The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party will visit China next week to help South Korea’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and discuss regional issues, including North Korea, his party said Thursday. Rep. Sohn Hak-kyu plans to embark a four-day trip on Monday to meet China’s Vice President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking politicians to ask for support for the eastern alpine city of

The South Korean Unification Ministry refused to receive a letter from a North Korean propaganda agency addressed to the South Korean presidential office, a ministry official said Thursday.“The (North Korean) agency tried to hand over a note addressed to Cheong Wa Dae to the South in person via the Red Cross in the truce village of Panmunjeom around 3 p.m. Wednesday, but we refused to receive it,”

Representatives of employers and employees have failed to reach an agreement in negotiating the minimum wage for next year. An additional meeting was to take place Thursday, the deadline for the accord, but compromise was unlikely between employers calling for a 30 won raise from this year’s 4,320 won ($4) per hour and workers demanding a 1,000 won hike. They were expected to vote on the third par

All public facilities in Seoul will be seismically retrofitted by 2026, said officials Thursday, in a move taking its cue from March’s devastating earthquake in Japan.The “Program to Raise Seoul’s Seismic Performance” by the Seoul Metropolitan Government is designed to ensure that the city’s infrastructure and buildings will be earthquake resistant.All public facilities found to fall below a certa

Korean company asks U.S. commission to block imports of mobile devicesSamsung Electronics has taken another legal step in its strife with Apple Inc. by requesting that the U.S. International Trade Commission block the import of overseas-made iPhones, iPads and iPods into the U.S.Samsung’s complaint involves all “mobile electronic devices, including wireless communication devices, portable music an

Korea’s financial watchdog said Thursday it may require local banks to lower their loan-to-deposit ratio to the 90 percent range in a bid to stem excessive growth of household debt.Lowering the loan-to-deposit ratio, a gauge of a bank’s solvency, was one of a set of measures to curb snowballing household debt unveiled on Wednesday. Household debt, which surpassed 800 trillion won ($747.3 billion)

Korea’s industrial output kept growing for the 23rd straight month in May, raising hopes the nation’s economic recovery is gaining momentum, a government report showed Thursday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, production in the mining and manufacturing industries expanded 8.3 percent last month from a year earlier, quickening from 6.9 percent growth in April.On-year production has expa