Korea news links for November 2, 2009: Fall back

Korea and Japan are mulling a joint decision to employ daylight saving time as early as next year, but for now, the switch from DST to standard time is still an issue, vis-à-vis time differences with those parts of the world not in the Korea-Japan Time Zone (UTC+9). As of 2 a.m. on November 1, most of the United States moved their clocks back one hour (Hawaii being an exception). So, for example, California is now seven hours ahead of Seoul (but minus one day) instead of eight hours ahead (minus one day).

What that means for those of you currently in Korea (or Japan), is that your time difference calculation-impaired relatives back in the US of A will be calling you at 4 a.m. instead of 3 a.m. Please make a note of it.

Meanwhile, it looks like the early November weather in Seoul was a good day for a marathon (the Joongang Seoul marathon in story #1, not to be confused with the Seoul International Marathon in March) or, for the less athletic, Seoul's first annual walkathon. The former ended up at Olympic Stadium, while the latter ended up near the World Cup Stadium, on opposite ends of the city, lest there be some confusion and embarrassment and scandal.

1. Separated by just one second, Francis Larabal and David Mandago of Kenya take first and second place in exciting finish to Joongang Seoul Marathon (Joongang Daily)
2. South Korea's trade surplus reaches $3.79 billion in October, beating predictions (Yonhap, WSJ)
3. Seoul and Washington hammer out operational plan to deal with North Korean collapse (links here)
4. Choi Nayeon birdies to win her second LPGA title, at Hana Bank-Kolon Championship in Inchon (UPI, AP via WaPo, Korea Times)
5. Five more H1N1 "swine flu" deaths bring South Korea's total to forty (Xinhua)
6. KERI says an H1N1 influenza pandemic in South Korea could slash GDP by up to 5.6% (links here)
7. South Korean exports in October fall less than economists expectations; 8.3% year-on-year decline was better than 11.8% drop predicted in Bloomberg survey (Bloomberg)
8. South Korea's average export value per working day rise to one-year high of $1.48 billion in October (Reuters via CNBC)
9. Clocks decline by one hour across United States, a 4.2% drop from the previous day; White House says they expect a V-shaped recovery by mid-March (NYT)