South Korean stocks opened higher Monday, as investors scooped up large-cap tech shares. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 9.39 points, or 0.39 percent, to 2,395.46 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Market kingpin Samsung Electronics gained 1.03 percent, and SK hynix was 2.85 percent up. LG Chem, South Korea's top chemicals firm, advanced 0.37 percent, and AmorePacific, th...

South Korea's top 100 listed companies have seen their average operating margin lose steam over the past three years amid a slowdown in overall business conditions, a market tracker said Monday. The average operating margin of the leading firms stood at 5.48 percent for the 2014-2016 period, lower than the comparable figure of 5.8 percent from 2007-16, according to Chaebul.com. The figure refer...

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday the world should brace itself for all possibilities, including military options, in a bid to discourage North Korea from its pursuit of nuclear and missile programs. "We must be ready to confront any consequences and any eventualities, including military options. to address this. Otherwise North Korea would be emboldened," he said in a keynote ...

SEOUL/WASHINGTON -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump agreed to more thoroughly implement UN sanctions against North Korea during telephone talks Sunday. The leaders also called on the North to refrain from any more provocations, warning they will only lead to its isolation and eventual collapse, according to Park Soo-hyun, spokesman for South Korea's presidential ...

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France -- South Korean contenders' charge fell short at the LPGA Tour's final major championship of the season here on Sunday. Kim Sei-young was the top finisher from the South Korean contingent at the weather-shortened Evian Championship at par-71 Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France, where she tied for sixth at seven-under 206. Kim ended two strokes out of the pla...

President Moon Jae-in was set to embark on a five-day trip to New York on Monday to attend the UN General Assembly and hold talks with other leaders on how to rein in North Korea's evolving nuclear and missile provocations. His trip follows North Korea's sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3 and a series of missile firings. The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said earlier Moon will hold a luncheon an...

WASHINGTON -- The United States will seek a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear issue until it becomes necessary to use military force, Washington's top diplomat said Sunday. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US has been carrying out a "peaceful pressure campaign" to compel North Korea to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear and ballistic missile program. But if the ...

A group of South Korean opposition lawmakers said Sunday the U.S. government responded negatively to their request to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula during their visit to Washington. The legislators of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party returned Saturday from their four-day trip to meet State Department officials, Congress members and influential scholars. In a p...

President Moon Jae-in on Sunday urged parliament to pass a confirmation motion for his Supreme Court chief nominee which is pending amid controversy over his political views. In a statement issued a week before the incumbent's term ends, the president called for lawmakers' cooperation to prevent an unprecedented vacancy in the nation's top justice posts. Opposition parties have delayed a vote o...

South Korea's private kindergarten operators on Sunday called off their planned strike amid rising public criticism and parents' concern. The Korea Kindergarten Association had planned to temporarily halt operations on Monday and Sept. 25-29 in protest of the government's plan to increase state-funded kindergartens which they fear may crowd them out. They are also asking for more financial suppo...

The government is likely to expand the scope of formal recognition of damage from toxic humidifier disinfectants to include asthma, Environment Minister Kim Eun-kyung said Sunday. In an interview with Yonhap News Agency, Kim said a government panel dealing with the incident has almost reached a decision on the inclusion of asthma, a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways in t...

EUMSEONG -- Ban Ki-moon, the newly elected chief of the ethics body at the International Olympic Committee, said Sunday he feels a heavy responsibility taking the job, but will try to improve the transparency of the organization. Ban, who served as the UN secretary-general from January 2007 to December 2016, was officially elected at the IOC Session in Lima, Peru, on Thursday (local time) to lea...

The number of North Koreans who escaped to South Korea between January to August this year declined more than 10 percent from a year ago, government data showed Sunday. The decrease is attributable to North Korea's tightened surveillance over its people and reinforced security by Pyongyang and Beijing along their borders, according to the Ministry of Unification's report to Rep. Park Byeong-seug...

The prosecution said Sunday it is looking into allegations the state intelligence agency set up plans to control the management of major broadcasters in the late 2000s. The National Intelligence Service was also found to have compiled a blacklist of senior officials and program directors critical of the conservative government according to its internal inspection. The prosecution is widening it...

The South Korean Navy's submarine SSK Lee Eok Gi (SS-071) wobbled a bit, setting sail from the country's newest naval port on Jeju Island. The slight odor of oil that filled the cramped, windowless diesel-electric sub made some of the strangers aboard worry about getting seasick. "This is (like) a lake," Cdr. Kang Byung-oh, the captain of the 1,200-ton sub, told a small group of reporters in th...