Political parties called Friday for the government to make every effort to handle the aftermath of a hospital fire in the city of Miryang, which left more than 30 people dead.In a rare show of unity, senior officials of the ruling and opposition parties traveled to the city, about 380 kilometers sou
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Thursday he does not believe North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons in exchange for a suspension of U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea.Kissinger, who served under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s,
An advance team of South Korean officials returned home from North Korea on Thursday after inspecting venues for joint events on the occasion of next month's PyeongChang Winter Olympics in the South.A 12-member team led by Lee Joo-tae, director-general at Seoul's unification ministry, came b
The Japanese government has officially requested talks with South Korea about the possibility of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attending the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, an official from Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday."The Japanese Embassy in South
The government plans to require cryptocurrency exchanges to share users' transaction data with banks, in a potential move to impose taxes on the transactions, an official at financial authorities said Sunday.Currently, financial authorities ban banks from offering virtual accounts, which are nee
South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Sunday that North Korean athletes' participation in the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics will help ease tensions on the peninsula and serve as a stepping stone to establishing peace."The PyeongChang Winter Olympics will work to lay th
South Korea's top naval officer will make a weeklong trip to Washington, D.C. and Hawaii for meetings to discuss naval cooperation between the two allies, the Navy said Sunday.Adm. Um Hyun-seong, South Korea's chief of naval operations, plans to hold a series of meetings with his American co
South Korea's top diplomat said Friday Seoul is working closely with the international community to make sure North Korea's PyeongChang Olympic participation does not run afoul of international sanctions imposed on the North. "We are closely working with the United States and
South and North Korea agreed Wednesday to field a joint women's ice hockey team for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and march together under a "unified Korea" flag at the opening ceremony.North Korea is expected to send a delegation of at least 400 to the Feb. 9-25 games in the South after the
President Moon Jae-in was set to meet a group of top executives and officials from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on Tuesday.The meeting will be held over dinner at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, involving around 30 business leaders, including the head of the Korea Federation of S
Opposition parties on Monday berated the presidential office for passing consultations with parliament before announcing a set of sweeping measures to reform powerful state investigative organizations.They also contended that the reforms should include measures to insulate the organizations from pol
The government said Monday it will make a decision on a proposed shutdown of all cryptocurrency exchanges after "sufficient consultation and coordination of opinions" as the proposal sparked confusion in the market and anger among investors.The Office for Government Policy Coordination made the an
Prosecution investigators raided the office of a school foundation headed by an opposition lawmaker Monday over suspicions that he received illegal political funds through the foundation.Rep. Hong Moon-jong of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party is suspected of taking hundreds of millions of won
South and North Korea will hold working-level talks this week to work out details on the North's participation in next month's Winter Olympic Games, the unification ministry said Sunday.The talks to be held on Monday will focus mostly on the North's plan to send an art troupe to the Feb.
The world's skating governing body said Thursday that North Korea has met the "technical requirements" to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.The International Skating Union (ISU) also said it will refer the matter of North Korea's late entry in figure skating to the Int
U.S. President Donald Trump voiced hope Wednesday that recent high-level talks between South and North Korea will lead to "success for the world."The two Koreas met for the first time in more than two years Tuesday and agreed to hold military talks to ease tensions along their border. North Korea
North Korea is expected to send a delegation of between 400-500 people to South Korea for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Wednesday.On Tuesday, South and North Korea agreed, in their first high-level talks since 2015, that the North would send high-ranking officials,
South Korea's Marine Corps received the first two multirole helicopters from the country's arms agency Wednesday, moving a step toward its aim of creating an independent aviation unit.The MUH-1s, the Marine version of the KUH-1 Surion developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), represent
Prosecutors on Tuesday cleared a former presidential aide of leaking the classified transcript of a 2007 inter-Korean summit, which sparked a political dispute in 2012 over whether late President Roh Moo-hyun conceded to the North over the de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea.The Seoul Central
Prosecutors requested a court order on Monday to freeze some 6 billion won (US$5.62 million) in assets held by former President Park Geun-hye to forfeit them in case of a conviction of bribery involving the state spy agency.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said it has filed for the