South Korea’s defense minister has warned that his country would respond very strongly to any future attacks by North Korea.Kim Kwan Jin said at a regional security conference in Singapore on Saturday that his government must react with stiffer responses than in the past because North Korean provocations are becoming increasingly bold.Kim said North Korea has been insincere in previous talks and m

Prosecutors on Saturday are going all out to reject lawmakers' plans to abolish a key investigation unit of the state prosecution as part of their judicial reform efforts.A subpanel of the special legislative committee on judicial reform announced on Friday that it agreed to press ahead with its legislation plan to scrap the central investigation unit of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office despite str

Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, announced plans this week to raise output at its Georgia plant by 20 percent, underscoring the U.S. industry’s biggest market-share gain this year.Kia, an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Co., raised its U.S. share 0.8 percentage point to 3.8 percent through May, topping gains of 0.7 point for General Motors Co. and 0.6 point for Hyundai, accordi

A classified government document, containing telephone conversations between South Korean and U.S. presidents, was leaked by Chinese hackers, an opposition lawmaker said Saturday. "I received a report from the National Intelligence Service that a secret document written by the South Korean foreign ministry ahead of the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit in London in April 2009 was leaked to China," Rep. Sh

Responding to North Korea's fresh military threats against South Korea, the United States called on the communist nation Friday to improve inter-Korean ties.Earlier in the day, the North's military issued a statement vowing to launch “retaliatory military attacks” against South Korea because its reserve forces used photos of North Korean leaders for target practice.The threats were the latest in a

A ballooning illegal lobbying scandal involving failed savings banks has implicated politicians as well as senior financial officials. Prosecutors investigating Samhwa Mutual Savings Bank have secured statements from Sin Sam-gil, its arrested chairman, that he gave tens of millions of won in slush funds to a current and a former lawmaker, officials said Friday. They are now trying to determine whe

Senior public officials banned from private-sector jobs upon retirementThe government announced Friday new measures aimed at rooting out the deep-rooted practice of government and judicial officials placing their former colleagues in senior positions at private firms.The so-called “jeon-gwan-ye-u” practice, which means giving “honorable treatment to retired colleagues,” is widespread in Korea, esp

Lawmakers blasted the Cabinet Thursday over North Korea’s disclosure that the South had proposed in clandestine meetings to hold a summit with the North.On the second day of the parliamentary interpellation, the ruling Grand National Party called into question the administration’s covert approach to the North while keeping a tough stance overtly. The main opposition Democratic Party rebuked the go

South Korean and U.S. troops sprayed toxic defoliant Agent Orange and other herbicides over 6,840 hectares of the Demilitarized Zone between 1968 and 1969, in an effort to thwart North Korean infiltrations, a report said Friday.The estimated size of the areas on which Agent Orange was sprayed was about 14 percent of the southern side of the DMZ, the 4-kilometer-wide, 249-kilometer-long buffer zone

The government approved an updated ratification bill for the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement after fixing translation errors and submitted it to the National Assembly to seek parliamentary approval.The agreement had been retracted in April over multiple translation errors in the Korean version. Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik urged the early parliamentary approval of the deal.“The KORUS FTA is an ine

Debate is raging over whether trimming telecom fees by a small margin was the best move by a government desperate to show action on previous pledges to rein in soaring communication expenses. On Thursday, the Korea Communications Commission, the state telecom regulator, announced a discount plan for telecom fees that included a 1,000 won discount in basic service fees and 50 free text messages a m