Daily Kor for Saturday, June 18, 2011

Have a great weekend, everyone!

1. Seoul refuses to send back nine North Koreans who crossed into South Korean waters by boat, calling them defectors (AP via WaPo, UPI)
2. United Nations Security Council recommends UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon to second term (Reuters, Yonhap, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily)
3. ROK Marines fire at civilian airplane near tense western border after mistaking it for North Korean military aircraft (Yonhap)
4. IMF asks Seoul to raise interest rates more quickly to ensure soft economic landing and introduce more exchange rate flexibility to curb inflation (Reuters) 
• Bank of Korea members says it may need to slow rate increases (Bloomberg)
5. US Senate Armed Forces Committee seeks to block American military base realignment plans in South Korea and other countries (AP via WaPo, Reuters, Foreign Policy)
6. North Korea says it will begin disposing of South Korea-owned assets at Kŭmgangsan resort (Korea Times)
7. Pharmaceutical Association asks to sell prescription medicines such as Viagra over the counter in order to counter revenue losses after forty-four over-the-counter medicines were opened to sales in supermarkets and convenience stores (Joongang Daily)
8. No Agent Orange but small amounts of dioxin found in waters near South Kyŏngsang Province's Camp Carroll and other bases, said to be not threatening to health (AP via WaPo, CNN)
9. South Korea's soccer league hands down ten lifetime bans over match-fixing scandal (Reuters)
10. With nothing going on over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of Seoulites gather in City Hall plaza to watch World Cup reruns (Yonhap)