South Korea is awaiting the U.S. government's formal reply to its query about whether South Korean presidents have been a target of its alleged bugging of 35 world leaders, a diplomatic source said Monday.But many say chances are slim that the Obama administration will provide clear explanations, given the sensitivity of the matter.Seoul views Washington's reported spying activity on foreign leaders as a "grave issue," the source said on the condition of anonymity.The U.S. National Security Agen

SK Hynix announced Tuesday that it posted record-high earnings in the third quarter this year thanks to rising DRAM prices and increased NAND Flash bit shipments for the release of new mobile devices.The chipmaker earned 1.16 trillion won ($1.09 billion) in operating profit and 4.08 trillion won in revenue during the period, up 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively, from the second quarter this year. The operating margin stood at 29 percent, slightly up from the second quarter’s 28 percent, with

South Korea will host Switzerland in a football friendly next month, officials said Monday.The Korea Football Association (KFA) said South Korea, 58th in the FIFA rankings, will bring the world No. 7 Switzerland to Seoul World Cup Stadium on Nov. 15.It will be the first match between the two countries since Switzerland defeated South Korea 2-0 in their final Group G match at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.The loss knocked South Korea out of the tournament, while Switzerland moved on to the r

Almost 1,500 Koreans were forced to work for what are now some of Japan‘s largest conglomerates during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula on Russia’s far eastern island of Sakhalin, a government report showed Monday.The report, drawn up by a government committee tasked with supporting victims of forced labor during Japan‘s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula, showed that 1,469 Koreans were forced to work at plants belonging to the Japanese firms now known as Mitsubishi a

As one player after another fell by the wayside with injuries, the Doosan Bears have lost the luxury of a deep bench in the Korean Series.The Bears are clinging to a 2-1 series lead over the Samsung Lions for the supremacy in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO).Whereas the Lions enjoyed three weeks of break between the end of the regular season and the start of the Korean Series -- as the top seed, they had the bye to the championship final -- the Bears, No. 4 seed, have been playing since the

South Korea's vice unification minister will accompany lawmakers to an inter-Korean factory park in Gaeseong this week but will not meet with North Korean officials, the government said Monday.The South Korean lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee plan to travel to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the North Korean border town of the same name on Wednesday on a fact-finding mission to see how South Korean businesses are coping with normalizing operations there."Vice Ministe

South Korean stocks traded 0.17 percent higher late Monday morning, boosted by gains in tech and auto blue chips, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 3.47 points to 2,037.86 as of 11:20 a.m.Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, the first top two companies by market cap, soared more than 2 percent, with Hyundai Mobis, an auto-parts maker, hiking 4 percent. But shipping lines and logistics companies lost ground, with Hyundai Merchant Marine slumping more tha

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top smartphone maker, and two other South Korean companies accounted for nearly a third of combined net profits of local firms last year, data showed Monday, in the latest sign of concentration of wealth in a few conglomerates in Asia's fourth-largest economy.The other two companies are Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller sister company Kia Motors Corp., the two major flagship units of Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest carmaker.The combined net pro