By Nam Kwang-sik SEOUL, May 20 (Yonhap) -- A majority of South Korean shipping companies saw their operating profits decline last year due to the global economic downturn and increased operating costs, industry data showed Monday. Of 99 local shippers, 55 saw their operating profits fall an average of 146 percent in 2012 from a year ago, according to data by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). "The fall was blamed on decreased sales from the global economic slump with operating costs increasing on a rise in oil prices and financial costs," the KCCI said.

SEOUL, May 20 (Yonhap) -- The financial regulator said Monday it will expand the debt relief fund designed to help heavy borrowers clear debts to include more possible applicants, taking the program's high demand into account. According to the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the country's top financial regulator, more than 110,000 applicants have so far signed up for the state-run debt relief program, known as the National Happiness Fund.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto on Wednesday sought to clarify his remarks on a system to recruit women into sexual servitude for Japan's soldiers during World War II, saying he personally does not condone the scheme. Two days after he made controversial remarks that the so-called comfort women were "necessary to maintain discipline" in the Japanese military, Hashimoto told reporters he simply stated a fact that people at the time had that kind of view.

North Korea is believed to have taken its field artillery units off the highest level of combat readiness last week, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday, citing a senior South Korean government source. "It seems that North Korea lifted the No. 1 combat-ready posture around April 30," the source was quoted as saying, adding that it also appears to have withdrawn two intermediate-range Musudan missiles from missile mobile launchers on its east coast.