OLYMPIA -- Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon met with US Olympic Committee Chairman Larry Probst on Tuesday and asked for help in getting US President Donald Trump to visit South Korea for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, officials said. During their meeting held in the Greek city of Olympia ahead of a ceremony to light the torch for the PyeongChang Games, Lee said he hopes Trump and First Lady Melania...

US President Donald Trump has been briefed on a South Korean party's calls for the redeployment of tactical nuclear arms to the Korean Peninsula to counter growing North Korean threats, a party official said. Khang Hyo-shang, the spokesman of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, said in Washington on Monday (local time) that the Central Intelligence Agency kept Trump informed of the public s...

South Korea decided Tuesday to lower its anti-terrorism alert to the lowest level, nearly two years after raising the status by a notch in the wake of the deadly terror attacks in Paris. Following the Paris attacks in November 2015 that left more than 130 people dead, the government raised the anti-terrorism alert to the step 2 or "caution" level and has since maintained it through regular situa...

South Korea's foreign ministry said Tuesday that it is making efforts to let the world know about women forced into Japanese wartime brothels by continuing to push for a UNESCO listing of related documents. "Our government is working on the listing with the basic attitude that a lesson should be learned from the comfort women issue," foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told reporters during a...

CLARK, Philippines -- South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Monday he and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis plan to use military uniforms for a joint warning message to North Korea this week, when they meet in South Korea for bilateral annual talks. Song proposed that Mattis wear a Marine Corps combat uniform, instead of a suit, in meeting with the allies' troops on the peninsula ...

South Korean stocks finished at a fresh record high Tuesday as institutions and individuals scooped up market heavyweights on earnings expectations, analysts said. The won rose against the dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index edged up 0.44 point, or 0.02 percent, to close at 2,490.49. The gain was bolstered by robust third-quarter earnings expectations, with a slew of major fi...

Nearly half of South Korea's salaried workers were paid 2 million won ($1,772) or less in monthly wages during the first six months of this year, government data showed Tuesday. About 32.6 percent of the country's 19.7 million salaried workers were paid between 1-2 million won per month while 10.4 percent received less than 1 million won, according to the figures by Korea Statistics. About 27.3...

GWANGYANG -- A ruling party legislator called Tuesday for urgent measures to revive Gwangyang Port, a major seaport in South Korea whose cargo processing volume is rapidly diminishing. Rep. Lee Gae-ho, elected from the constituency including the southern city of Gwangyang, said the volume of cargo handled at the port has fallen for five consecutive years. "There were less than 2.3 million TEUs p...

GWANGJU -- Two former major league pitchers will start the opening game of the South Korean baseball championship series this week. The Kia Tigers will host the Doosan Bears to open the Korean Series, the championship final in the Korea Baseball Organization, Wednesday at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, some 330 kilometers south of Seoul. To start the best-of-seven series, the Tigers wil...

LG Household & Health Care Ltd., South Korea's No. 2 cosmetics and household goods maker, said Tuesday it racked up a solid profit in the third quarter of this year on the back of its high-end cosmetic brands, despite concerns over a setback from a diplomatic row between Seoul and Beijing over a US anti-missile system here. Its operating profit came to 253 billion won ($224 million) in the July-...

The number of international passengers using Gimhae International Airport in the southeastern port city of Busan has risen sharply this year despite a drop in Chinese tourists, industry data showed Tuesday. As many as 5.24 million passengers used international flights through Gimhae in the first seven months of this year, according to statistics provided by the Korea Airports Corp. The number r...

A North Korean diplomat who recently joined a conference in Moscow called for the United States to drop its hostile policy and make the "right choice" of recognizing it as a nuclear-armed state, saying that it would lead to a "way out" from the current stalemate, a foreign ministry source here said Tuesday. Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department of North Korea's foreign ...

A reality show "Wanna One Go" Season 2 will be broadcast next month, cable music channel Mnet said Tuesday. Following up on the 2-episode program aired in August, the show features the ordinary life of the 11 winners of the popular audition program "Produce 101." The upcoming "Wanna One Go: Zero Base," consisting of 8 episodes, will have more interesting content and behind-the-scene stories abo...

Singer-actress Uhm Jung-hwa will release a new album next month, according to a music production company Tuesday. The five-track record will be the second half of "The Cloud Dream of the Nine," Uhm's 10th full-length album, Mystic Entertainment, the production company of Uhm's record, said. The first half, a four-track record, was released in December of last year. The new album will feature co...

They were once battling each other for Olympic speed skating medals, but now, Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea and Bob de Jong of the Netherlands are chasing a common goal as athlete and coach -- to win medals for host South Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. Lee was the shock gold medalist in the men's 10,000m at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, where de Jong claimed the bronze. Turn the ...