South Korea’s military chief on Wednesday called for US strategic assets to be stationed here, saying the two allies needed to take “strong measures” against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. During a 20-minute phone call, Lee Sun-jin, chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a request to his US counterpart, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford that Washington deploy strategic assets, including nuclear-capable bombers and aircraft carriers, on the Korean Peninsula this year. “

Incumbent and former presidential secretaries defended President Park Geun-hye during her impeachment trial Wednesday, denying allegations of her purported failure to respond to the 2014 ferry disaster and her confidante Choi Soon-sil’s meddling in state affairs. During the 10th hearing, presided over by acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi, Kim Kyou-hyun, presidential secretary for foreign affairs and security, denied Park’s responsibility in the failure to rescue more people during the sinking of

Prosecutors of an independent counsel Wednesday summoned Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of a presidential corruption scandal, executing an arrest warrant despite Choi’s consistent refusal to speak. Choi, 61, turned up at the counsel’s office in southern Seoul at around 10:30 a.m., keeping mum despite an onslaught of reporters’ questions on her purported interest-seeking in a spate of government projects. Choi has been rejecting the counsel’s summons, citing coercion, repeating the team is “

Amid growing public anxiety over the Korean Peninsula’s gray skies and health risks linked to air pollution, more than half of South Koreans find themselves unsatisfied with the government’s countermeasures against fine dust, a survey showed Wednesday.According to the poll conducted by the state-run Korea Environment Institute, 53.1 percent of Koreans said the government’s fine dust countermeasures are unsatisfactory, while another 55.2 percent said they worry about the current fine dust level h

South Korea's ruling Saenuri Party demanded an opposition lawmaker resign from the National Assembly on Wednesday for hosting an art exhibition that included a nude painting of President Park Geun-hye.During a general meeting of its lawmakers, Saenuri said the display was an act of insult against women and thus can be considered as a sexual harassment. Last month, Rep. Pyo Chang-won of the Democratic Party organized an exhibition at a lawmakers' building in the National Assembly complex. It feat

A court has accepted a request for a stay of execution on a ruling to hand over a stolen Buddhist statue to a local temple that has been claiming ownership of the relic, until the verdict is confirmed by a higher court, prosecutors said Wednesday.The Daejeon District Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Buseok Temple, which filed a lawsuit against the Seoul government in April to take over the statue that was stolen by Korean thieves from Kannon Temple in Japan in October 2012.The temple has been

Germany, Italy and Poland have refused to issue visas to students from a North Korean university in compliance with the UN Security Council's sanctions resolution on the North, a US-based media said Wednesday. UN Security Council ministerial-level open debate on conflict prevention and sustaining peace held in January (Yonhap)Pak Chan-mo, an honorary president of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, said in an interview with Voice of America that the university's students have bee

South Korea's ruling Saenuri Party on Wednesday decided to push to revise the Constitution before the presidential election.During a general meeting of its lawmakers, the conservative party decided to seek a shift to a new government system in which the president handles diplomacy and security while a prime minister named by parliament is responsible for domestic affairs. It marks the first time that a party has adopted a pre-election constitutional amendment as an official line.  (Yonhap)Presid

President Park Geun-hye's lawyers asked the Constitutional Court Wednesday to summon 15 more witnesses to her impeachment trial, a move critics have denounced as an attempt to stall the proceedings.Lee Joong-hwan, an attorney for Park, requested during the 10th hearing that the court call 15 people including Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the center of an influence-peddling scandal that led to the president's impeachment."Please accept the request to allow for a fair battle," Lee said. "We will do

South Korea has stopped issuing or extending visas for Chinese language instructors at the local branch of a Chinese non-governmental organization affiliated with its education ministry, sources said Wednesday.The Ministry of Justice has not issued or extended the one-year E-2 teaching visa for instructors at Confucius Institute in South Korea since late last year, according to local universities. Confucius Institute is a Chinese public institute that has some hundreds of branch offices worldwid

Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday met with key political leaders and spurred efforts to launch a full-fledged campaign team, as he is quickening preparations for a presidential election this year.Ban, a prominent presidential aspirant, paid courtesy calls to the leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and its splinter group Bareun Party in the morning. Later in the day, he plans to meet the chief of the minor opposition Justice Party.His meeting with the political heavyweights came as he is w

The number of counterfeit South Korean banknotes detected here dropped 58.3 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, the central bank said Wednesday.A total of 1,373 counterfeit bills were found last year, compared to 3,293 in the previous year, according to the Bank of Korea. (Yonhap)The decline came as the number of fake 50,000-won bills fell 99.1 percent on-year to 19 last year. In 2015, four people were caught making 2,012 fake 50,000-won bills, though none of the counterfeit bills were circulat

South Korea's top sports body said Wednesday it has asked Japan to switch athletes' accommodations for a Sapporo-based competition over a controversy surrounding the original location.The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee said it sent two letters to the organizing committee of the Sapporo Asian Winter Games on Tuesday, asking the athletes' quarters be changed from APA Hotel and Resort. The KSOC said it is still awaiting a response.APA Hotel has come under fire in recent weeks for providing book

Rep. Yoo Seong-min, a potential presidential hopeful from the splinter Bareun Party, on Wednesday unveiled a set of pledges to improve workplace conditions including cutting legal work hours and guaranteeing a minimum rest time.Yoo said South Koreans' work hours hover far above those of other advanced economies, hurting the balance of work and family life and impeding the creation of new jobs for youth and women.  Yoo cited 2015 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data that sho

South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor Co. plans to roll out its new Sonata mid-sized sedan as early as next month, market sources and company officials said Wednesday, amid the company's efforts to boost its domestic sales.The new Sonata is said to have an entirely different design that includes the new cascading grille seen in other new Hyundai cars launched earlier. This undated photo shows the special winter edition of the Hyundai Sonata mid-sized sedan. The South Korean carmaker is set t

The number of South Korean business groups' affiliates subject to restrictions on mutual investments and loan guarantees dropped slightly last month from a year earlier, the antitrust watchdog said Wednesday.The Fair Trade Commission said the number of firms on its monthly watch list stood at 1,125 as of end-January, down three from the previous month. (Yonhap)The affiliates are owned by the country's 27 largest business groups, including Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group.Thirteen business g

Major South Korean companies listed on the local stock market have gone through a sea change in their market capitalization rankings over the past two decades amid the rise of large exporters and fall of several banks, data showed Wednesday.The Korea Exchange released the list of the top 50 firms as of January 1997 before the country was battered by an Asiawide financial crisis, often called the IMF crisis here for a massive bailout from the global institution. A composite photo of South Korea's

South Koreans pay for nearly 15 percent of their overseas credit card bills in the won, not local currencies, forking out more in additional fees, government data showed Wednesday.According to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service, South Korean credit card holders' won-based payments of their foreign bills came to 1.4 trillion won ($1.21 billion) in the first quarters of 2016, or 14.7 percent of their combined bills worth 9.6 trillion won. (Yonhap)The number of settlements using the Kore

South Korean telecom giant KT Corp.said Wednesday that its operating profit jumped 11.4 percent on-year in 2016, thanks to reduced costs and a solid rise in revenue from both wireless and fixed-line Internet services.KT reported an operating profit of 1.44 trillion won, compared to 1.2 trillion won posted a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. (Yonhap)Last year marked the biggest operating performance since 2011 when the company posted 1.73 trillion won and the second year in a

Poor quality of North Korean-made products have brought North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's policy to encourage people to use domestic products over foreign-made ones to the brink of failure, a US broadcaster reported, Wednesday."The phenomenon of stagnant sales that started at major foodstuff plants across the country has spread to light industry plants manufacturing clothes," a source in northern Jagang Province told Radio Free Asia (RFA). The source added that light industry plants with little