Loose change for March 8, 2010

 Economic news 

• LPG-powered hybrids are still not catching on in South Korea. (My next vehicle in South Korea will be an LPi Kia Sorento, though my LPG-powered Kia Carnival, aka Kia Sedona, is doing just fine.)
• Hyundai-Kia automative group ranks #4 in a recent cover story by Consumer Reports. The Korea Herald highlights the Hyundai Avante (aka Hyundai Elantra) as one of the nine most reliable small cars.
• Meanwhile, the US-built Kia Sorento overtook the Toyota Rav4 to become the second best-selling crossover, just behind the Ford Edge.
• The number of economically inactive women in South Korea reached a record high of 10.42 million in 2009. The Korea Herald also has the story.
• Asiana Airlines had a record high month of both passenger and cargo traffic in January, with 876,000 travelers, followed by 833,000 in February (KH story here). Maybe it's all the economically inactive women heading for the US to raise their kirŏgi children.
• It's full steam ahead for South Korean LCD manufacturers, despite a global gas substrate shortage (KH story here).
• In a sign of recovery, apartment prices rose 4.9 percent last year.

 North Korea news and stuff 

• Former "Comfort Women" from both Koreas are hoping to hold a joint conference on the issue next month.
• The IOC reportedly gave North Korea $115,000 to support the DPRK's winter Olympians.  
• A US military scholar is urging a delay in the transfer of wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul control, saying doing so now with the North Korean nuclear and missile threat looming will pose a serious threat to South Korea.

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• CNN and AP are carrying their own story on the now infamous Internet-addicted couple who allowed their baby to die while they spent hours in a PC-bang.
• MSNBC has the story of a man in New Jersey whose South Korean wife kept their children in South Korea. She was arrested when she traveled to Guam, forgetting that was US territory, and she has claimed she kept her children from her husband because of sexual abuse of their youngest.
• The Korea Herald has a focus on an Austrian doctor who has become an expert in Oriental medicine. 
• The Chosun Ilbo asks if the Korean Air Force is capable of protecting South Korea.

 Americana and miscellany 

• CNN has a personal recounting of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, by the White priest of a predominantly Black Catholic church there.