Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Monday that Pyongyang had "no interest" in efforts by Seoul to improve relations.

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said on Tuesday he would try to derive a mutually beneficial trade agreement with the United States, in comments ahead of his departure to Washington to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The agreement that Japan secured has added pressure on South Korea to defuse the threat of high tariffs on its exports to the United States.

Asian skin care has been a booming global business for a more than a decade, with consumers in Europe, North and South America, and increasingly the Middle East, snapping up creams, serums and balms from South Korea,

South Korean pharmaceutical firm Celltrion said on Tuesday that in an attempt to offset the risk of U.S. tariffs it had become the preferred bidder to acquire a U.S. manufacturing factory from an unnamed global pharmaceutical company.

North Korea has welcomed its first tourists to its ghostly new “Benidorm” beach resort. But the initial batch of visitors have reported that they are followed everywhere and their phones are likely bugged. The newly built resort, called Wonsan‑Kalma, has opened for Russian tourists on package tours.