IN BRIEF (Page 12)

South Korea

Tokyo asked not to drop Seoul from list

South Korea protested on Wednesday against a Japanese plan to remove it from a Japanese list of countries that face minimum trade restrictions. The industry ministry said in a statement Japan's removal of South Korea from the list would be a very grave matter that would undermine their economic and security partnership. Japan's planned revision of a law to take South Korea off its so-called white list came amid a deepening row over compensation for wartime forced labor, and after Japan tightened curbs this month on exports to South Korea of high-tech materials used for making memory chips and display panels.