The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea said Wednesday its internal committee has excluded 10 lawmakers including a high-profile activist-turn-politician from being nominated for candidacy in the upcoming general elections.With less than 50 days away from the general elections in April, the opposition party unveiled a list of the lower 20 percent of applicants who had been screened out in the outcome of its so-called cutoff.The list included Rep. Lim Su-kyung, a female activist-turn-politician

The U.N. Security Council has entered the final stretch in its work on adopting a fresh resolution for sanctions against North Korea's latest nuclear and missile test, diplomatic sources said Wednesday."The United States and China are believed to be doing the final reviews over the wording of a resolution draft," a government source told Yonhap News Agency.The U.N. Security Council has been working on a fresh resolution aimed at punishing the North, but progress has been slow mainly because Chin

The Shanghai government has decided to temporarily suspend a plan to demolish a site used by the Japanese military for sexual slavery during World War II, according to Chinese state media reports on Wednesday. The site in the Hongkou district of Shanghai was a residence of a Chinese owner of a cotton mill, but was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1939. In 1940, about 40 women, including 10 Korean and 20 Chinese, were coerced to serve Japanese soldiers at the location, the reports said.

Fitch Ratings said Wednesday it has downgraded the outlook on Lotte Shopping Co. from "stable" to "negative", expecting slow recovery from last year's sluggish earnings due to tougher competition at home and abroad.The key retail unit of South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group saw its operating profit fall 30 percent on-year to 688 billion won (US$541.5 million) in 2015, marking a consolidated net loss of 346 billion won.While its 2015 earnings were hampered by the outbreak of the Middle East Resp

South Korea's financial authorities on Wednesday referred U.S. hedge fund Elliott Associates to state prosecutors for allegedly violating local disclosure rules when it tried to prevent a merger of two Samsung Group affiliates last year.The Securities and Futures Commission said Elliott abused the total return swap (TRS) system to covertly increase its holdings. This marks the first time that the commission has taken issue with TRS and is expected to set an important precedence in the market.It

The United States and China made progress Tuesday toward a draft UN sanctions resolution to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear tests and push it to the negotiating table.After talks in Washington, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State John Kerry said the draft was still being "evaluated" by officials before being submitted to the UN Security Council.But both powers vowed that they would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea and expressed confidence the resolution wou

A mother of two daughters was arrested for neglecting her children by preventing them from getting proper educations, police said Saturday. This is the first time in Korea a parent has been arrested for neglecting the parental duty of giving education. Goseong Police in South Gyeongsang Province said they detained a 42-year-old woman identified by her surname Park for not providing proper educational care for her two daughters, aged 9 and 12. Suspects in the death of a teenage girl are moved to

The government and ruling party have reaffirmed their move to strengthen the prescreening process of foreign visitors and restrict the entry of those with suspected terrorism links amid growing public concerns over airport security.The Justice Ministry and the ruling Saenuri Party said Friday they would introduce a passenger preverification system by 2017 that would allow it to screen flight passengers’ identities before they check in and receive boarding passes in another country. The relevant

The U.N. Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's long-range rocket launch, vowing to "expeditiously adopt a new resolution" with significant measures, and calling the launch a "dangerous and serious violation.""The members of the Security Council strongly condemn this launch," Venezuelan U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno, the council's president for February, told reporters on Sunday while reading a press statement after the closed-door meeting."The members of the Securi

South Korea's foreign minister plans to visit the headquarters of the United Nations and Germany this week to drum up international support for punishment over North Korea's nuclear test and missile launch, his ministry said Monday.Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se plans to visit the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he will ask the U.N. Security Council to slap stronger and more effective sanctions on North Korea, according to the Foreign Ministry.The U.N. Security Counc

North Korea's latest launch of a long-range rocket prompted Seoul and Washington to begin talks on the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea, a move that has been strongly opposed by the North's important ally, China. North Korea said Sunday it successfully put a satellite into orbit, but the international community swiftly condemned the launch as a covert test of ballistic missile technology, which is banned under U.N. resolutions.China's reaction to North Korea's

South Korea said Monday that gaining the public's support is a prerequisite for Seoul to review whether to seek a pact on sharing military intelligence with Japan.Japan's Kyodo News reported Sunday that South Korea and Japan seem to hold the view that conditions are ripe for deepening military cooperation, saying that Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Seoul is mulling reviewing whether to clinch a Seoul-Tokyo pact on sharing military intelligence.In 2012, the two nations initialed such a pact to

China summoned South Korea's ambassador on Sunday to protest Seoul's decision to begin talks with Washington on the deployment of an advanced American missile defense system to South Korea following the North's long-range rocket launch.Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin summoned the South Korean ambassador to China, Kim Jang-soo, and lodged representations to Kim over the decision, China's foreign ministry said in a brief statement. Hours after North Korea claimed it had successfully put

China's foreign ministry expressed "deep concern" on Sunday as Seoul and Washington agreed to begin talks on the deployment of an advanced American missile defense system to South Korea following the North's long-range rocket launch. Hours after North Korea claimed it had successfully put a satellite into orbit, South Korea and the U.S. announced that they would begin talks on the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to South Korea. The launch is widely viewed as

North Korea's long-range rocket should be viewed as a ballistic missile as the satellite it put into orbit is worthless, lawmakers said Sunday, citing South Korea's spy agency.The satellite is presumed to weigh 200 kilograms, two times heavier than a satellite launched in 2012, the lawmakers said after being briefed in a close-door session by the National Intelligence Service.A satellite weighing about 200 kilograms "is worthless as a satellite," Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party said, n

A North Korean patrol boat on Monday crossed the de facto western maritime border between the two Koreas following the North's long-range rocket launch a day earlier, a South Korean military official said.The South's Navy fired five rounds of warning shots against the North's patrol boat, which trespassed across the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, widely known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL), at around 6:55 a.m., according to the official.The vessel retreated northward about 20 minutes after

It is crucial for Korea to change its energy supply scheme in order to reach the target of the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to a renowned environmental activist. “The strongest message of the Paris deal is that the fossil fuel generation has ended. Just as the Stone Age didn’t end just because there were no more stones, global warming is telling us that we can no longer use fossil fuels but have to pursue sustainability,” Ahn Byung-ok, head of the Institute for Climate Change Act

President Park Geun-hye said Monday that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed appreciation for her leading a youth employment fund to spread the spirit of donations."Thank you for leading the Youth Hope Fund effort to expand the spirit of giving in Korea," Zuckerberg said in an email to Park earlier this month, according to Cheong Wa Dae, South Korea's presidential office.He also said, "We are focused on doing our part to improve the world for future generations and we are committed to the

Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Monday South Korea needs to consider the deployment of the U.S.' advanced defense system THAAD, reflecting growing security threats from North Korea's emerging nuclear and missile capabilities. "Speaking from the military's perspective, there's enough need to review it because our (defense) capabilities are limited," the defense minister said during his appearance in a news program by MBC, a mainstream broadcasting channel."The issue of THAAD should be considere

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrives Monday in Italy, beginning his first European tour since a nuclear deal saw sanctions lifted against the Islamic Republic.The visit, whose chief aim is to boost economic ties and which will see Rouhani visit France later this week, had been planned for last November but was cancelled after the deadly jihadist attacks in Paris.  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (AP-Yonhap)The three-day trip comes a week after Tehran's deal with world powers came into force