That's more like it. That South Korea defeated Turkmenistan 5-0 in their World Cup qualifying match on Saturday wasn't a surprise in itself. The biggest takeaway is that South Korea, in addition to beating the team they were supposed to beat, looked good doing it. And that hadn't always been the case with the underachieving national team in recent matches. The win at Goyang Stadium in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, kept South Korea at the top of Group H in the second round of the Asian qualificat

The head of the ruling Democratic Party said Saturday that he would seek a visit to the United States in the near future to explore a "clue" for the resumption of the now-shuttered inter-Korean industrial complex in North Korea's border city of Kaesong. Song Young-gil made the remarks during a meeting with an association of businesses that used to run operations at the complex closed in February 2016 following the North's nuclear and missile tests. The business owners have called fo

It was all of South Korean baseball fans' worst nightmares rolled into one. Two major league starters from South Korea, Ryu Hyun-jin of the Toronto Blue Jays and Kim Kwang-hyun of the St. Louis Cardinals, got the nod on the same day -- Friday evening in America, when it was Saturday morning in their home country. And both took losses, while Kim exited his start early with a lower back injury. They made four regular season starts on the same day last year and both notched victories on Sept. 24.

South Korean renowned director Hong Sang-soo will visit the Cannes Film Festival again with his 26th feature, "In Front of Your Face." According to the festival's 2021 official lineup announced Thursday, "In Front of Your Face" was listed in Cannes Premieres, a new section dedicated to works from well-established filmmakers. Hong was invited with nine other filmmakers, including Arnaud Desplechin of "Deception," Mathieu Amalric of "Hold Me Tight," Andr

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for guaranteeing the security of North Korea to resolve the standoff over its nuclear program, stressing that pressure and sanctions alone are not going to solve the quandary. Putin made the remark during a virtual session with chiefs of global news agencies at an annual economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday (Russia time), as the nuclear negotiations between the North and the United States remain deadlocked after the breakdown of the Hanoi summit be

A national promotional agency has published a book on kimchi and how it is perceived around the world amid a continued cultural feud over the traditional Korean staple. "Kimchi in the Eyes of the World," released on Tuesday, explores the culture of kimchi through stories of foreigners who have tasted the vegetable dish, how the spicy condiment is made, and what social and historical context it carries, according to the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) affiliated with th

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases bounced back to over 700 on Saturday, as cluster infections continued to sprout up across the country despite a stepped-up vaccination campaign. The country reported 744 more COVID-19 cases, including 725 local infections, raising the total caseload to 143,596, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The latest tally marked the highest since May 26 when 706 new cases were reported. There were two additional fatalities, raising th

Fewer than two out of 10 cosmetic containers distributed in South Korea are recyclable, an environmental group said Saturday, urging cosmetics companies to raise the recycling rate of their cosmetic packaging. The group, which calls itself "Cosmetic Attack Citizens Action," said it examined 6,617 brand-name cosmetic containers, and only 18.7 percent, or 1,238 containers, turned out to be recyclable. It said 68.5 percent (4,531 containers), mostly made of colored or translucent plast

South Korean stocks are likely to extend gains next week on sustained recovery hope and the accelerating inoculation drive here. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed at 3,240.08 points Friday, up 1.61 percent from a week ago. Stocks advanced this week as improved economic data at home and abroad further enhanced hopes for a quicker-than-expected recovery. In May, South Korea's exports jumped 45.6 percent on-year to extend their gains to a seventh consecutive month, a

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a politburo session of the Workers' Party in his first public appearance in a month and discussed convening a key party meeting and organizational matters, state media said Saturday. During the session, the North decided to hold a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Party in early June to take "additional state measures for solving pending problems urgent for the economic work and people's living," the official Korean Central N

An Air Force non-commissioned officer has died after receiving a second dose of AstraZeneca vaccine, military officials said Friday. According to the officials, the senior master sergeant based in Gimhae, 450 kilometers south of Seoul, got the second jab of the vaccine on May 24, and became brain dead a week later. The officer died Thursday. This is the first death of a soldier following vaccination. It wasn't immediately clear if the death is directly related to the vaccine. The surviving f

More than 1 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 vaccine arrived in South Korea from the United States on Saturday in what Seoul and Washington officials touted as a sign of the two countries' robust alliance. The KC-330 military aircraft carrying the vaccine for 1.01 million people arrived at 12:40 a.m. at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, after it departed from an air base on the US west coast Thursday (US time), officials said. The shipment came after US

Cho Ju-bin, the mastermind behind a notorious online sex blackmail ring, has appealed his 42-year sentence to the Supreme Court, legal sources said Friday. Cho's legal representative submitted the appeal earlier Friday, three days after the Seoul High Court sentenced the online sexual predator to 42 years imprisonment, according to the sources. This week's ruling reduced Cho's sentence by three years, after he was convicted on charges of violating laws on protecting minors from sexual abuse,

A court issued an arrest warrant for a former executive of a state-run state housing developer on Friday over alleged real estate speculation. The man, whose identity was not made public, became the highest-ranking official of the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH) to be arrested in a massive land speculation scandal over the state developer. The Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Court in Gyeonggi Province issued the arrest warrant, saying that the former official is a flight risk and could

The first-place team in South Korean baseball this season will lose an ace for the rest of the year to an elbow surgery, with another starting pitcher facing a similar fate. The SSG Landers announced Friday that submariner Park Jong-hun will undergo a season-ending elbow operation in Los Angeles next week. Park flew to the US earlier this week to get a second opinion on his ailing right elbow from Dr. Neal ElAttrache at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic. A doctor in Seoul initially recommended su

Lee Jae-yong, the imprisoned de facto head of Samsung Group, was fined on Friday on charges of illegally taking propofol shots. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office slapped Lee with a 50 million won ($44,800) fine in a summary indictment, which doesn't require a formal trial. Lee was accused of having excessively and illegally taken the anesthetic at a plastic surgery clinic in Seoul in 2017-2018. A complaint was filed against him with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

Unionized parcel delivery workers threatened Friday to delay work and refuse to sort packages starting next week, in a bid to press logistics firms in ongoing negotiations on measures to prevent overwork and improve conditions. The country's leading logistics companies agreed in January to take responsibility for sorting parcels, blamed for couriers' long work hours, promising additional workers, extra payment and automatization of the job. The agreement involving the workers' union, companies

President Moon Jae-in visited the headquarters of South Korea's state spy agency in southern Seoul and received a briefing on its reform measures Friday. It was Moon's second visit to the National Intelligence Service (NIS) since he took office in May 2017. Reforming the powerful body is one of his major campaign pledges. The NIS was accused of having been a hotbed of deep-rooted evils, including operations to oppress political dissidents. Under a revision to the NIS-related law in late 2020,

President Moon Jae-in accepted the resignation of South Korea's Air Force chief Friday over a recent sexual assault case that led to the death of a female victim. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Seong-yong offered to step down to take responsibility for his organization's handling of the incident. The victim, a master sergeant, was found dead in an apparent suicide at her official residence in late May, about three months after suffering unwanted physical touching by a male colleague of the

A special episode of Netflix's popular original Korean series "Kingdom" will be released next month, the US streaming media service said Friday. "Kingdom: Ashin of the North" will be released July 23 as a "sidequel" to the global Korean zombie sensation "Kingdom" (2019) and "Kingdom Season 2" (2020), according to Netflix. It tells the backstory of the resurrection plant, or "saengsacho" in Korean, which causes a mysterious plague that