Yonhap News Summary

The following is the first summary of major stories moved by Yonhap News Agency on Thursday.

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(LEAD) Moon revs up push to get extra budget for job creation

SEOUL -- President Moon Jae-in on Thursday ratcheted up his push to secure a 10 trillion-won (US$8.9 billion) extra budget for job creation, saying he would visit parliament at an "appropriate time" to gain its backing.

During a regular meeting with his senior secretaries, Moon also directed the government to accelerate the process of submitting a bill for the supplementary budget to the National Assembly in order to deliver on his key election pledge of creating 810,000 jobs in the public sector.

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(Yonhap Interview) U.S. senator defends THAAD installation amid procedural dispute in Seoul

SEOUL -- A U.S. senator has said his country has proceeded with the deployment of a missile defense system in South Korea transparently amid a heated dispute here over its domestic procedures, which has prompted a presidential office probe into top security officials this week.

Senator Dick Durbin also expressed hopes that the procedural issues won't undercut the raison d'etre of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system that is protecting against North Korea's growing military threats.

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(2nd LD) S. Korea's exports up 13.4 pct on-year in May

SEJONG -- South Korea's exports jumped 13.4 percent last month from a year earlier to extend their winning streak to seven months on the back of brisk overseas sales of computer chips and displays, the trade ministry said Thursday.

Outbound shipments came to US$45 billion last month, up from $39.7 billion tallied a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

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Antibiotics use down in S. Korea, highest among OECD members

SEOUL -- South Korea's consumption of antibiotics has been greatly reduced, a government report showed Thursday, but the country remains the top user among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries.

According to the report by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the prescription rate of antibiotics for acute upper respiratory infections came to 40.99 percent in the second half of last year, down 2.53 percent from a year earlier.

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Moon's top security advisor departs for U.S. to discuss summit, N.K. threats

SEOUL -- President Moon Jae-in's top security advisor on Thursday embarked on a two-day trip to the United States for talks with top Washington officials over Moon's upcoming summit with President Donald Trump, North Korean threats and other alliance issues, Seoul's presidential office said.

Chung Eui-yong, the National Security Office chief, will meet his U.S counterpart H.R. McMaster and other officials to discuss the agenda for the summit slated for later this month, and cooperation in reining in a provocative Pyongyang, the office said.

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Ruling party to push for parliamentary hearing on THAAD controversy

SEOUL -- The ruling Democratic Party said Thursday it would push for a parliamentary hearing on a controversy over the defense ministry's alleged failure to report to the president the delivery of additional U.S. missile interceptor launchers.

The party's special panel on the issue surrounding the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system said that it plans to ask former National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and other security officials to testify

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S. Korean defense chief to join security forum in Singapore

SEOUL -- South Korea's troubled defense minister will attend a high-level security forum to open in Singapore later this week, his ministry announced Thursday.

It would serve as a chance for the minister, Han Min-koo, to focus on a round of "defense diplomacy" on the North Korean issue, taking a break from a massive political controversy over the handling of the U.S. deployment of its advanced missile defense system, called THAAD, here.

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(LEAD) S. Korea's consumer prices up 2 pct in May

SEJONG -- South Korea's consumer prices continued their upbeat mode to touch the 2 percent level in May on high-flying oil and livestock prices, government data showed Thursday.

The country's consumer price index gained 2 percent last month from a year earlier, slightly up from the previous month's 1.9 percent rise, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

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(LEAD) Successful ICBM interceptor test shows U.S. can outpace missile threats through 2020: official

WASHINGTON -- The successful shootdown of an intercontinental ballistic missile target in this week's interceptor test shows the United States can "outpace" foreign missile threats through 2020, the U.S. missile defense agency chief said Wednesday.

The Pentagon carried out the interceptor test over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, in which an ICBM-class target was fired from a site in the Marshall Islands and a ground-based interceptor was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, to intercept and destroy the target.
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