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Korea
Last update: Thursday 09th of February 2012
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Korea (Korean: 한국 or 조선, see below) is a geographic area, civilization, and former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Korea is currently divided into North Korea and South Korea, and the term "Korea" may refer to either or both of these states.
Although the territories of historical Korean dynasties fluctuated, the peninsula today is defined as coterminous with the political borders of the two Koreas combined. Thus, the peninsula borders China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast, with Japan situated to the southeast across the Korea Strait.
Korea began with the founding of Gojoseon in 2333 BCE, according to the Dangun legend. Limited linguistic evidence suggests possible Altaic origins of these people, whose northern Mongolian Steppe culture absorbed immigrants and invaders from northern Manchuria, Mongolia and China. The adoption of the Chinese writing system ("hanja" in Korean) in the 2nd century BCE, and Buddhism in the 4th century CE, had profound effects on its society. Koreans later passed on these, as well as their own advances, to Japan.
After the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea by Silla in 676, Korea was ruled by a single government and maintained political and cultural independence until the nineteenth century (most say - but there was a country occupying the north of Korea, north of China, Mongolia and the southern parts of Russia - called Balhae), despite the Mongol invasions of the Goryeo Dynasty in the 13th century and Japanese invasions of the Joseon Dynasty in the 16th century. In 1377, Korea produced the Jikji, the world's oldest printed document using movable metal type. In the 15th century, the turtle ships, possibly the world's first ironclad warships, were deployed, and during the reign of King Sejong the Great, the Korean alphabet hangul was created.
During the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty, Korea's isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname the "Hermit Kingdom". By the late 19th century, the country became the object of colonial designs by the imperial aggressors of Japan and Europe. In 1910, Korea was forcibly annexed by Japan and remained occupied until the end of World War II in 1945.
In 1945, Soviet Union and United States troops occupied the northern and southern halves of the country, respectively. The two Cold War enemies helped establish governments sympathetic to their own ideologies, leading to Korea's current division into two political entities: North Korea and South Korea.
Samsung Electronics is putting the finishing touches on an 8 gigabyte chip -- a high-density embedded flash memory device capable of storing up to 2,000 songs on a cell phone. The South Korea-based company expects to begin mass producing the line of flash memory and firmware chips, called "moviNAND," by the end of the year.
China on Thursday said it deeply regretted the US decision to ban American banks from dealing with Banco Delta Asia after concluding that the Macao bank had helped North Korea launder money.
Young gamers in Korea have turned from national phenomena to national concern -- some have actually managed to "game" themselves to death, while blank stares and friendlessness are more common occurrences among the obsessed
A 21-year-old woman died in Seoul on Tuesday after undergoing a cosmetic procedure to create double eyelids. The procedure, which makes people have wider, western-like eyes is extremely popular in South Korea and it is extremely rare for patients to die after undergoing double-eyelid surgery.
Israeli technology for the disposal of low- and medium-level radioactive waste will be unveiled Thursday to delegations from Russia, Japan, Korea and the United States. Israeli government officials will also be present at the demonstration.