South Korea's antitrust watchdog plans to launch an investigation into consumers' complaints about the overpriced auto parts used in imported foreign vehicles, its top official has said."Consumers' complaints are growing over excessive repair costs of imported vehicles... We are going to look into auto part prices of imported cars in September and October," Noh Dae-lae, head of the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), told reporters during a meeting Thursday. His remarks were embargoed until Sunday.He s

Japan's strengthened defense capabilities will not lead to an unauthorized military landing in South Korea, a Japanese foreign ministry official said, addressing neighboring countries' concerns over his country's recent rearmament moves.After years of preparations, Japan's Cabinet approved on July 1 a reinterpretation of the country's constitution to increase the role of its armed forces, the Self-Defense Forces, allowing it to fight overseas alongside its allies. It was Japan's major turnaround

South Korea ranked eighth in terms of global trade volume during the first half of 2014, one notch higher than the previous year, a report showed Sunday.According to the report by the Institute for International Trade, a research agency, South Korea's trade volume came to US$546.4 billion during the January-June period.The amount is the eighth largest among the 71 major countries surveyed by the agency. South Korea's exports grew 2.5 percent on-year to $283.3 billion during the first half, the s

The US military on Saturday made an airlift of humanitarian aid to the besieged town of Amerli, home to thousands of Shia Turkomen cut off by jihadist rebels from receiving food, water, and medical supplies."At the request of the government of Iraq, the United States military today airdropped humanitarian aid to the town of Amerli," said Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby. "The United States Air Force delivered this aid alongside aircraft from Australia, France and the United Kingd

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a newly built industrial factory and expressed great satisfaction, Pyongyang's state news agency reported Sunday.Kim was satisfied with the plant as he "could hardly find any trace he saw last year," and that the plant "did not look like a factory but a rest home," the North's Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) said in an English-language report monitored in Seoul.He had toured the same factory late last year and named it the October 8 Factory to mark the da

The government and the ruling party are considering hiking the 2015 budget by about 5 percent, a move apparently aimed at boosting the economy while keeping the country's fiscal status sound. The expansion is lower than the 6 percent increase requested by government ministries and agencies. It is also much lower than the about 10 percent increase in spending that experts have expected since the government unveiled its economy stimulus measures in July."We were briefed on the government's stance