As many as 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia's western front-line Kursk region and could engage in combat in the "coming days," a State Department spokesperson said Monday, amid growing concerns that their involvement could expand Moscow's war in Ukraine. Matthew Miller, the spokesperson, made the remarks as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message earlier that there are already 11,000 North Korean troops in the Kursk region. "We now assess

South Korea's consumer prices slowed to the lowest level in 45 months in October on stabilizing oil prices, staying below 2 percent for the second consecutive month, data showed Tuesday. Consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, rose 1.3 percent on-year last month, compared with a 1.6 percent on-year increase in September, according to the data from Statistics Korea. October's figure marked the lowest level since January 2021, when consumer prices grew 0.9 percent. Consumer inflation

North Korea on Tuesday fired short-range ballistic missiles into the sea east of the Korean Peninsula just before the US presidential election. South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a brief announcement the missiles were launched at around 7:30 a.m. from a province south of the North Korean capital Pyongyang toward the sea. South Korean and US military and intelligence officials are analyzing details of the launch, including their type and range. Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean lead

The average amount workers spend on lunch has risen back above 10,000 won ($7.24), according to data from food tech company SikSin. The survey found that the average amount spent on lunch at restaurants nationwide was 10,037 won. After surpassing 10,000 won for the first time in the first quarter of this year, it dipped slightly to 9,902 won in the second quarter, but has since increased again. Other statistics reflect tighter household budgets. Notably, there has been a significant rise in wo

Even the world’s fourth most-populous country, which has more active cellphones than people, seems to be no match for Apple. Indonesia’s ban on the sale of iPhone 16s after the company failed to meet local investment requirements didn’t faze investors. Shares of the world’s most-valuable company were largely unchanged by the news, which makes sense given the smaller footprint it has in the emerging market. And the deck was already unevenly stacked: Indonesia’s entir

I teach a course at the University of Chicago on presidential elections, and I hear the same kind of question from friends on both the right and the left. The Republicans I grew up with in western Kansas cannot understand why Donald Trump is not far ahead in the polls, whereas the Democrats who surround me in Chicago wonder how it can possibly be that Kamala Harris is not running away with the race. These are the right questions for understanding contemporary US politics. For all its unusual asp

The National Assembly on Monday started in earnest to deliberate on the 667.4 trillion won ($483.4 billion) government budget for next year. The budget increased a modest 3.2 percent year over year. Deliberation ends in the general meeting of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts on Nov. 29. Voting on the budget bill is slated for Dec. 2 in the Assembly plenary session. The ruling People Power Party makes much of fiscal austerity, while the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea regard

President Yoon Suk Yeol will hold a news conference on Thursday at 10 a.m. as the South Korean leader approaches the halfway point of his five-year term, Yoon's office announced on Monday. According to the presidential office, Yoon will map out his administration’s policy direction for the future and engage in a sincere discussion of topics that have drawn public interest. Yoon’s aides proposed that he take the opportunity to communicate with the public before he departs for an

A South Korean government delegation to Ukraine returned home Monday after visiting Kyiv to discuss possible cooperation measures in response to North Korea's troop deployment to Russia, officials said. The delegation, consisting of senior intelligence and military officials, visited Ukraine after briefing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels last week over the North's troop dispatch. The visit came as South Korea has signaled a potential shift in its Ukraine support poli

South Korea and the United States formally signed a defense cost-sharing agreement Monday, as Seoul seeks to speed up its domestic ratification procedure to ensure the stable stationing of American troops here ahead of the US elections. The signing came a month after the allies reached a new five-year deal on determining Seoul's share of its cost for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong US Forces Korea. Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and US Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg signed the deal

GWANGJU -- Prosecutors on Monday demanded prison terms of up to 10 years for company officials accused of involvement in the deadly collapse of an apartment building in Gwangju in 2022. The collapse of the 39-story apartment building under construction left six workers dead and one injured in January 2022. An investigation found that deck plates and concrete supports affecting the building's bearing capacity had been installed without a structural review. During the final hearing at Gwang

Zambia celebrated its 60th Independence Day in Seoul on Oct. 23. The day commemorates a historic occasion when the country gained independence from British colonial rule on Oct. 24, 1964, and is remembered as the moment when Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, raised the new Zambian flag and declared the nation’s sovereignty. Delivering remarks at the event, Zambian Ambassador to Korea Andrew Bwezani Banda highlighted the immense potential for increased trade and investment betw

Boy band TXT celebrated the grand finale of its third world tour with three days of concerts in Seoul and returned with a new album. The quintet held the final performance of “Act: Promise,” the encore concert of its third world tour, which began in May, at KSPO Dome in Seoul on Sunday. Including the encore concerts, TXT completed a total of 31 performances across 17 cities, including major venues like Tokyo Dome, Kyocera Dome Osaka, Vantelin Dome Nagoya in Japan, and Madison Square

Irene of Red Velvet will bring out her first solo album “Like A Flower” on Nov. 26, said label SM Entertainment Monday. Together with the title track, the EP comprises eight tracks based on the pop genre. It will be her first solo endeavor since debuting as the leader of Red Velvet 10 years ago. The group celebrated its decadelong music career with EP “Cosmic” and a fan concert tour in Asia. The EP topped iTunes' Top Albums chart in 50 regions and debuted on Billboar

Local festivals in Korea on the theme of bunsik, Korean light meals and snacks, are enjoying unprecedented success, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors in recent weeks. Although the festivals were held in cities 2-3 hours by car from the Seoul metropolitan area, where half of the Korean population lives, some cities saw visitor numbers similar to their whole populations as the events went viral online. The 1st Gimcheon Gimbap Festival, held at Samyeongdaesa Park in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsa

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung unveiled the company’s plan to start mass production of the industry's most up-to-date high-bandwidth memory chips early next year. “We anticipated that the market for the 16-layer product will begin to open (the sixth-generation) HBM4,” he said in a keynote speech at SK AI Summit 2024 in Seoul on Monday. "We are developing the new product to ensure technical stability.” The 16-layer, 48-gigabyte, fifth-generation HBM3E chip boasts the

A man in his 20s was booked without detention for allegedly abandoning hundreds of pet reptiles, resulting in many of them starving to death, according to police on Monday. Heungdeok Police Station in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province said it is investigating the man on suspicion of breaking the Animal Protection Act. The police said they received a report on October 11 from the landlord of an apartment in the city’s Bokdae-dong neighborhood. The landlord said he had been unable to cont

In director Jo Sun-ho’s coming-of-age romance flick “Hear Me: Our Summer,” a majority of the three protagonists’ scenes rely less on speech and more on sign language, body language and written text. For Roh Yoon-seo, being part of the project was an experience that has improved not only her sign language skills but also expanded her acting spectrum. “At first, there was the pressure to learn a new language, but I started out by learning lines from the scenario in

A teacher who was accused on charges of child abuse for scolding and pulling a student’s arm has been ruled not guilty, the court announced Monday. South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling that had imposed a fine of 1 million won ($730) on the teacher, identified only by the surname Choi, for child abuse charges and sent the case back to the Uijeongbu District Court for review. The incident occurred on March 14, 2019, when the teacher allegedly shouted at a

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, led by music director Jaap van Zweden, will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year under the theme “Collaboration.” Building on the 2024 season’s focus on "Exploration" and strengthening its core repertoire during the conductor's inaugural year, the SPO’s 2025 season will broaden its scope across genres through first-time collaborations with renowned global artists and institutions. Among the 2025 season’s highlight