camps that was responsible for guarding the king.

Seoul - A South Korean activist Friday admitted to espionage activities uncovered by Pyongyang, but rejected accusations of a plot to murder North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, a news report said.

Choi Sung-yong, head of the Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea, a South Korean NGO, said a North Korean man arrested by the North's State Security Agency on Thursday had been hired by him to gather information on the Communist state the Yonhap news agency reported.

Seoul  - South Koreans married to members of the country's 1-million-strong foreign population generally said they are happily wed, a survey conducted by a non-governmental organization showed.

South Koreans are more happily married than their foreign spouses, the Seoul Women Family Foundation found in their survey of 842 foreigners married to Koreans and
177 South Koreans married to foreigners.

According to the survey, 59.3 per cent of the South Koreans interviewed said were satisfied with their marriage while 40.3 per cent of the foreigners said so.

Foreign spouses from the Philippines showed the highest satisfaction at 49.5 per cent while Cambodians ranked the lowest at 29.2 per cent.

Seoul  - The proportion of female drunken drivers is on the rise in South Korea, where an average of 144 people a day were killed or injured alcohol-related accidents, national police said Tuesday.

According to the drunk driving status report of 2006-08, annual arrests increased from about 350,000 to more than 400,000 this year.

The report said women drunken drivers were the fastest-growing group, although men drivers are the overwhelming majority of offenders.

The data showed the number of women arrested for driving under the influence rose from 31,501 in 2006 to 46,677 through November 2008.

Seoul  - South Korea's government on Tuesday lowered its forecast for 2009 economic growth from a previous 4 per cent to 3 per cent because of the global financial crisis.

President Lee Myung Bak told his cabinet that the depths of the current downturn was expected in the first half of 2009 as he ordered his government to act quickly to mitigate the impact of the crisis on South Korea and look toward its future recovery.