The amount of payments made electronically posted two-digit growth in the first half of this year, central bank data showed, as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted more people to engage in contactless commerce. 　The daily average amount of electronic financial transactions came to 802 billion won ($575 million) in the January-June period, up 13.5 percent from six months earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea. 　The daily average number of electronic financial transactions rose 4.4 p

　Eight out of 10 people in Britain now disapprove of the government, a YouGov poll showed on Oct. 18, as the country deals with an economic crisis inflamed by new Prime Minister Liz Truss's now-abandoned attempts at radical tax cutting reforms. 　The poll found that 77 percent Britons disapproved of the Conservative-led government, the highest in 11 years of YouGov tracking, the company said. 　YouGov also said that 9 in 10 Britons, or 87 percent of those polled, say the government is handling

　The number of South Korean citizens who have been kidnapped, detained or missing overseas in the recent five years has come to 2,762, an opposition lawmaker said, citing data from the Foreign Ministry. 　Rep. Lee Jae-jung of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea said that the number of South Koreans who went missing abroad from 2018 through the first half of this year tallied 2,474 while the figure of those, kidnapped or detained totaled 288 for the same period. 　Of the total 2,762, t

　People aged 65 and older accounted for 17.5 percent of South Korea’s population this year amid rapid aging, data showed, underscoring concerns that the demographic change could weigh on the country’s economy. 　The number of older adults stood at 9.02 million out of the country’s 51.6 million population this year, according to data from Statistics Korea. 　The number of senior citizens is expected to continue to rise to reach 10.6 million in 2025, or 20.6 percent of the total

　Chinese nationals have accounted for over 60 percent of apartment purchases by foreign nationals in South Korea since 2015, a government report showed. 　According to a report from the Land Ministry submitted to Rep. Yang Kyung-sook of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, the number of apartment purchase deals by Chinese nationals amounted to 18,465 between January 2015 and August of this year. 　The tally accounts for 62 percent of a total of 29,792 apartment purchases by foreigners

　The number of deaths in South Korea hit an all-time high last year due largely to rapid aging and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed. 　A total of 317,680 people died in the country last year, up 12,732 people, or 4.2 percent, from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. 　The 2021 tally marked the largest since 1983, when the statistics agency began compiling related data. 　The spike in deaths was mainly attributable to rapid aging, and COVID-19 was the

　Korea ranked 17th in this year’s global retirement ranking, up six notches from last year’s survey, according to the Natixis Investment Managers 2022 Global Retirement Index. 　Norway ranked No. 1, out of the 44 developed countries, followed by Switzerland and Iceland. 　The index includes 18 performance indices, grouped into four thematic indices that cover key aspects for welfare in retirement: The material means to live comfortably in retirement, access to quality financial serv

　South Korea’s global ranking in terms of digital technology competitiveness climbed to No. 8 this year, the Science Ministry said, citing the International Institute for Management Development. 　According to the ministry, South Korea climbed four notches from last year’s 12th spot in the 2022 IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking report. The country ranked 19th in 2017 and later reached the 14th and 10th spots in 2018 and 2019, respectively. 　The IMD, a Switzerland-based inte

　Some 200 environmental and land defense activists were killed around the world in 2021, including some 54 in Mexico, which assumed the position of the deadliest country in the annual report by nongovernmental organization Global Witness. 　More than three-quarters of the killings took place in Latin America, where Colombia, Brazil and Nicaragua also logged double-digit death tolls. 　It was the third consecutive year of increases for Mexico and a jump from 30 such activists killed in 2020. 　T

　Student drug offenders jumped nearly 2.5-fold over the past three years, marking a sharp increase compared with a 1.3-fold rise in overall drug offenders seen during the period, a report showed. 　According to the report from police submitted to Democratic Party Rep. Kang Deuk-gu, the number of elementary to graduate school student drug offenders had increased steadily from 140 in 2018 to 195 in 2019, 323 in 2020 and 346 last year. 　The corresponding number of January to August this year stoo

　SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest wireless carrier, ranks No. 1 in terms of download speed of 5G networks, an industry report showed. 　According to global mobile industry tracker Opensignal, the average download speed using SK Telecom’s 5G network was recorded at 469.6 megabits per second (Mbps), 2.55 times faster than the 184.2 Mbps average among global mobile carriers. 　LG Uplus, the country's third-largest mobile carrier, ranked second, with 429.6 Mbps, followed by Bulgaria&rs

　A record 83 percent of Ukrainians would like their country to join NATO, a Kyiv-based opinion pollster said, citing a survey conducted after Kyiv applied to join the military bloc. 　The Oct. 1-2 poll of 2,000 respondents by Rating Group was conducted after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Sept. 30 that Ukraine was submitting an expedited application for NATO membership. 　Rating Group said the percentage of those supporting NATO membership was the highest ever recorded by a survey i

　On Oct. 1, Indonesian police fired tear gas after violence broke out at a soccer match in Malang, East Java province, sparking a mass panic which drove the crowd toward stadium exits, causing a deadly crush which left at least 125 people dead.

　South Koreans’ use of internet banking services grew 6.9 percent in the first half of this year from six months earlier as customers preferred financial services through mobile devices, central bank data showed. 　The daily use of online banking services, including mobile banking, reached 18.82 million cases in the January-June period, compared with 17.61 million in the second half of last year, according to the data from the Bank of Korea. 　The value of daily transactions through inter

　A total of 630 elementary to high school students took their own lives over the past four years, due mainly to family feuds, an Education Ministry report showed. 　According to the report submitted to Rep. Kim Byong-wook of the People Power Party, 388 high school students died by suicide between 2018-2021, followed by 216 middle school students and 26 elementary school kids. 　Family feuds and parental abuse were the reason behind 196 of the suicide cases reported, followed by unknown reasons

　The number of people forced to work or in a marriage against their will has surged in recent years to around 50 million on any given day, the UN's International Labor Organization said on upon releasing its modern slavery report. 　Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts and climate change have led to unprecedented disruption to employment and education while exacerbating extreme poverty and forced migration, the agency said. 　Compared to the last count for the year 2016, the nu

　Nine out of 10 South Koreans are skeptical about the possibility of North Korea abandoning its nuclear program, a survey showed, amid a prolonged impasse in inter-Korean relations and denuclearization talks. 　According to a poll of 1,200 adults by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, 92.5 percent responded with skepticism, the highest percentage since the annual survey began in 2007. 　The number of respondents that supported South Korea’s nuclea

　South Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were the biggest NAND flash sellers in the world in the second quarter, an industry report showed. 　According to Taiwan-based market analyst firm TrendForce, Samsung's NAND flash sales during the April-June period reached $5.98 billion, with its global market share at 33 percent, down 2.3 percentage points from the previous quarter. 　NAND flash is a type of non-volatile storage technology that does not require power to retain data. (Yo

More than 10.5 million children worldwide have lost parents or caregivers, and 7.5 million-plus have lost one or both parents from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by JAMA Pediatrics. The sobering statistics are far above previous estimates and still climbing. And they could underscore potentially devastating, long-term consequences for children, including “institutionalization, abuse, traumatic grief, mental health problems, adolescent pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, a

　An American squad with 11 of the world's 18 top-ranked players is ready for the Presidents Cup, which begins on Thursday (local time), as huge favorites for a ninth consecutive victory over a depleted Internationals line-up. 　Top-ranked Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, No. 4 Patrick Cantlay, fifth-ranked Tokyo Olympic champion Xander Schauffele and multiple major winners Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Collin Morikawa lead the 12-man US team into Quail Hollow. 　They face an International