South Korean lenders are reaching out to wealthy Chinese customers as they seek new growth engines amid ultra-low interest rates and lackluster demand on their home turf.Local banks have been providing Chinese-language banking services to mostly blue-collar laborers in southwest Seoul.However, recent moves highlight their efforts to tap affluent Chinese who have already emerged as a major force in the retail sector.Woori Bank, the flagship unit of South Korea's biggest banking group, said Tuesda

South Korean President Park Geun-hye asked her new national security adviser Monday to pay "full attention" to the security situation on the Korean Peninsula amid North Korea's ongoing threats and provocations.Park made the request to Kim Kwan-jin during a weekly meeting with senior secretaries at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, one day after she named the defense minister to the post."Judging from the political situation in the region, North Korea's endless threats and provocations, and

North Korea lashed out at a new nominee for South Korea's national security adviser on Monday, calling him a military gangster and a traitor, the latest in a series of diatribes against South Korean officials.The North's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, claimed the nominee, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, is behind South Korea's confrontational policy toward North Korea.The accusation came a day after President Park Geun-hye nominated the defense chief to be her new national security adviser to avo

Former President Lee Myung-bak has been cleared of the charges that he used taxpayers' money for his now-scrapped retirement home project, prosecutors said Monday. Lee was under suspicion of giving instructions to former officials of the Presidential Security Service to use public funds to buy a plot of land on the southern outskirts of Seoul in 2011 to be used as his retirement residence. Former President Lee later scrapped the project and moved into his existing private home in Nonhyeon-dong i

A parliamentary investigation into the Sewol ferry disaster got off to a shaky start Monday as only opposition party lawmakers visited the site of the shipwreck, with ruling party legislators absent from the trip. Last week, family members of the victims demanded that lawmakers handling the investigation first visit them at Paengmok port on the southwestern island of Jindo to hear their voices on the disaster that left more than 300 people dead or missing.All 18 lawmakers on the special parliame

South Korea's foreign ministry said Monday it has requested the United States Embassy in Seoul and U.S.Forces Korea to cooperate with a local police investigation into an alleged sexual molestation case involving three U.S. soldiers. On Saturday, police in Yongin, south of Seoul, arrested three U.S. servicemen from the 210th Field Artillery Brigade on suspicion of being involved in sexual harassment that happened at a water theme park.The U.S. soldiers are suspected of sexually molesting a femal

Global investment banks and rating agencies forecast that South Korea's economy will advance in the mid 3-percent range this year, data showed Monday, lower than estimates by local government and institutions. Projections from 33 major IBs and credit rating agencies said South Korea's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic performance, is expected to grow 3.63 percent this year, according to Bloomberg data. Last year, the Korean economy grew 3 percent.Barclays and Wells Fargo p

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 1 maker of smartphones, said Monday it will add a low-end phablet to its Galaxy smartphone lineup, which is optimized for visual contents through HD displays.The Galaxy W, to be released Tuesday, comes with a 7-inch display, larger than the 5.7-inch of the flagship Galaxy Note 3 phablet, with an aspect ratio of 16.9. A phablet refers to a cross between a smartphone and tablet PC, and has been one of the focused projects by tech giants amid saturation of t

South Korean LPGA Tour star Park In-bee will fall from the No. 1 spot in the women's world golf rankings after more than a year on top.Stacy Lewis of the United States cruised to her second win of the season at the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, New Jersey, on Sunday, local time. She will move up from No. 2 to No. 1 when the newest rankings are announced later in the day, ending Park's 59-week reign at the top of women's golf.Lewis shot a three-round total of 16-under at the tournament for a

The overall number of business group affiliates subject to restrictions on mutual investments and loan guarantees rose in June from a month earlier, the antitrust watchdog said Monday.The Fair Trade Commission said the number on the watch list stood at 1,688 from 63 business groups as of Monday, up four from the previous month.Twelve affiliates were included on the list following a stake purchase or launching of new companies, while eight companies were removed, the watchdog said.Under South Kor

A tourist bus carrying 26 South Koreans crashed on a road in northwestern Mexico late last week, leaving the driver dead and 18 passengers injured, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.The bus, operated by a tourist agency in Los Angeles, veered off a road near Ensenada in Mexico on Saturday (local time) and overturned while trying to avoid an oncoming bus, the foreign ministry added.The driver, Paul Noh, a Korean living in the U.S., was killed and 18 passengers were injured, it said. The injure

South Korea's national pension fund made more than 1 trillion won ($975.1 billion) in two weeks from its Samsung Group stocks, an analysis of its latest investment portfolio indicated Sunday.Samsung Group's share prices have jumped across the board after the conglomerate's chief Lee Kun-hee, who commands the country's top cap business empire, was hospitalized earlier this month after a heart attack. The incident raised investor confidence that Samsung would take pro-shareholder steps as it exped