Keen market attention is now focused on the future performance of LG Electronics Inc.'s home appliance and air solution (H&A) unit following its record earnings in the first quarter of the year, analysts said Monday. LG Electronics said Thursday the operating profit of its H&A division came to an all-time high of 919.9 billion won ($824 million) for the January-March period, up 22.1 percent from a year earlier. Sales of the electronics giant's flagship unit also soared 23.8 percent on-y

Five-term legislator and former Incheon Mayor Rep. Song Young-gil was elected the new chairman of the ruling Democratic Party Sunday as it seeks a major reform drive following a recent election defeat. Song earned 35.6 percent of the ballots cast before and during the party's congress held at its headquarters in Seoul earlier in the day, defeating Reps. Hong Young-pyo and Woo Won-shik, both in their fourth terms. The election of Song comes as the DP, which commands 174 of the 300 parliamentary

South Korean Kim Hyo-joo earned her fourth LPGA victory in Singapore on Sunday, marking her first LPGA win in over five years. The 26-year-old golfer captured the HSBC Women's World Championship title at 17-under 271 to beat Hannah Green of Australia by one stroke, with an eight-under 64 in the final round at Sentosa Golf Club's New Tanjong Course. She takes home $240,000 in the first-place check. Kim last won an LPGA tournament in 2016 at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic. Before that, she

President Moon Jae-in on Sunday sent a letter of condolence to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin over last week's stampede tragedy at a religious festival that killed 45 people, his office said. "President Moon expressed words of prayer for the victims and condolences for the bereaved families, and hoped for an early recovery of the injured and a prompt management of the aftermath of the accident," Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said in a statement. The deadly incident occ

South Korea's leading shipper, HMM Co., said Sunday it has deployed one additional ship to the United States to cope with soaring freight costs amid the new coronavirus pandemic. HMM said a 5,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) ship carrying local companies' containers departed from the southeastern port city of Busan earlier in the day and is expected to arrive at a port in Los Angeles on May 13. HMM has operated 21 temporary ships since August, with 15 covering US routes, to handle a shar

Police said Sunday they have arrested 94 suspects over allegations of creating or distributing illegal deepfake content in the past five months amid calls for tightened scrutiny over crimes using the deep learning technology. Deepfake content refers to digitally manipulated images or videos that could lead viewers to wrongly perceive the processed media to be real, often becoming a source of fake news, fraud and defamation. Of the arrested suspects, 65, or 70 percent, were teenagers, while 17

Retail investors' stock ownership in Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's most valuable company, surpassed 10 percent for the first time as they went bargain hunting for its shares amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year, industry data showed Sunday. Individual investors owned a total of 65.3 million common shares of Samsung Electronics as of Friday, accounting for 10.1 percent of the total, according to industry data. The world's largest memory chip and smartphone vendor is valued at 486.5 tr

South Korea's financial regulator is set to partially lift its ban on short selling of listed stocks this week, about 14 months after it imposed it to cope with a stock market rout triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting Monday, the ban on 200 large-cap firms listed on the main KOSPI and 150 firms listed on the secondary KOSDAQ will be lifted, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said. A total of 917 stocks are listed on the KOSPI, and 1,470 stocks are listed on the KOSDAQ. A ban o

South Korean conglomerate LG Group has launched its new holding firm with about 8 trillion won ($7.1 billion) of assets as part of its restructuring plan, company officials said Sunday. The new holding firm named LX Holdings has five LG affiliates under its wing -- LG International Corp., LG Hausys Ltd., LG MMA Corp., Silicon Works Co. and Pantos Co. In November, LG Group decided to hive off some affiliates for Koo Bon-joon, an uncle of current LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and a younger brot

Human-caused climate change has brought about extensive meteorological changes on the Korean Peninsula over the past century, making summers longer and winters hotter and shorter and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heat waves and heavy downpours, a report said Sunday. The report from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said that the number of days of precipitation has decreased on the peninsula in the past 100 years but the intensity of precipitation has in

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un slammed South Korea for failing to stop anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by a defector group last week, calling it an "intolerable provocation" and warning of "corresponding action." Kim Yo-jong made the remarks in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, saying that the South Korean government "again did not stop the reckless acts" and expressed "displeasure" over the matter. "'Defec

South Korea could raise the travel alert for India amid a massive spike in COVID-19 cases in the country, the foreign ministry said Friday. The ministry is considering raising the alert by one notch to "red," recommending South Koreans leave India unless there are essential reasons, officials said. "We are closely watching the situation in India and reviewing measures and what we can do," an official said when asked about the possibility of raising the travel advisory. T

South Korean prosecutors said Friday they have decided not to file charges against the local unit of McDonald's after wrapping up their reinvestigation into the so-called hamburger disease case involving some local consumers of the American fast food giant. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said it has decided not to indict McDonald's Korea after concluding that it is difficult to acknowledge a causal relationship between hamburgers from McDonald's Korea and the hamburger disease

Five matches of the South Korean professional baseball league scheduled for Tuesday will be canceled in accordance with the nationwide vaccination program for Olympic athletes. The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) said Friday that out of 154 players on the preliminary squad for the Tokyo Olympics, 116 professional athletes playing in South Korea, including former Major League All-Star outfielder Choo Shin-soo of SSG Landers, will be inoculated Monday. The number accounts for about 40 percen

South Korea's drug safety agency said Friday that it has begun reviewing a plasma therapy treatment against the novel coronavirus by local biotech company GC Pharma for conditional approval. The plasma therapy, dubbed GC5131A, is a type of hyperimmune globulin drug that uses blood plasma taken from people who have fully recovered from COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. If approved, the investigative drug will be the country's first blood plasma cure for the deadly d

Unionized workers at Renault Samsung Motors Corp. held a strike at the company's sole domestic plant on Friday to demand a wage hike for the year of 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, the union said. Renault Samsung's 1,900-strong union staged a general strike at the Busan plant, 450 kilometers south of Seoul, as they are not satisfied with the company's proposals, a union spokesman said. The union demanded an increase of 71,687 won (US$64) in monthly basic pay and a bonus of 7 million wo

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong will hold bilateral talks with his US, British, Indian and European Union counterparts on the margins of a Group of Seven (G7) session in London next week, his ministry said Friday. The first in-person gathering of G7 foreign and development ministers in over two years is set to take place from Monday to Wednesday. South Korea, Australia, India, South Africa and Brunei, the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been invited as guests to the me

Calls for pardoning Lee Jae-yong, the incarcerated de facto chief of Samsung Group, have resurfaced after his family unveiled plans to donate a chunk of the immense assets inherited from Lee's late father and company Chairman Lee Kun-hee. But the government and the ruling party remain adamant that it is too early to deliberate on the issue. Prime Minister nominee Kim Boo-kyum on Thursday highly assessed Samsung heirs' donation pledges but stressed it would hardly influence the government's sta

The number of 5G users in South Korea stood at over 14 million last month, two years after the networks first went live in the country, data showed Friday, as the country pushes to accelerate adoption of the latest generation networks. As of the end of March, 5G subscriptions stood at 14.48 million, accounting for 20 percent of the total 71.1 million mobile subscriptions in the country, according to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. South Korea was the first country in the world to co

South Korean stocks slumped for the fourth consecutive day Friday as investors remained concerned over coronavirus situation and the upcoming lifting of a ban on short selling. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) fell 26.21 points, or 0.83 percent, to close at 3,147.86 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.3 billion shares worth some 18.7 trillion won ($16.8 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 534 to 339. Foreigner