The South Korean military continued its operation Saturday to search and salvage the wreckage of a North Korean rocket that crashed into the Yellow Sea. Deep-sea divers from the Sea Salvage and Rescue Unit were deployed to the remote sea, 200 kilometers west of the western island of Eocheong, military officials said. The North launched what it claimed to be a satellite-carrying rocket Wednesday...

SINGAPORE -- The defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan are set to hold trilateral talks in Singapore on Saturday, as the three sides seek to step up cooperation against growing military threats posed by Pyongyang. The meeting between Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and his US and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Yasukazu Hamada, respectively, will take place on the side...

South Korea has concluded a four-day event of meetings and multinational maritime drills Friday aimed at preventing the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. The high-level forum of the Proliferation Security Initiative, the first such meeting hosted by Seoul, brought together around 200 delegates from 71 countries on the country's southern resort island of Jeju on Tuesday. South Korea al...

South Korean banks saw their first-quarter net profit rise 24 percent from a year earlier on higher interest and non-interest income, preliminary data showed Friday. Their combined net profit came to 7 trillion won ($5.4 billion) in the January-March period, up from 5.6 trillion won tallied a year ago, according to data from the Financial Supervisory Service. The figure was up 55.9 percent from ...

South Korea's Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup arrived in Singapore on Friday to attend an annual security forum, where North Korea's evolving military threats, the war in Ukraine and an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry are expected to feature prominently. The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue got under way in the city-state earlier in the day, bringing together senior security officials from more than 4...

South Korean stocks closed at a one-year high Friday, led by large-cap tech gains, on hopes the Federal Reserve will pause its aggressive monetary tightening and the United States' debt ceiling deal will pass. The local currency rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 32.19 points, or 1.25 percent, to close at 2,601.36. It was the first time for the inde...

South Korea and the United States signed an arrangement Friday on the creation of their first joint cybersecurity guidance aimed at ensuring smooth combined military operations, Seoul's defense ministry said. The signing came as they are stepping up security coordination against persistent threats from North Korea that further ratcheted up tensions this week with its failed yet defiant launch of...

The approval ratings of President Yoon Suk Yeol and the ruling People Power Party inched down slightly this week, amid continued opposition attacks on the government's diplomacy with Japan, a poll showed Friday. In the poll of 1,002 adults aged 18 and over conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday to Thursday, the positive assessment of Yoon's performance inched down 1 percentage point from the pre...

The South Korean military has concluded three-day drills for the defense of western border islands, the Marine Corps said Friday, amid tensions caused by North Korea's botched launch of a space rocket earlier this week. The drills took place on the border islands in the Yellow Sea, including Baengnyeong Island, led by the North West Islands Defense Command and joined by troops from the Army, the...

South Korea's Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup left for Singapore on Friday to attend an annual security forum, where North Korea's evolving military threats, the war in Ukraine and an intensifying Sino-US rivalry are expected to feature prominently. The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue is set to kick off in the city-state later in the day, bringing together senior security officials from more than 40...

South Korea's economy grew 0.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, unchanged from an earlier estimate, largely thanks to a sustained recovery in private spending amid an extended slowdown in exports, central bank data showed Friday. The country's gross domestic product -- a key measure of economic growth -- increased 0.3 percent in the January-March period from three months earlier, accor...

South Korea's new coronavirus cases fell below 20,000 on Friday as almost all pandemic-related restrictions were lifted this month. The country reported 19,724 new infections, including 33 imported cases, bringing the total caseload to 31,747,839, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. Daily infections remained below 20,000 for the six days through Tuesday but rose above 20,000 o...

The United States is strengthening its cooperation with South Korea and Japan to deter evolving threats posed by North Korea, President Joe Biden said Thursday. Biden's remark comes after North Korea launched what it claims to be its first military spy satellite in a botched attempt. "In the Indo-Pacific, we deepened our alliance and our trilateral cooperation with Japan and the Republic of Kor...

South Korean exports are showing some signs of a recovery on the back of rising demand from China and increasing outbound shipments of semiconductors, the finance minister said Friday. South Korea's exports fell for an eighth consecutive month in May, reaching $52.24 billion, down 15.2 percent on-year, government data showed this week. The decline mostly came as exports of semiconductors sank 36...

When South Korea head coach Kim Eun-jung was preparing his players for the round of 16 match against Ecuador at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina, he delivered a straightforward message: that this could be their last match in the tournament and there's no tomorrow. That sense of urgency paid off in South Korea's 3-2 victory in Santiago del Estero, northern Argentina, on Thursday, and South Ko...