President Moon Jae-in views the OECD's recognition of South Korea's digital government system as an outcome of longstanding efforts that date back to the Kim Dae-jung administration two decades ago, Cheong Wa Dae said Friday. Moon was responding to reports that the country ranked first in the Paris-based group's "2019 Digital Government Index" assessment. Moon, during a government meeting at his office, attributed the feat to the country's longtime efforts initiated by the Kim Dae-ju

A conservative civic group said Friday it has canceled plans to hold a 1,000-person outdoor worship service this weekend in response to a police ban on large-scale rallies. Choi In-sik, secretary general of the August 15 People's Emergency Response Committee, said the Sunday service was canceled because any legal steps to reverse the ban would likely not be processed in time. "We decided to apply with the Seoul Administrative Court for a stay of execution for the service planned for the f

The French Embassy asked for an exemption from property taxes from the South Korean government, but it was part of an "administrative inquiry," its top envoy said Friday. Ambassador Philippe Lefort to Seoul made the remark in response to a question about recent local media reports that the embassy had been refusing to pay the property taxes levied on about a dozen residences it owns for its staff in southern Seoul, saying there is no such tax system in its home country. "This i

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), the country's audit watchdog, on Friday plans to finalize an audit surrounding the controversial Wolsong-1 nuclear reactor closure. BAI plans to convene a commissioners' committee meeting to review and finalize the agency's audit of the controversial early reactor closure, sources familiar with the issue said. The committee has held serial meetings since last Wednesday but has not yet managed to wrap up the report. BAI chief Choe Jae-hyeong recently tol

South Korean shares retreated for a fourth consecutive session Friday, largely on concerns that the COVID-19 resurgence in major economies may hurt exports. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) dropped 19.68 points, or 0.83 percent, to close at 2,341.53. Trading volume was moderate at about 908 million shares worth some 11 trillion won ($9.6 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 622 to 240. Foreigners sold a net 173 billion wo

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Nam Yeong-shin apologized Friday for the military's violent brutal crackdown on protestors during a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju, vowing to fully cooperate with an ongoing probe into the case. This is the first time in 40 years that an Army chief officially apologized for the bloody incident. "I believe that the military's involvement in the May 18 Democratization Movement is gravely wrong," Nam said during a parliamentary

Students without face masks won't be allowed to enter a testing site for the national university entrance exam slated for December, the education ministry said Friday, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the test. The Ministry of Education unveiled detailed guidelines to safely hold the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), the country's biggest academic event of the year. Approximately 480,000 high school seniors and graduates are set to take the exam this year. For the nation

More than 20 sitting lawmakers face trials on charges of violating the public election law while campaigning for the previous parliamentary elections in April. Prosecutors said Thursday they indicted seven lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and 10 of the main opposition People Power Party and several others on charges of breaching the Public Official Election Act during their campaigns for the April 15 parliamentary elections. The measures were taken en masse before the statute of l

South Korea's foreign ministry reiterated its "foremost priority" to protect its citizens' health and safety Friday in dealing with Japan's potential discharge of contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The ministry also said the government has been handling the issue under a vice-ministerial inter-agency dialogue platform, amid public safety concerns over Japanese media reports that Tokyo has decided to release it into the sea with an official announcement likel

South Korea's electricity consumption fell to a four-year low in August in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and a long rainy season, data showed Friday. Power sales in Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 44,599 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in August, down 6.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from state utility Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO). The figure is the lowest industrial power consumption for August since the 44,412 GWh registered in the same month of 2016. It also r

Activities by Chinese warships in waters near the Korean Peninsula have increased in recent years, military data showed Friday. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff data released by Rep. Kim Min-ki of the ruling Democratic Party, Chinese war vessels crossed the tentative median line in South Korea's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around 290 times last year. An EEZ is a sea zone that a country has special rights over regarding the exploration and use of marine resources. It stretches out to 2

The Army said Friday it will push to establish a surveillance system that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) along the inter-Korean border areas and coastal regions to beef up its security posture. The move came after a series of security breaches this year, including illegal entries of Chinese people into a western coastal city on small boats and a North Korean defector's undetected border crossing back to his homeland through a drainage tunnel underneath barbed-wire fences. "By 202

Samsung Electronics Co. topped the world's best employer rankings released by US business magazine Forbes, industry officials said Friday. The South Korean tech giant ranked No. 1 on the Forbes list of the world's best employers for 2020 followed by US tech juggernauts Amazon, IBM and Microsoft. Samsung made a big leap in the rankings, jumping from 106th last year. In 2018, the company was ranked 76th on the Forbes' best employer list. Industry officials said Samsung's achievement is meani

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Friday that the southern port city of Busan should put forth all-out efforts to contain a recent COVID-19 cluster infection at a nursing home in the city. As of Thursday, a total of 53 cases has been reported from a nursing hospital in northern Busan, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. "The situation (in Busan) is very concerning," Chung said during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters

SUWON -- A thief caught stealing eggs earlier this year due to economic hardships caused by the coronavirus outbreak has been sentenced by a local court to one year behind bars, the court said Friday. The 47-year-old man was indicted for stealing a carton of eggs from a low-cost accommodation facility in Suwon, 45 kilometers south of Seoul, on March 23. The case drew public attention, as the suspect was likened by some media to the main character of the famous French novel "Les Miserables

A local distributor of two South Korean movies is considering releasing the films on Netflix without theatrical runs as the novel coronavirus pandemic has disrupted their opening schedules, a company official said Friday. The thriller "Call," starring Park Shin-hye, was first planned to hit local screens in March, but the release has been postponed for several months due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The distributor has also been struggling to fix the release date for the crime thriller

A North Korean newspaper on Friday warned against a global hunger crisis in commemoration of World Food Day as the impoverished country continues to struggle with its own chronic food shortage. The Minju Joson, the North's cabinet newspaper, said that at least 820 million people around the globe were suffering from starvation as of June this year, among which 244 million are children under the age of 5. The paper pointed out that production levels in agriculture across the world dropped sharpl

WASHINGTON -- US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden lashed out at President Donald Trump on Thursday, arguing that he has made the United States less secure and more isolated in the world. The former vice president also claimed the US president has made the United States a laughing stock on the global stage. "We find ourselves in a position where we're more isolated in the world than we have ever been," Biden said, adding Trump's America First policy has left "America a

The Army said Friday it will observe an annual US-led multinational exercise focused on space operations as part of efforts to boost its space defense capabilities. In a parliamentary audit report, the Army said it will join the Global Thunder exercise expected to be held next month as an observer. Global Thunder, led by the US Strategic Command, is an annual command and control exercise that provides training opportunities to assess the command's mission areas with a specific focus on nuclear

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday it will kick off an annual military exercise next week amid persistent nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. The Hoguk exercise, set to run from Monday through Oct. 30 across the country, will involve the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, and diverse programs will be staged, such as joint landing drills and those to defend northwestern islands in the Yellow Sea. "As an annual drill, the Hoguk exercise is defensive in nature, an