RIGA, Latvia – Latvia will participate in next year’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics despite security concerns over North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program, its president Raimonds Vejonis has confirmed. In an interview with Korean media, the leader also confirmed his official visit to South Korea in February, timed to coincide with the sports event. Latvian president Raimonds Vejonis (Yo...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in ended his four-day visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he had sought international support for efforts to contain the wayward North Korea. His talk of peace on the global diplomatic stage, however, appears to have made little impact, as the war rhetoric between the US and North Korea only became fiercer with the North’s leader Kim Jo...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for a greater United Nations role in resolving the North Korea crisis, in his debut speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, urging fellow leaders to together confront the “Cold War’s last stand” in the Far East. “The Korean Peninsula is where the guiding spirit of the UN -- world peace through multiculturalism -- is most desperately needed right n...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday declared the intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile operationally ready, a day after test-firing it at a normal angle over Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. This is the missile with which the communist regime had earlier threatened to contain the Pacific island of Guam, a key US military outpost about 3,400 kilometers from Pyongyang. The Korea Heral...

North Korea fired yet another missile over Japan into the northern Pacific Ocean, South Korean and Japanese officials confirmed Friday, in a clear show of defiance against international sanctions and pressure. The launch, which came days after the United Nations adopted its toughest-ever sanctions against the North, put millions in Japan into a “duck and cover,” escalating a sense of crisis in t...

The National Assembly on Monday rejected President Moon Jae-in’s nominee for the Constitutional Court president, in spite of a prolonged void in the top judiciary’s leadership. In a floor vote that took place more than two months after Kim Yi-su’s confirmation hearing, 145 out of 293 lawmakers present voted for the nominee, while another 145 voted against him. One abstained. Two votes were liste...

In light of recent brutal crimes involving minors, calls are growing in South Korea that it is time to end leniency toward juvenile offenders. Politicians appear to concur. Rep. Choo Mi-ae, chairwoman of the ruling Democratic Party, highlighted the need to revise the Juvenile Act, which covers criminal offenders aged 10 to 18 and allows them to receive more lenient treatment. Minors under 14 do ...

North Korea's threat against Guam, a key US military outpost, is based on the Hwasong-12, a new intermediate range missile the country successfully flight-tested for the first time in May. The liquid-fuel missile is designed to be fired from road mobile launchers and has been previously described by North Korea as built for attacking Alaska and Hawaii. The North followed the May launch with two...

Last summer was memorable. Memorable in a bad way. I love summer, but last year’s was unbearable, with day highs hovering over 35 degrees Celsius for weeks. My long-awaited summer holiday was ruined because the wet, sauna-like conditions outside made me not want to leave the comfort of an air-conditioned room. I was then served with electricity bill “bombs” for resorting to air conditioning day ...

The conservative Liberty Korea Party on Monday narrowed down its presidential contenders to four in the second round of its in-house competition to pick its single nominee for the May 9 presidential election. The four contenders, who were picked through an opinion poll, were South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Hong Joon-pyo, former six-term lawmaker Rhee In-je, Rep. Kim Jin-tae. and North Gyeongsang ...

[THE INVESTOR] Creditors of Kumho Tire , Korea’s second-largest tire-maker by revenue, are seeking a buyer for their combined controlling stake -- a sale that former owner Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo would love to see fail. Eight financial institutions, including Woori Bank and Korea Development Bank, on Tuesday put out a public notice of the stake sale. Credit Suisse is arra...

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- Former U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that he "wholeheartedly" rejects claims that the free trade agreement with South Korea brought no benefits to the U.S. Senator Marco Rubio attends a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on global efforts to defeat ISIS on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., on June 28. AFP-Yonhap Rubio (R-FL) made the rem...

The eponymous “Abenomics,” a set of reform plans named after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, frequently turns up in the world’s media. But nobody ever refers to “Geunhyenomics” for South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and it’s not just because it’s hard to pronounce. It’s because nothing has changed from the ancient government policies of the 20th century despite almost every aspect of the...