A South Korean married couple living in the Philippines have been missing for months, the foreign ministry here said Monday, adding that it is working in cooperation with local authorities to discover their whereabouts. The couple was last seen in April when they took a ship leaving from Samar Island located near the Philippines' southern island of Mindanao, according to the ministry. They are said to have lived in Mindanao for about one year. The Seoul government currently has a travel ban for

The United States is campaigning hard against a proposed UN General Assembly resolution banning nuclear weapons, pressuring treaty allies like South Korea, Japan and NATO members to vote against the resolution, a new report said.The resolution, led by Austria, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, calls for the formal launch of negotiations on a nuclear ban in 2017. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on the resolution as early as next week and proponents expect it to pass easily, according t

North Korea said Monday that South Korea did not consult with Pyongyang before it decided to abstain from the UN vote on the North's human rights in 2007, in its first reaction to a memoir by a former top South Korean diplomat.North Korea's committee on inter-Korean affairs said the South Korean conservative ruling party is carrying out a "politically motivated terrorist act" by branding the main liberal opposition party as North Korean sympathizers."At that time, the south side had neither sugg

A South Korean agency that will document North Korea's human rights abuses will start interviewing North Korean defectors to check crimes carried out by the communist state, a government official said Sunday.The Center for North Korean Human Rights Records will interview individual North Korean defectors at Hanawon, a facility that provides three months of resettlement education for those fleeing the North to the South, according to a unification ministry official. The center, which is under the

South Korea's 10 biggest companies have contributed less to the nation's employment sector, although their assets have grown, data showed Sunday.According to the data compiled by market researcher Chaebol.com, their assets totaled 1,144.4 trillion won ($1,000 billion) last year. This accounts for 27.22 percent of all assets for local firms.The "big ten" firms' combined assets have continued to rise from 1,012.4 trillion won in 2012, to 1,067.8 trillion won in 2013 and 1,108.4 trillion won in 201