South Korean stocks ended slightly higher Thursday as investors scooped up large-cap stocks. The Korean won rose against the US dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 12.84 points, or 0.54 percent, to 2,370.37.Individuals bought a net 75.68 billion won ($65 million) worth of stocks. Foreigners also turned net buyers of domestic stocks worth more than 17 billion won. But institutions dumped their holdings.  Kim Ye-eun, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities,

The number of people earning a living by renting property has risen sharply in recent years, government data showed Thursday, amid a market boom brought on by policy measures to prop up the housing market.The total number in the rental and leasing businesses surged to 1,452,000 people as of the end of 2015 from 882,000 in 2006 and 1,340,000 in 2014, according to data by the National Tax Service.The number accounts for 21.7 percent of the total registered businessmen in the country, which stood a

A venue for an upcoming performance in South Korea by a North Korean taekwondo demonstration team was rearranged Thursday.The North Korea-led International Taekwondo Federation will bring a demonstration team to South Korea for the World Taekwondo Federation World Taekwondo Championships in Muju, some 240 kilometers south of Seoul. The ITF's team is scheduled to perform during the event's opening and closing ceremonies on Saturday and June 30, respectively, with a WTF team.The WTF first arranged

Oh Seung-hwan of the St. Louis Cardinals has saved his 16th game of the season against the Philadelphia Phillies.Oh gave up a run in the bottom of the 10th inning against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Wednesday (local time), but managed to collect a save with the Cards' 7-6 victory. South Korean reliever Oh Seung-hwan of the St. Louis Cardinals (Yonhap)The right-hander, however, saw his ERA go up from 3.38 to 3.55.Oh went to the mound after the Cards made the score 7-5 in

Google Inc. is teaching an artificial intelligence algorithm to generate music and art as part of its efforts to expand the limits of computer creativity to the level of human beings going forward, the company's senior engineer said Thursday.The ambitious yet experimental "Magenta" project is one of many projects from Google Brain, which is responsible for many AI products like Google Translate and Google Photos. The team is dedicated to experimenting with new and different forms of machine lear

South Korean employees were paid an average 3.29 million won ($2,885) per month in 2015, with male workers earning 1.7 times more than their female colleagues, government data showed Thursday.According to the data by Statistics Korea, the median monthly wage of South Korea's employees was 2.41 million won.The statistics agency said the data is based on a survey of 15 million workers hired by local businesses, but some 9 million self-employed people and part-timers were excluded from the list.The

South Korean shares extended gains late Thursday morning as foreigners turned net buyers. The won traded higher against the dollar.  The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 7.19 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,364.72 as of 11:20 a.m.Individuals bought a net 148.91 billion won ($131 million) worth of stocks. But institutions dumped holdings.   Large-cap stocks were mostly trading higher. Technology and airline stocks led gains, helped by rising overseas demand and declin

South Korea is poised to follow Germany and Japan in raising power rates as it retires old nuclear power reactors and makes a switch to eco-friendly renewable energy, industry sources said Thursday.South Korea shut down its oldest Gori-1 nuclear power plant in the southeastern port city of Busan Monday as the newly launched liberal Moon Jae-in administration has pledged to close aged nuclear reactors and coal-fired power plants. The move is popular with many people and environmentalists but has

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will start mass-producing a processor designed exclusively for the Internet of Things platforms.The South Korean tech giant said the Exynos i T200 supports mobile communications with thorough security, which will help Samsung expand its presence in the global IoT industry. Samsung Electronics Co.`s Exynos i T200 (Yonhap)IoT is a concept in which objects are connected to the Internet and can identify themselves to other devices in order to exchange necessa

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will release a new flip-style smartphone this week, seeking to grab consumers still yearning for handsets with traditional design.The South Korean tech giant said although the Galaxy Folder 2 looks like earlier models of handsets, it runs on the Android 6.0 platform and comes with 8-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras. The 96.6-millimeter-wide display will also help users enjoy photos and videos, with a keypad allowing them to activate various features, suc

The South Korean government has used nearly half of its planned budget in the first five months of the year as part of its efforts to frontload spending to prop up the economy, the finance ministry said Thursday.Budget spending by the government and public institutions for the January-May period stood at 135.3 trillion won ($118.7 billion), up 5.5 trillion won from the earlier target of 129.8 trillion won, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.It accounted for 48 percent of the 281.7

Sales of whisky products in South Korea continued to fall in the first five months of this year, mainly due to a protracted economic slump and a change in the drinking culture, industry data showed Thursday.According to the data, whisky product sales in the January-May period fell 6.8 percent to 619,341 boxes from 664,310 tallied in the same period last year. A box contains 18 0.5-liter bottles. Sales of whisky in the Korean market reached their peak in 2008 with 2.84 million boxes and have sinc

The combined value of stocks owned by South Korea's 100 richest stockholders has jumped 21.3 percent, helped by a rally in the stock market, industry data showed Thursday. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index gained 16.3 percent to 2,357.53 on Wednesday, compared with a closing price of 2,026.16 as of Jan. 2 this year. According to the data by industry tracker Chaebul.com, the value of stocks owned by the 100 richest stockholders stood at 113.2 trillion won ($99.1 billion), up from 93

South Korea's four major lenders saw mortgage applications jump nearly 11 percent shortly after the government unveiled measures to cool the property market this week, sources said Thursday.The finance ministry announced Monday it will start tightening credit early next month as part of efforts to counter signs of overheating real estate markets in Seoul and several other regions.According to the sources, mortgage applications filed Tuesday with the four largest lenders in the country -- KB Kook

South Korean stocks opened higher Thursday despite overnight losses on Wall Street, led by gains in top cap Samsung Electronics. The won rose against the US dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 1.56 points, or 0.07 percent, to 2,359.09. Foreigners turned net buyers after shedding 183 billion won worth of stocks in the previous session. On Wednesday (local time), the Dow Jones industrial average moved down 0.27 percent to end at 21,410.03. Large-cap stocks mostly rose

Kia Motors Corp., South Korea's second-largest carmaker, has ranked highest among global brands in a US quality test for the second consecutive year, a US market tracker has said."Kia ranks highest in overall initial quality for a second consecutive year with a score of 72 PP100," J.D. Power and Associates, a US-based marketing information service company, said in its 2017 US Initial Quality Study released Wednesday.The study measures the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles during th

South Korea will have plenty of stumbling blocks ahead in its bid to assemble a unified, all-Korean women's hockey team at next year's PyeongChang Winter Olympics.New Sports Minister Do Jong-hwan told PyeongChang's organizing committee on Tuesday that he'll have discussions with the International Olympic Committee on putting together a joint Korean squad for the competition.Promoting peace has long been one of the goals of PyeongChang 2018, the first Winter Games to take place in South Korea. Wi

The United States should consider an executive order immediately banning all tourist travel to North Korea for the time being, a major US think tank said Wednesday amid outrage over the death of an American student following his comatose release from the North.The Korea Chair office of the Center for Strategic and International Studies also suggested imposing sanctions on all tour groups, including the one that took the ill-fated American student, Otto Warmbier, to the North.  (Yonhap)"The North

WASHINGTON -- The United States and China agreed Wednesday that companies of the two countries should not do business with UN-blacklisted North Korean entities, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said as he urged Beijing to exert "much greater pressure" on Pyongyang.Tillerson made the remark after the inaugural US-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue that brought together the countries' top diplomats and defense chiefs. Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis hosted Chinese State Counci

BMW said Wednesday it will sell its 10 millionth 5 series model through an auction in South Korea later this month. It is the first time for an imported carmaker to sell their limited editions in an auction here. In January, BMW decided to allocate the 10 millionth new 5 series diesel model to South Korea, the fifth-biggest market for the German carmaker, BMW Korea said in a statement.  BMW`s 10 millionth 520d sedan (Photo courtesy of BMW) (Yonhap)An auction slated on June 28 will find the owner