Corporate deposits held by South Korean banks decreased by the largest amount in the first three months of the year, central bank data showed Saturday, as businesses are moving to expand investment amid an upturn in Asia's fourth-largest economy. Total bank savings by local businesses reached 367.5 trillion won ($327.4 billion) as of end-March, down 15.9 trillion won, or 4.2 percent from three m...

Iran says incumbent President Hassan Rouhani is ahead of his nearest competitor in an initial count of votes in the election. Interior Ministry deputy minister Ali Asghar Ahmadi told journalists in a televised news conference Saturday morning that over 40 million Iranians voted in Friday's election. That puts turnout above 70 percent. Ahmadi says the initial vote count has the moderate cleric R...

Military tensions on the Korean peninsula should not prevent the nuclear-armed North sending a team to the 2018 Winter Olympics in the South, according to the head of the Games organising committee Lee Hee-Beom. The former diplomat and trade minister also said the heavily-fortified border between the two Koreas would be opened to allow any North Korean team to make a highly symbolic road crossin...

North Korea on Saturday unveiled footage which it claims backs its latest revelation that South Korean and U.S. spy agencies plotted to kill its leader Kim Jong-un using a biochemical substance. North Korea's propaganda outlet Uriminjokkiri TV filed the footage containing testimony from what it insists is a terrorist and pieces of evidence about an alleged terror attempt against Kim. orth Korea...

South Korea's presidential envoy Hong Seok-hyun met with U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain on Friday to outline the policy of President Moon Jae-in on the alliance with the U.S., North Korea and other issues. Hong was also scheduled to meet later Friday with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry as part of a series of meetings he has been holding since ar...

The U.S. defense chief warned Friday that a military solution to the standoff with North Korea would be "tragic on an unbelievable scale," while the North vowed to rapidly strengthen its nuclear-strike capability as long as it faces a "hostile'' U.S. policy. North Korea tested a longer-range missile last weekend, which experts say was a significant advance for a weapons program that aims at havi...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Friday that the U.S. and its partners are working to find a non-military solution to the problem of North Korea because military options would be "tragic on an unbelievable scale." "We're going to continue to breed the same kind of pressure internationally that we've been trying to. We're going to continue to work the issue. As you know, if this goes to ...

North Korea said on Tuesday a US move to impose additional sanctions against it is nothing new and will surely fail. "The US House of Representatives is mulling passing a 'bill on escalating sanctions with respect to transactions relating to North Korea'," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a signed commentary. "The bill, the keynote of which is to seek the sinister intenti...

The commander of the U.S. Army Pacific visited South Korea earlier this week, a trip that included a visit to the U.S. Army unit set to operate the THAAD missile defense system to be deployed by the Asian ally, a military official said Saturday. Gen. Robert Brown's two-day trip to South Korea which started on Tuesday was part of his swing through the region that also included a stop in Japan, ac...