Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday that there should be neither nuclear weapons nor war on the Korean Peninsula as he spoke by phone with President Park Geun-hye for the first time since the North's nuclear test last month.Xi also said that all relevant parties should deal with the situation in a "cool-headed" manner from the perspective of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula while sticking to the principle of dialogue and negotiations, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry."Un

Police said Friday they have recovered two butane canisters in a suspicious white box in South Korea's main airport near Seoul, but no accident was reported.Police said they received a report around 4:30 p.m. that the box suspected to contain explosive devices was found in a man's bathroom in Incheon International Airport, South Korea's main gateway.Police cordoned off the area as an explosive ordnance disposal unit was checking the bathroom.A scan from portable digital x-ray equipment showed th

The 2015 corporate earnings this week showed that the manufacturing industry, once the backbone of the nation’s exports-driven economic growth, is losing steam at a fast pace. (Yonhap)The nation’s top two manufacturers ― Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor ― recorded a double digit year-on-year fall in their net profit last year, squeezed by falling demand in major overseas markets and growing competition from cheap rival products. Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor announced a 19 percent a

A Seoul court on Friday sentenced a U.S. man to 20 years in jail for murdering a South Korean college student nearly two decades ago in the Itaewon murder case. The Seoul Central District Court found Arthur John Patterson, 37, guilty of stabbing Cho Joong-pil, 22, to death in 1997 at a Burger King outlet in Itaewon, a multicultural district frequented by expats. Arthur Patterson (Yonhap)The court recognized Edward Lee, 37, as an accomplice for the murder, but did not convict him according to Kor

A senior U.N. rights official expressed concerns Friday that the Korean authorities were stifling the rights to public assembly and free speech. Maina Kiai (Yonhap)Maina Kiai, the special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, took issue with the government’s use of law and public force to restrict public assemblies and association, as well as a lack of dialogue channels between the authorities and citizens. “I heard government officials repeatedly cite peop

Arthur John Patterson (Yonhap)Seoul prosecutors sought a 20-year jail term Friday for a Korean-American charged with murdering a South Korean college student nearly two decades ago, known as the Itaewon murder case. Arthur John Patterson, a 35-year-old U.S. citizen, was extradited to Korea on Sept. 23 to face a new trial on charges of murdering Cho Choong-pil, who was stabbed to death in 1997 at Burger King restaurant in Itaewon, a multicultural district frequented by expats in Seoul. At the cri

Ulsan’s south district office mapped out a plan Friday to enhance the welfare of dolphins locked in the city’s aquarium amid escalating criticism from environmental groups of its attempt to cover up their deaths. (Yonhap)Apologizing for hiding a series of deaths of dolphins at the city’s Whale Life Experience Museum, the office vowed to improve the living conditions for dolphins in captivity and temporarily suspend their import from Japan. Under the plan, it will make the conditions in the tanks

South Korea raised the travel advisory level for Istanbul on Wednesday, a day after a deadly terrorist attack killed 10 people and injured 15 others, including a South Korean college student.A Syrian suicide bomber targeted a popular tourist destination in the Turkish city on Tuesday, with the Islamic State jihadists blamed for the attack.South Korea had previously placed the former Turkish capital on the lowest travel advisory level of "blue" out of the four existing ones.The level has now been

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pledged Wednesday to cooperate on the U.N.'s move to deal with North Korea's latest nuclear test, Seoul's foreign ministry said.Lavrov delivered the message in a telephone conversation with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se.He was quoted as saying that Moscow agrees to the seriousness of the North's nuclear weapons development.He added Russia will actively participate in consultations at the U.N. Security Council to punish Pyongyang under the princi

South Korea's new finance minister said Wednesday that the country should mobilize all resources to carry out structural reforms in order to put the economy back on a growth path and make it stronger."It's urgent to complete reforms in the education, labor, public and financial sectors in order to make a breakthrough in the low-growth trap," Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said in his inauguration ceremony. "All resources should be funneled into the task.""There is no tomorrow unless we revamp the ri

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday that the alliance between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo should be strengthened in the face of North Korea's latest nuclear test."North Korea's nuclear test will never be allowed as it is a grave threat to Japan and South Korea in terms of national security," Abe said during a meeting with South Korean lawmakers in Tokyo.Pyongyang asserted on Jan. 6 that it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, a claim disputed by outside experts but that still r

A group of former "comfort women" declared Wednesday the nullification of the recent South Korea-Japan agreement on the wartime sexual slavery victims, urging the Seoul government to make a "proper" resolution.The agreement, reached on Dec. 28, has sparked a wave of public protests among victims and their supporters, who claim Japan got the better end of the deal by obtaining Seoul's promise to settle the issue once and for all if Tokyo fulfills its commitments.Under the deal, Japan apologized a

Independent Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo announced Friday that his new party would be named People’s Party (English name provisional), as preparations for the launch gained momentum.Earlier in the day, two cochairmen for the preparatory committee were named. Yoon Yeo-joon, a former health minister and senior conservative lawmaker, became the latest to join Ahn’s faction after accepting his request to head the preparation committee for a new opposition party to be launched early next month. Yoon, who has h

The weekly rally held to protest Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II marked 24 years Wednesday, becoming the longest-running demonstration in the world.　Despite the landmark deal between Seoul and Tokyo on Dec. 28, the decades-long ordeal of the victims -- euphemistically called “comfort women” -- appears to be far from over, with the victims and their supporters still crying out for the same demands in front of the Japanese Embassy in downtown Seoul.　 (Yonhap)In the 1

The Cabinet has decided to raise President Park Geun-hye’s annual salary by more than 3 percent and expand the merit-based wage system in the public sector, the Ministry of Personnel Management announced Tuesday. Park is set to earn 212 million won ($179,000) this year, compared to 205 million won last year, after the Cabinet approved the bill on government employees’ salaries in the meeting held in the morning.Given that the nation’s average consumer price inflation stood at 0.7 percent last ye

The Cabinet has decided to raise President Park Geun-hye’s annual salary by more than 3 percent and expand the merit-based wage system in the public sector, the Ministry of Personnel Management announced Tuesday. Park is set to earn 212 million won ($179,000) this year, compared to 205 million won last year, after the Cabinet approved the bill on government employees’ salaries in the meeting held in the morning.Given that the nation’s average consumer price inflation stood at 0.7 percent last ye

South Korea’s labor minister renewed his calls for the passage of labor market reform bills Monday in his New Year’s speech, amid growing resistance from the labor bloc and political wrangling over the pending bills at parliament. With the National Assembly’s extra session expected to end Friday, Lee Ki-kwon, the minister of employment and labor, underscored the need for bills to revamp the nation’s labor market to create jobs for the young and reduce job uncertainties. Members of the Korea Conf

South Koreans gathered across the street from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday to condemn Seoul and Tokyo for sealing a deal over Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women without consulting the victims or gaining their consent. 　Enraged by what they called political collusion between the two countries, nearly 1,000 people jammed into a narrow downtown street to participate in the 1,211st weekly rally held by the former sex slaves and their supporters. 　 (Yonhap)The Korean Council for

Kim Yang-gon, a top North Korean official in charge of cross-border affairs, was killed in a car accident, the North’s state media reported Wednesday, drawing attention to the impact of his death on inter-Korean relations. He was 73.Kim Yang-gon (Yonhap)The North’s Korea Central News Agency said that Kim, a secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party and director of the party’s United Front Department, died at 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday following the accident, without elaborating.T

Koreans pointed to political feuds as the biggest reason for deteriorating social conflicts in the country, a state-led survey showed Tuesday. According to the poll by the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion, 51.8 percent of the respondents said that the political wrangling between the ruling party and opposition bloc contributed most to worsening social confrontations. In the multiple-choice survey of 2,000 Koreans aged 19 and over, the wealth gap was chosen as the second-biggest facto