WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed at the weekend to work with Republicans and Democrats to pass a free-trade pact with South Korea that he said was a model for future agreements he would seek in Asia and around the world.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed at the weekend to work with Republicans and Democrats to pass a free-trade pact with South Korea that he said was a model for future agreements he would seek in Asia and around the world.

President Barack Obama said Saturday a sweeping US-South Korean free trade agreement that broke through a three-year deadlock was a "win-win" for both countries.

The United States and South Korea broke through a three-year deadlock to seal a sweeping free trade agreement, which President Barack Obama hoped would renew US leadership in Asia.

The United States and South Korea broke through a three-year deadlock to seal a sweeping free trade agreement, which President Barack Obama hoped would renew US leadership in Asia.

Britain's bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland said Friday it had agreed to sell most of its Uzbekistan division for an undisclosed amount to state-owned Korea Development Bank.

General Motors said Thursday it has injected four billion dollars into ailing pension funds for its US employees as the government-rescued automaker seeks to pay down debts.

South Korea's economy grew 0.7 percent in the third quarter compared to three months earlier, the same pace as earlier predicted, the central bank said Thursday.

Frustrated by barriers to a strategic Asian market, French wine producers are betting on a new EU-South Korean free trade deal to claw back the massive market share they have lost in the past decade.

GM Daewoo to pay off nearly $1 billion in debt amid sales recovery. In more good news for General Motors, the company's South Korean unit said Wednesday it will repay nearly $1 billion in debt this month as its financial condition recovers.

General Motors' South Korean unit Daewoo announced plans to fully repay its one-billion-dollar debt under a revolving credit facility from the the Korea Development Bank.

Hana Financial to buy Lone Star's 51 percent stake in Korea Exchange Bank for $4.1 billion.. South Korea's Hana Financial Group has agreed to purchase a controlling stake in Korea Exchange Bank from U.S. private equity group Lone Star Funds for 4.69 trillion won ($4.1 billion), potentially ending years of acrimony and legal wrangling that hampered attempts to sell the lender.

South Korea announced Thursday it would restore a tax on foreigners buying government bonds, warning that excessive capital flows could destabilise the economy and push the local currency even higher.

North Korea claims to be building an experimental light-water nuclear reactor for completion by 2012, says a US expert who visited the communist state this month.

SKorea's central bank raises key interest rate to 2.5 percent amid higher inflation. South Korea raised its key interest rate Tuesday for the second time in four months as higher inflation forces Asian central banks to increase borrowing costs.

SKorea's central bank raises key interest rate to 2.5 percent amid higher inflation. South Korea's central bank raised its key interest rate Tuesday for the second time in four months as higher inflation overrode concern about risks from currency tensions and waning global growth.

The increase follows a three-month freeze in the seven-day repo rate.

Number of NKorean defectors to SKorea tops 20,000 amid Pyongyang's worsening economic woes. The number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea has surged in recent years because of economic suffering in the North, with more than 10,000 defections over the past three years, South Korea's government said Monday.

Top administration officials pushed back against the notion that the G20 meeting, which ended in Seoul Friday, had turned into a global display of opposition to US policy, saying important core principles had been agreed.

The United States, nursing a hangover from its worst recession since the 1930s, said it was "very confident" the Seoul summit would adopt a declaration promoting a reorientation of trade between surplus and deficit nations.