South Korean health authorities said Friday they will strengthen monitoring of two super bacteria -- the Vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae -- that are resistant to certain antibiotics. The two will be designated as level-three infectious diseases starting in June, said the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The ministry divides infectious diseases into five levels in terms of how dangerous they are and how quickly they can spread.The Ministry of

US President Donald Trump won't remove any option from the table when dealing with North Korea, the White House said Thursday."The president never takes anything off the table. That's something he's been very clear about," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at a briefing when asked about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's remark that diplomatic efforts to disarm the North failed.Tillerson's remark suggests that Trump's approach to the North will be tough and pressure-oriented.Trump has

Six-party nuclear talks with North Korea failed to deliver their intended results, the State Department said Thursday, adding to Secretary Rex Tillerson's point that diplomatic efforts to disarm Pyongyang failed and a new approach is necessary."There's a recognition that certain mechanisms, like the six-party talks, haven't really borne the fruit that we would have liked to have seen them bear over the years," State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner said at a regular briefing."That's no sur

From a diehard supporter for the ousted president to one of the most outspoken rightist commentators, nine politicians joined the crowded field to become the presidential nominee of the conservative Liberty Korea Party on Thursday. The former ruling Liberty Korea Party closed its applications for the in-house primary ahead of the May 9 presidential election. The logo of the Liberty Korea Party (Yonhap)Among the figures include South Gyeongsang Gov. Hong Joon-pyo and former six-term lawmaker Rhee

The United States has picked up fresh signs of digging and activity at North Korea's nuclear test site, CNN reported Thursday, citing unidentified intelligence and defense officials.The report adds to concern that the North may be preparing to conduct what would be its sixth nuclear test.Last week, 38 North, a website specializing on North Korea analysis, also reported that commercial satellite imagery shows tunnel excavation work is continuing at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a su

US President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated a senior Boeing Company official to be deputy secretary of defense, putting an engineer-turned-defense industry executive in the No. 2 position at the Pentagon.The White House gave no explanation as to why Trump has tapped Patrick Shanahan, Boeing's senior vice president in charge of supply chain and operations, for the top Pentagon position at a time when the US is grappling with global security challenges. Patrick Shanahan, a senior Boeing Compan

North Korea's Embassy in China on Thursday expressed strong opposition to Seoul and Washington's ongoing joint military drills, saying that they are raising tension on the divided peninsula, diplomatic sources said.The North's embassy told a group of invited foreign correspondents that the planned deployment of an advanced US missile defense system on South Korean soil will hurt strategic balance in Asia, they added.North Korea denied South Korean media's access to the press conference, only ope

A Seoul court on Thursday ordered a Japanese company to compensate a South Korean for forced work during Japan's colonial rule. In the latest legal victory for wartime forced laborers, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of  Lee Chun-myeon, 86, who filed the case against Nichi-Fujikoshi Corp. in May 2015. The court ordered the Japanese firm to pay 100 million won ($88,500) to the plaintiff in compensation for her coerced work at a factory in Toyama Prefecture in the 1940s."Japan mobi

China's retaliation against South Korea over the ongoing deployment of an advanced US missile defense system could be viewed as meddling with internal affairs, a senior foreign ministry official hinted Thursday.During a meeting with lawmakers, Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam said "Yes" to a question on whether China's bashing of Korea over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system represents interfering in internal affairs.He went on to say that giving into Beijing's pressure would not b

A portion of the annual budget will be executed to support Korean content makers damaged by China's protests over Seoul's move to deploy a US missile defense system, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Thursday.The proposed portion, 116 billion won ($102 million), will be spent earlier than planned as part of measures to help financially troubled content companies in the game, music, performance and animation industries. A trade fair for Korean products in Chongqing, China in 2016.

Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn on Thursday called on newly commissioned police officers to contribute to addressing social conflicts at a time the nation is sharply divided over the recent ouster of Park Geun-hye as president.During a commissioning ceremony at Korean National Police University, Hwang stressed that now is the time to "respect each other and hold hands together for the sake of reconciliation and cooperation." Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn spe

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is to visit the Demilitarized Zone on Friday as the first major schedule of his trip to South Korea, the foreign ministry said Thursday, in an apparent bid to demonstrate a strong alliance between the two countries against North Korea.Tillerson is to come to South Korea early Friday after staying in Japan as part of his three-country trip to Asia that will also take him to China on Saturday.US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (C) arrives in Tokyo on March 15,

Local property magnates are staying away from investing heavily in the country's real estate as South Korea braces for an early presidential election and possible interest rate hikes, market watchers said Thursday."Big time investors are currently taking a cautious position ahead of changes, although they still have a keen interest in the realty industry," an analyst at a Seoul bank said.The US Federal Reserve raised the key interest rate by 25 basis points to a range of 0.75 to 1 percent Wednes

North Korea on Thursday condemned South Korea and the United States for "escalating nuclear attack threats," citing the participation of US strategic bombers and the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson in joint military drills in South Korea. North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, said a fleet of B-1B Lancer bombers from the Andersen air base on Guam made a stealth flight over the Sangdong firing range of South Korea on Monday for about an hour on a nuclear bomb-dropping drill aimed at making pre

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office said Thursday that it will toughen punishments for employers accused of intentionally delaying or refusing wage payments to employees, seeking in particular to protect the welfare of the nation's growing number of part-timers.As part of such efforts to protect the underprivileged, the SPO said it will implement a three-strikes system against immoral employers with records of repeated failures to pay wages.Under the new system, all employers who are caught failing

Park Yu-chun, member of K-pop boy band JYJ, has been cleared of all four sexual assault allegations that have dogged him since last year, his agency said Thursday.C-JeS Entertainment, Park's agency, said that "the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office notified (Park) of such investigation results," and added, "the string of cases involving Park Yu-chun since last June have been closed."(Yonhap)Park, a member of the famous K-pop boy band JYJ, was embroiled in a scandal as four different women

The number of official markets in North Korea has been on a rapid increase under the connivance of the authorities, a US broadcaster said Thursday. "The number was recently confirmed to be 439 via an analysis of satellite images of the communist country by Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, Radio Free Asia said.  A North Korean market in Pyongyang (Yonhap)The figure was an increase of 40 from a year ago, with some 1-1.8 million

South Korean stocks traded higher late Thursday morning, but pared their earlier gains on profit-taking, as the US Federal Reserve, as expected, raised interest rates and hinted that future adjustments will be carried out in a gradual manner.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index  rose 11.78 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,144.78 as of 11:20 a.m.The US stocks rose sharply overnight after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates as expected without accelerating its timeline for further ti

Liberal presidential hopeful Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo said Thursday if elected he will grant more power to the state fair trade watchdog and improve corporate governance to break corruptive relations between the government and large businesses."The top task for national reforms is to root out the corruptive links between the government and businesses," Ahn of the People's Party said in a statement.  Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party (Yonhap)He said he will establish a fair market order by expan

The Donald Trump administration may go ahead with imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese companies and build up US military power to increase pressure on the Asian rival in a bid to rein in an increasingly wayward North Korea, a South Korean think tank predicted Thursday.Forecasting the Trump administration's North Korea policy direction, Asan Institute for Policy Studies' researcher Go Myong-hyun said in a report that the US policy on North Korea will be formulated under the administration's b