South Korea’s top regulator said Sunday it would receive preliminary bids for a 6 trillion won ($5.28 billion) controlling stake in Woori Finance Holdings by July 27, after two previous attempts to privatize the group floundered over a lack of bidding interest.

Authorities are under pressure to dispose of the stake before the current president, Lee Myung-bak, ends his term in office early next year. They face an uphill struggle with few domestic firms boasting the capacity for the deal and U.S. fund Lone Star’s years-long struggle to offload a stake in Korea Exchange Bank still fresh in foreign investors’ minds.

About 300 South Koreans gathered on Sunday for a prayer rally against Lady Gaga’s Seoul concert, organisers said, accusing the US pop star of advocating homosexuality and pornography.

A group called Alliance for Sound Culture In Sexuality last week put out street banners in Seoul accusing the eccentric singer of “spreading unhealthy sexual culture” through “lewd lyrics and performances”, before they were removed by the city officials.

The Bank of Korea lowered its economic growth forecast for this year as rising bond yields in Spain highlight the threat to Asian exports from Europe’s debt crisis and austerity measures.

Gross domestic product will expand 3.5 percent, less than the 3.7 percent estimate in December, the central bank said today in a statement.

South Korea will attack Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, in retaliation if the communist country strikes Seoul, the capital of the South, an official said Monday.

South Korea has set up the principle of tit-for-tat retaliation in dealing with North Korea’s possible aggression against Seoul and its adjacent areas, the senior military official said in a recent meeting with reporters.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog said Monday it has received an invitation from North Korea to resume monitoring parts of its atomic program.

The overture from Pyongyang was confirmed by Gill Tudor, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency. She said her agency received the invitation on Friday – the same day the North announced plans to launch a satellite into orbit. She declined to go into details on what North Korea’s terms were.

South Korean media say U.S. President Barack Obama is considering a visit to the tense demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea during a scheduled visit to Seoul later this month.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Monday that details of the DMZ visit were discussed during a recent visit to Washington by South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency says a visit is likely on March 27, although there has been no official confirmation from the United States.

A Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC)-led consortium has secured South Korea’s first oil production assets in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Korean government said.

South Korea has finalized a deal with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) to take a 40 percent stake in two onshore and one offshore oil drilling areas, as part of a wider push by oil import dependent Asian countries to secure upstream assets. “We now have our own oil reserves in the Middle East,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in a statement.

South Korea yesterday conducted live-fire military drills from five islands near its disputed sea boundary with North Korea, despite Pyongyang’s threat to attack. South Korea reported no immediate action by North Korea following the drills, which ended after about two hours.

The drills took place in an area of the Yellow Sea that was the target of a North Korean artillery attack in 2010 that killed four South Koreans and raised fears of a wider conflict.