South Korea's daily new virus cases remained in the 500s for the second day in a row Tuesday on fewer tests, but the loosened vigilance against the pandemic may trigger a further rise in new infections amid a steady increase in cases of COVID-19 variants. The country reported 595 more COVID-19 cases, including 560 local infections, raising the total caseload to 156,167, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The latest figure was up 94 from the previous day. The country a

Kia Corp., South Korea's No. 2 automaker, will begin an in-house COVID-19 vaccination program for its workers next month as part of antivirus measures for its factories, company officials said Tuesday. Kia plans to start inoculating employees with Moderna shots at in-house clinics of its plants in Gwangmyeong, Hwaseong and Jeonju on July 30, a company spokesperson said. The automaker will accept reservations from its 23,000 employees working at production lines, the spokesperson said. Kia

SK Telecom Co., South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said Tuesday it has teamed up with US call center technology company Genesys to launch a contact center service powered by artificial intelligence (AI). AI call centers have recently risen in popularity as they can reduce tasks handled by traditional call center agents by using speech recognition and natural language processing technology to respond to simple and repetitive user queries. SK Telecom said it has partnered with Genesys, which

Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday unveiled its new smartwatch interface that will run on the upcoming unified wearable operating system (OS) with Google as the South Korean tech giant eyes to expand its presence in the wearable device market. Samsung introduced One UI Watch at its virtual session of this year's Mobile World Congress, saying the new interface aims to deliver a more connected experience between the Galaxy Watch and smartphones. One UI Watch will be available for new OS jointl

Superband BTS retained the top spot on Billboard's main singles chart for the fifth straight week with its upbeat summer number "Butter," once again outpacing the group's chart record. "Butter" holds at No. 1 with 12.4 million US streams and 128,400 downloads sold (up 15 percent) in the week ending June 24. It also attracted 27.6 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 6 percent) in the week ending June 27," Billboard said Monday (US time) on its Twitter account.

South Korean airlines called on the government Tuesday to implement a travel bubble as early as possible and to expand it to individual overseas tourists. The request was made at a meeting between Vice Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Kim Jeong-base and tourism industry people, which was organized by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases. South

WASHINGTON -- The United States will send a delegation to the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo but President Joe Biden will stay home as the US continues to warn its people to reconsider visiting the Asian country, a White House spokeswoman said Monday. "The president is not planning to attend the games. He will certainly be rooting for the athletes, as well as I," said Jen Psaki when asked if Biden planned to personally visit Tokyo. "We will have a delegation from the United State

South Korean stocks opened lower Tuesday as concerns of new coronavirus variants weakened investors' appetite for risky assets. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 7.55 points, or 0.23 percent, to trade at 3,294.34 points as of 9:15 a.m. The KOSPI got off to a muted start, taking a cue from new travel bans against the new COVID-19 variants in many parts of the world. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics retreated 0.49 percent, while No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix added 0

President Moon Jae-in on Monday accepted the resignation of the head of South Korea's state audit agency after he offered to step down earlier in the day in a move widely viewed as a prelude to joining the presidential election race. The resignation of Choe Jae-hyeong, the chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), came six months before the end of his four-year term and the presidential election slated for March. Moon approved Choe's offer to be relieved of his post at around 5:50 p

The state anti-corruption watchdog launched an investigation Monday into real estate dealings by lawmakers of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) and their families.  The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) said the probe will look into real estate transactions involving a total of 427 people -- 101 PPP lawmakers and their family members -- over the past seven years.  The ACRC conducted a similar investigation targeting all lawmakers of the ruling Democratic

Samsung Electronics Co. paid a total of 11.1 trillion won ($9.8 billion) in taxes and dues last year, up 14.4 percent from a year ago, its report showed Monday, with the majority going to its homeland. The tech giant paid 8.1 trillion won, or 73 percent of its total tax bills, to the South Korean government in 2020, according to its 2021 sustainability report. The Americas and Europe followed with 14 percent and Asia with 11 percent. South Korea collected 86 percent of Samsung's tax payments i

South Korean stocks closed nearly flat Monday, snapping a four-day winning streak amid increased valuation pressure and virus concerns, after the key stock index closed at an all-time high the previous session. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) inched down 0.95 points, or 0.03 percent, to close at 3,301.89 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.4 billion shares worth some 13.5 trillion won ($11.9 billion), with gainers ou

South Korea has confirmed 267 more cases of four kinds of contagious variants of the new coronavirus, including 73 cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant, health authorities said Monday. The caseload of such infections reached 2,492, with the number of Delta cases tallied at 263, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Of the newly confirmed cases, there were 196 local infections and 71 imported cases. Of them, 189 cases were the Britain-originated varian

South Korea's finance ministry on Monday sharply raised its 2021 growth outlook for the country's economy amid robust exports and reviving consumption. The government forecast Asia's fourth-largest economy to expand 4.2 percent this year, up from its December estimate of 3.2 percent. The Korean economy is projected to grow 3 percent next year. If realized, it would mark the fastest growth since 2010 when the Korean economy expanded 6.8 percent. The ministry's forecast is higher than the Bank

South Korea's ICT ministry said Monday it will work with the country's wireless service providers to test millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G technology in the Seoul subway system in a move to improve network services and speed up commercialization. South Korea's 5G networks are currently deployed on the mid-band spectrum, leading to relatively slower speeds than on the high-band mmWave spectrum, which can theoretically be up to 20 times faster than 4G LTE. The ministry said it would work with the cou

Krafton Inc., a South Korean gaming giant behind the global smash hit "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG), said Monday that it has invested $9 million in India-based streaming platform Loco. The funding includes other investors, such as Lumikai, India's first gaming and interactive media fund, as well as Hashed, Hiro Capital, North Base Media, Axilor Ventures and 3one4 Capital, it said. Krafton said Loco, which was spun off as a separate entity from parent company Pocket Aces, has

A government task force said Monday it is looking into allegations employees of the state housing developer, Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), founded a company to handle speculative property transactions. Nam Gu-jun, the task force chief, told reporters that "several dozen" people, including LH employees, their relatives and acquaintances, are suspected of taking part in the scheme. "We've confirmed that a large amount of land was purchased using insider information, and we ar

Kakao Bank, South Korea's largest internet-only bank, said Monday that it plans to raise 2 trillion won ($1.76 billion) through an initial public offering (IPO). The company plans to sell 65.45 million shares and has set its IPO price range between 33,000 won to 39,000 won per share, according to a regulatory filing. Kakao Bank's value is estimated to be as much as 18.5 trillion won following its IPO scheduled for early August. Kakao Bank, led by Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's dom

Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gunn was appointed as the new South Korean ambassador to Britain in a regular reshuffle on Monday, the foreign ministry said. Kim, a veteran diplomat, has served in posts handling North Korean nuclear issues, North America and China affairs, and his long experience is expected to help him play a role in promoting relations with London, the ministry said.  He was appointed as deputy minister in late 2019. Yeo Seung-bae, former ambassador to New Zealand who pr

Seoul citizens' economic sentiment rebounded to near pre-COVID-19 levels in the second quarter, a report showed Monday. According to the report by the Seoul Institute, a city-run think tank, a survey of 1,200 households in the capital found that the consumer sentiment index (CSI) rose 3.9 points from the previous quarter to 92.9. This marks the first time Seoul's CSI, which reflects consumers' economic sentiment, surpassed the 90-point threshold since the fourth quarter of 2019, just before th