President Park Geun-hye will not attend an Asia-Pacific leaders' summit next week, the foreign ministry said Tuesday, as she is grappling with an influence-peddling scandal involving her longtime confidante.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' spokesman Cho June-hyuck cited the grave security situation on the Korean Peninsula as the official reason for her absence from the meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation  scheduled for Nov. 19-20 in the Peruvian capital of Lima.It will be the first

President Park Geun-hye's former senior secretary for civil affairs appeared before the prosecution for questioning over a string of corruption allegations on Sunday, becoming the second ex-presidential aide to face a probe.The state prosecution's special investigation team summoned Woo Byung-woo, who has been accused of the alleged abuse of authority and embezzlement.  Woo Byung-woo, former chief legal adviser to President Park Geun-hye, arrives at the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office on Sunda

President Park Geun-hye will deliver another address to the nation Friday over a burgeoning corruption scandal involving her longtime confidante, the presidential office said.The address will come 10 days after Park made a rare apology over presidential speeches leaked to Choi Soon-sil who is at the center of the scandal that has plunged the incumbent chief executive into the greatest crisis of her political career.The president is expected to make her address at 10:30 a.m., a source said.Multip

The South Korean government on Thursday announced a set of measures aimed at curbing real estate speculation that include an extended ban on the transfer of home purchasing rights in certain areas.The measures follow a recent surge in home prices especially in the four most well-off districts in Seoul.In the first 10 months of the year, prices of apartments in Gangnam district gained an average 5.77 percent while apartment prices in the entire nation only added 0.5 percent on average, according

President Park Geun-hye on Thursday appointed her new chief of staff and a senior political adviser in a follow-up reshuffle of her top secretarial staff aimed at allaying seething public criticism over the growing corruption scandal involving her longtime confidante.Park picked Han Gwang-ok, chairman of the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion, as her new chief of staff, while appointing Hur Won-je, a former journalist-turned-politician, as her senior secretary for political affairs. Ha

INCHEON (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Coast Guard used a crew-served weapon for the first time to capture Chinese boats illegally fishing in its exclusive economic zone on Tuesday, authorities said.The Coast Guard's central regional headquarters said an M60 machine gun was fired into the sky to seize two Chinese fishing vessels that were operating illegally off the western port city of Incheon around 5:00 p.m.No Chinese fishermen were harmed and nothing was damaged, an official source said.The Coast

The prosecution arrested Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of President Park Geun-hye, without a warrant Monday night as Choi may destroy evidence, news reports said.The legal action came hours after Choi appeared at the state prosecutors' office Monday to answer questions in regards to allegations of interfering in state affairs and peddling influence.Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office (Yonhap)The prosecution will later request a formal arrest warrant against Choi, a 60-year-old long-time friend of Pr

The ruling Saenuri Party is divided over how to deal with the fallout from the influence-peddling scandal involving a confidante of President Park Geun-hye, political pundits said Monday, with some lawmakers demanding a reshuffle of the leadership. Around 50 lawmakers who are categorized as the so-called non-Park faction demanded the resignation of the current party leadership for their failure to properly cope with the Choi Soon-sil upheaval.Reports showed Choi, who has known the president for

Legal secretary Woo Byung-woo (left) and policy secretary Ahn Jong-beomPresident Park Geun-hye carried out reshuffle of key secretaries on Sunday amid mounting political pressure on her to act to ease public anger over her close confidante's influence-peddling scandal.A presidential spokesman said President Park appointed Choi Jae-kyung, former head of the prosecution office in Incheon, as new senior legal secretary to replace Woo Byung-woo.Cheong Wa Dae also said President Park accepted resigna

Choi Soon-sil, the woman at center of the political scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, returned to Seoul from Britain early this morning, news reports said."Choi Soon-sil voluntarily returned to South Korea at 7:30 a.m.through a British airline from Heathrow Airport in Britain," a senior prosecutor said. She plans to hold a news conference later in the day to disclose her position on the snowballing influence and corruption scandal, according to the reports.  Choi Soon-sil (Courtesy JTBC

Thousands of citizens took to the streets in downtown Seoul on Saturday, demanding President Park Geun-hye step down, in protest of an ongoing influence-peddling scandal surrounding her confidante.Groups, including the country's largest umbrella labor union, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which had been at odds with the president on a host of issues in the past, jointly held a candlelight rally in Cheonggye Stream Square.About 20,000 took part in the demonstration, according to the or

Park directs senior presidential secretaries to resign en massePresident Park Geun-hye on Friday directed her senior secretaries to resign en masse amid a burgeoning influence-peddling scandal involving her close confidante, her spokesman said."In line with (her direction), the president is poised to conduct a reshuffle of her secretariat soon," Jung Youn-kuk said in a statement.Earlier in the day, Kim Jae-won, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, told a parliamentary session tha

Three South Koreans have been shot to death in the Philippines, a foreign ministry official said Thursday.The three -- two male, one female -- were found dead Tuesday with gunshot wounds in their heads, according to the official.Their bodies were found in a sugar cane field in Bacolor, a small city of around 30,000 people.One victim was found with his feet bound with tape, and the female body lying nearby had tied hands, he said. They have all been confirmed as South Korean nationals in their 40

South Korea's jobless rate rose in September from a year earlier due mainly to a protracted slowdown in the manufacturing sector and exports, a government report showed Wednesday.The unemployment rate in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 3.6 percent last month, compared with 3.2 percent tallied a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.It marked the highest rate for the month of September in 11 years.The number of employed people stood at 26.5 million in September

 STOCKHOLM (AP) _ British-born Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland won the Nobel prize in economics for their contributions to contract theory, shedding light on how contracts help people deal with conflicting interests. Such contractual relationships can deal with anything from CEO bonuses to the deductibles and co-pays for insurance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday. ``The new theoretical tools created by Hart and Holmstrom are valuable to the understanding of real-life

South Korean golfer Kim In-kyung captured an LPGA title in China on Sunday. South Korean golfer Kim In-kyung (Yonhap)Kim fired a seven-under 66 in the final round of the Reignwood LPGA Classic in Beijing, for the four-round total of 24-under 268 at Reignwood Pine Valley Golf Club.Kim edged out fellow Korean Hur Mi-jung by a stroke. Another Korean, Lee Mi-rim, finished alone in third at 22-under.Hur was the overnight leader, and Kim trailed her by three strokes through three rounds. Kim picked up

The chief of the country's ruling political party ended his week-long hunger strike on Sunday, with the Saenuri Party's lawmakers returning to the National Assembly to attend the regular parliamentary audit which has been in limbo amid their boycott, party officials said.Lee Jung-hyun, the head of the ruling party, began his hunger strike on Monday this week in protest of opposition moves to sack the country's new agriculture minister.Also, Lee, a former presidential secretary for President Park

Global rating agency Standard & Poor's Ratings Service said Tuesday that its has decided to maintain its "A+" rating on Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest smartphone maker, citing its stable market presence. The rating agency also offered a "stable" rating outlook on Samsung. "Although competition is heating up in the smartphone, display panel and home appliance sectors due to Chinese rivals' growth, Samsung's diversified business portfolio and the competitiveness of its premium produc

The Asia-Europe Meeting summit on Saturday adopted its chair's statement condemning North Korea's nuclear and missile programs "in the strongest terms," Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said. "The chair's statement includes content strongly condemning North Korea's development of nuclear arms and missiles, and calling for the full-scale enforcement of U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions (against the North)," Kim Kyou-hyun, senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs, told

 An estimated 1 million South Koreans have downloaded "Pokemon Go," the popular augmented reality game not yet available in the country, an app analytics company said Saturday. WiseApp said about 1.03 million people are estimated to have downloaded the Nintendo mobile game, which has quickly become a global sensation since its release last week.The company said the figure was reached based on a survey of 14,439 users of Android-based phones from July 7-15. The survey has a margin of error of plu