Fiscal policymakers of South Korea and the U.S. reaffirmed their strategic alliance against the potential threat from North Korea using the international financial system.In the first meeting between the finance chiefs of the two countries in Seoul on Friday since the G20 summit in 2010, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that two sides will continue to collaborate in dealing with and resolving any financial matters concerning the North.Lew’s visit to Seoul comes after the U.S. Treasury Depa

South Korean police said Thursday they have taken an American soldier into custody five days after he deserted his front-line base ahead of a trial on charges of possessing child pornography.The 25-year-old serviceman was caught in western Seoul at around at 5:30 p.m. by police who chased after him near the area based on his credit card payment information, officials said. The soldier, whose identity was withheld, was serving at U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, som

CAIRO (AP) — An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew on board crashed in the Mediterranean Sea off the Greek island of Crete early Thursday morning, Egyptian and Greek officials said. A frosted glass partition is seen at the EgyptAir counter at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, France, Thursday, May 19, 2016. EgyptAir said a flight from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar early Thursday morning. (AP)Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early t

Japan must reassure the world that it will not repeat the past by walking down the path of militarism when U.S. President Barack Obama visits the Japanese city of Hiroshima late next week, China's foreign ministry said Thursday. On May 27, Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima since it was hit by an American nuclear bomb in 1945. Along with a second nuclear bombing on Nagasaki, these attacks forced Japan to accept unconditional surrender that hastened the end of W

South Korean retail giant Lotte Group's hotel unit said Thursday it will go public on the KOSPI market on June 29, which is expected to fetch over 5 trillion won ($4.19 billion) to mark as the nation's largest-ever initial public offering.Hotel Lotte Co. said in a regulatory filing that it will offer 47.85 million shares at a range between 97,000 won to 120,000 won per share. Hotel Lotte (Yonhap)The offering is estimated to be around 4.6 trillion to 5.7 trillion won, and its medium range of pric

South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said that the government will seek to host annual conferences for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2017 and the African Development Bank in 2018.In a meeting with economic-related ministers in Seoul on Thursday, Finance Minister Yoo said this comes as Asia’s fourth-largest economy seeks to expand its presence in international aid and development financing. Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho (Yonhap)“Korea needs to further expa

Korea is expected to launch a task force team consisting of officials from finance and regulatory agencies to exchange opinions and discuss ways to increase the capital base of state-run policy banks for massive restructuring of cash-strapped shipping and shipbuilding companies.This comes as the Financial Services Commission, the financial regulatory policymaking body, unveiled its initial plan to launch creditor-led debt restructuring last week, citing the need to increase capital buffers of th

The U.S. inclusion of Korea in the foreign exchange monitor list will not affect Seoul’s monetary policy, Korean economic policymakers said Sunday. “As Korea avoided the manipulator designation, there won’t be any significant changes in the foreign exchange polices,” Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho was quoted as saying. Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho (Yonhap)“Although Korea is included on the monitoring list, this always happens with the U.S. department. There will be no changes (in the country’s policie

South Korea’s Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho has called for rapid and aggressive restructuring of companies under heavy debts to ensure that this does not negatively affect the capital market and household consumption.In an economic-related ministerial meeting on Thursday, the finance minister also urged other officials to draw up countermeasures and support mechanisms against the expected massive layoffs from companies that are about to go through creditor-led debt reduction. He urged agencies to i

The Korean government will accelerate fiscal reforms to better manage its tax revenue and budget through efficient capital allocation and planning as a means to boost its preparedness against slower growth and higher national debt.(Yonhap)In a meeting presided over by President Park Geun-hye at Cheong Wa Dae on Friday, the government will seek stronger fiscal discipline to ensure that its taxpayer money will not be wasted in the face of growing economic uncertainties.The Ministry of Finance said

With no suitable or attractive assets to invest in amid low interest rates, the market is seeing more and more investors parking their money -- mostly savings -- into stock or mutual trust accounts offered by brokerages rather than banks’ savings accounts.Offering higher yields than deposit rates and relatively stable returns over the benchmark interest rates with flexible transactions, brokerages saw their outstanding balance of cash management accounts reach a record 52.6 trillion won ($46.3 b

North Korea claimed Saturday that its nuclear weapons development is an "inevitable self-defensive option" in response to what it called the United States' nuclear threats. The communist country has long argued that it must defend itself with nuclear weapons in the face of a possible U.S.-led invasion, citing the annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises that are currently under way. Seoul and Washington insist the drills are purely defensive in nature."The DPRK's access to nuclear weapons is n

China will double the size of a memorial hall dedicated to a revered Korean independence fighter by the end of 2018, a Chinese news report said Saturday. The hall honoring Ahn Jung-geun opened at Harbin station in the northeastern Chinese city of the same name in January 2014. Ahn is a historic figure who assassinated the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, at the station in October 1909.Harbin municipal authorities and railway authorities plan to expand the hall wh

The U.N. Security Council on Friday condemned North Korea's failed missile launch, saying it represents "a clear violation" of a series of U.N. resolutions banning the communist nation from any ballistic activity."The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the firing of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on April 15," the council said in a press statement."Although the DPRK's ballistic missile launch was a failure, this attempt constituted a clear

South Korea on Saturday marked the second anniversary of a deadly ferry disaster with official and cultural events designed to pay tribute to the victims and raise awareness of public safety issues.Exactly two years ago, the 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank off South Korea's southwestern coast, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing, many of them high school students on a field trip. The tragedy left a deep scar in South Korean society and politics as many argued that more lives could have been

The accumulated sales of Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors Corp. have reached over 100 million units this week, company officials said Saturday, a feat achieved in less time than most other global automakers.The combined accumulated sales of the country's two leading auto companies reached over 100 million cars as of Friday, according to the officials.Together, the two automakers make up Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest producer of vehicles by sales. The achiev

No South Korean casualties have so far been reported in the series of deadly earthquakes that struck Japan this week, an official said Saturday. A 7.3-magnitude temblor hit Kumamoto Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu at around 1:25 a.m. Saturday, less than two days after a 6.5-magnitude quake struck the same region, leaving a total of 18 people dead and more than 1,800 injured, according to Japanese authorities."So far, we haven't received reports of any harm to South Koreans," Park Ki-

South Korea's largest conglomerate Samsung Group reduced its number of employees by the largest margin among the country's top 30 business groups last year, data showed Saturday.As of end-2015, Samsung's total workforce came to 222,821 workers, down 5.8 percent or 13,636 workers from a year earlier, according to data from CEO Score, a market research firm.Samsung was the only one among the country's 30 largest conglomerates to have laid off more than 10,000 employees in 2015. Such a large cut wa

Recent satellite imagery shows strong indications that North Korea has already begun or is set to start reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to harvest plutonium for nuclear weapons, the website 38 North said.The April 11 imagery showed a loaded railroad flatcar at the Radiochemical Laboratory reprocessing plant, a key signature that was observed only on a few rare occasions in the early 2000s when Pyongyang reprocessed nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, 38 North said.The flatcar is loaded with what

A massive magma storage region seems to exist beneath Mount Paektu along the border between North Korea and China, an international study showed.It may be related to volcanic unrest observed on the enigmatic volcano in the early 2000s, according to the results of a research project published in the Science Advances journal.The reclusive North conducted a rare joint research with western scientists on the seismic activity of the 2,750-meter-high mountain. The North Korean, British and American sc