The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST):6:30 p.m.Donald Trump insists North Korea won't develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States.Trump addressed the issue Monday evening on Twitter. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Sunday in his annual New Year's address that preparations for launching an ICBM have “reached the final stage.” He did not explicitly say a test was imminent.Trump tweeted: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developi

Samsung Electronics Co. and the South Korean government will soon release the outcome of their investigation into what caused Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire, industry sources said Monday.The South Korean tech giant has asked the US-based safety organization UL to find the root cause of phablets catching fire after the firm halted its sales over recurring battery problems. Kwon Oh-hyun, vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics Co., speaks to employees at the company's headquarters on

Online shopping in South Korea reached a fresh record high in November, a government report showed Monday, in the latest sign that a growing number of South Koreans are using computers or mobile devices to buy goods.Total online transactions reached a record 6 trillion won ($4.9 billion) in November, up 23 percent from a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets also soared 40.5 percent on-year to a rec

The head of Samsung Electronics Co. saw the value of his stock holdings surpass 14 trillion won ($12 billion) last year, rising by 28 percent, as the flagship unit of the country's top conglomerate Samsung has continued to rally, industry data showed Monday.According to the data compiled by industry tracker Chaebul.com, the value of stocks held by Chairman Lee Kun-hee was tallied at 14.35 trillion won as of Thursday, the last day of last year's stock market trading, compared with 11.2 trillion w

South Korean banks cut almost 3,000 jobs last year, many through lay-offs, data showed Monday, with the job-reduction trend expected to continue this year amid an economic slowdown and growing risk management pressure from U.S. rate hikes and massive household debt at home.The number of employees at banks here totaled 115,516 at the end of September, down 1,507 from nine months earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service's financial data information system.That of KB Kookmin Bank fel

Some 3,000 people started their own business per day in 2014, but two-thirds of them had closed down a year later, statistics from the National Tax Service showed Monday.Based on the number of new businesses who filed value-added taxes for the first time in 2015, close to 1.07 million people became self-employed on a daily average in 2014. But by the following year, 739,000 people had closed down their shops, an average of 2,000 per day, the tally showed.The kinds of new businesses were heavily

Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in a scandal that led to the president’s impeachment, has been arrested in Denmark, South Korean authorities confirmed Monday. The Justice Ministry in Seoul said it was taking steps to bring her to South Korea without delay as part of the ongoing investigation into the scandal. According to the National Police Agency, Denmark has notified the South Korean government of her arrest in the northern Danish city of Aalborg on Sunday for

South Korea's petrochemicals exports are estimated to have reached an all-time high last year largely due to a rise in demand in their biggest export destination, China, and other newly emerged markets, industry data showed Monday.Exports of petrochemicals produced by South Korea's four oil refiners were tallied at 445 million barrels in the first 11 months of the year, according to the data.When figures from December are included in the tally, last year's exports of petrochemical products are e