South Korea's major umbrella labor union pressed ahead with a massive street rally Saturday in central Seoul despite the government's warning of a stern response. Around 8,000 members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions gathered in the Jongno district, ignoring the government's call to cancel the assembly feared to affect the fight against COVID-19. The country is struggling to contain a resurgence of coronavirus cases. They had planned to hold it in the western Seoul area of Yeouido

Global superstar BTS has set another record on YouTube, with its music video for the 2017 song "DNA" earning 1.3 billion views on YouTube, the band's agency said Saturday. YouTube views for "DNA," released in September 2017, topped 1.3 billion around midnight Friday, becoming the seven-piece act's first music video to reach the milestone, according to Big Hit Entertainment. It took just five months for the music video to add an extra 100 million views after it broke 1.2 b

South Korea has confirmed 794 new COVID-19 cases, local health authorities announced Saturday, amid worries about a potential fourth wave of large-scale infections nationwide. The latest figure is down from 826 recorded the previous day, but it marked the second consecutive day that the nation's daily new virus cases stayed at around 800. Among the additional infections, 748 were locally transmitted and 46 imported, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The total case

South Korean stocks are likely to rebound next week, as optimism for strong corporate earnings is expected to buffer growing virus concerns, analysts said Saturday. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed at 3,281.78 points on Friday, down 0.64 percent from a week ago. The KOSDAQ closed the week at a 52-week high for the second consecutive day at 1,038.18 points. The country's virus situation is getting worse, with the daily caseload continuing to increase amid woes over sprea

Only two homegrown movies made the top 10 in the local box office over the first six months of this year, while the Hollywood actioner "F9" became the biggest hit in South Korea, data showed Saturday. "F9," the latest chapter in the "Fast and Furious" series, was the most-watched film in the first half of 2021, drawing over 2.28 moviegoers at the end of June, according to the box office data compiled by the Korean Film Council. The Japanese animation "Demon

A new act will enable South Korea to establish a national committee in charge of ensuring the country follows a stable, long-term education policy regardless of a change of government, officials said Saturday. Earlier this week, the National Assembly's plenary meeting passed a relevant act on the establishment and management of the envisioned national education committee. The launch of the committee was part of President Moon Jae-in's election campaign, aimed at ensuring that the country's e

North Koreans surpassed South Koreans in the Test of English as a Foreign Language, one of the leading English language proficiency tests, last year, a report showed Saturday. According to a report from the U.S.-based Education Testing Service, the administrator of TOEFL, the average score in the internet-based TOEFL by North Korean nationals was 87 out of 120 in 2020. North Koreans' average TOEFL score, up four points from 2019, was the same as the global average and one point higher than S

A high-profile criminal investigation into an early shutdown of the country's second-oldest nuclear reactor has wrapped up, along with indictments of former Cheong Wa Dae and energy ministry officials on power abuse charges. State prosecutors have looked into the circumstances surrounding the closure of Wolsong-1, which was shut down some three years earlier than scheduled in late 2019, by the state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. based on an economic viability survey. The decision wa

A new poll on prospective presidential contenders released Friday showed former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl with a slight edge over his ruling party rival, Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung. In the survey by Gallup Korea, Yoon received 25 percent of support, up 4 percentage points from a month before. He overtook Lee, whose rating stayed put at 24 percent. The survey conducted from Tuesday to Thursday was the first opinion poll after Yoon, with no party allegiance, announced his inte

Thirteen out of South Korea's top 50 business group heads hold stocks worth more than 1 trillion won ($881 million) as of end-June, with Samsung Group's chief being the richest, a corporate tracker said Friday. The number, which came amid a bullish local stock market, was up from 12 recorded in the first quarter of this year, according to CXO Institute Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the de facto chairman of South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group, owned the largest amount

K-pop juggernaut BTS will release a new song, "Permission to Dance," co-written by British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, next week, its agency said Friday. The tracklist of the upcoming physical CD version of "Butter," unveiled on the septet's official social media account, includes two songs -- "Butter," a summer number topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five straight weeks, and "Permission to Love" -- along with their instrumental versions. The ne

An Army officer has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Friday. The officer based in Yongin, 49 kilometers south of Seoul, was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 after a support mission at a local coronavirus treatment center, according to the ministry. The latest case raised the total number of infections reported among the military population to 1,026. Nationwide, South Korea added 826 new infections Friday, marking a near six-month high as infections in t

President Moon Jae-in attended an event Friday to commemorate South Korea's successful response so far to Japan's unilateral export curbs. He described Tokyo's measure, launched in early July 2019, as tantamount to a "surprise attack." It restricted exports of three key industrial materials -- photoresist, etching gas and fluorinated polyimide -- to South Korea, apparently in protest against its handling of diplomatic issues related to shared history. The Moon administration soon opt

The South Korean performing arts scene posted a 19 percent on-year rise in its revenue for the first half, showing clear signs of a recovery from the yearlong pandemic, data showed Friday. The combined revenue of theatrical plays, musicals, classical concerts and other performances reached 116.9 billion won ($103.1 million) in the first six months of this year, according to the data by the Korea Performing Arts Box Office Information System (KOPIS). It marked a 19 percent increase from 98 bill

LG Electronics Inc. is likely to report strong second-quarter earnings, analysts said Friday, as its mainstay home appliance business continued to rack up solid results. The South Korean tech company was projected to log 17.6 trillion won ($15.5 billion) in sales in the April-June period, up 37 percent from a year earlier, while its operating profit was estimated to soar 140 percent on-year to 1.2 trillion won over the period, according to the data from seven local brokerage houses compiled by

Two South Korean actresses, including Oscar-winning Youn Yuh-jung, have been invited to the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) that organizes the prestigious Academy Awards. In the 2021 list of new members in the filmmaking industry released Thursday (US time), AMPAS unveiled the names of 395 artists and experts in the filmmaking industry from 50 countries. Among 32 selected actors were Korean actresses Youn and Han Yeri, both stars of the immigrant film &quo

The finance ministers of South Korea and France have held a virtual meeting to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation and agenda items ahead of a key international financial meeting, Seoul's finance ministry said Friday. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire had an online meeting on Thursday ahead of next week's meeting of finance chiefs from the Group of 20 (G-20) economies, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The G-20 finance ministers

North Korea's No. 2 leader Choe Ryong-hae presided over a key Workers' Party meeting, state media said Friday, confirming that he survived a recent reshuffle carried out to sack officials responsible for causing a "crucial case" in the country's fight against the coronavirus. Choe, president of the presidium of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), convened the 15th plenary meeting of the standing committee at the Mansudae Assembly Hall, the official Korean Central News Agenc

South Korea's daily new virus cases soared to a nearly six-month high Friday as infections in the greater Seoul area continued to spike amid woes over a potential surge in variant cases. The country reported 826 more COVID-19 cases, including 765 local infections, raising the total caseload to 158,549, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The daily caseload marks the largest since Jan. 7 when it reached 869. The latest figure is sharply up from 762 cases a day earlier

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. said Friday its fleets of Xcient fuel cell trucks have surpassed 1 million kilometers of driving since they hit the roads in Switzerland nearly a year ago. Hyundai Motor has shipped a total of 46 Xcient heavy-duty truck trucks to the European nation since July 2020, which came in service for 25 Swiss companies in logistics, distribution and supermarket fulfillment. Over that distance, the hydrogen-powered trucks, which only emit water, have reduced carb