In a season unlike any other in South Korean baseball history in 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, the NC Dinos emerged as the first-time champions. While the rest of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) may be hoping the 2021 season will be different than last year -- more fans in the stands would be a nice change, for one -- the Dinos will try to ensure the end result will be the same, with the Korean Series title staying with them. The 2021 season will open Saturday, an on-time s

South Korea's exports advanced 16.6 percent in March from a year earlier on the back of solid demand for chips and autos to extend their gains for the fifth consecutive month, data showed Thursday, stoking speculation that recovery in Asia's fourth-largest economy is gathering pace. Outbound shipments came to US$53.8 billion last month, compared with $46.1 billion a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Imports rose 18.8 percent to $49.6 bi

South Korea's national security adviser, Suh Hoon, arrived in the United States on Wednesday for talks with his US and Japanese counterparts on how to deal with North Korea. Suh arrived in New York, and is expected to travel to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where the three-way security dialogue will be held on Friday. Seoul's presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, earlier said Suh will also hold bilateral talks with his US counterpart, Jake Sullivan, and Japan's Shigeru Kitamura.

North Korea on Wednesday denounced Japan's recent moves to beef up its military as a threat to regional peace and stability. In a commentary, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Japan's ambition to turn itself into a military powerhouse has accelerated since Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took office in September. The news outlet noted Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi recently ordered the military to keep full preparations amid "severity and uncertainty of the securit

SK IE Technology Co., a battery materials subsidiary of SK Innovation Co., said Wednesday it will commence the initial public offering process for its Seoul bourse debut in May. SKIET, which makes lithium-ion battery separators, said it will float 21.4 million shares on the KOSPI market at prices between 78,000 won and 105,000 won, which would make its market value up to 7.5 trillion won ($6.6 billion). SKIET will issue 8.5 million new shares and SK Innovation will sell 12.8 million shares i

South Korea decided Wednesday to buy dozens more advanced attack helicopters from abroad by 2028, the arms procurement agency said. The defense project promotion committee, presided over by Defense Minister Suh Wook, approved a plan to import around 36 large combat choppers with a budget of 3.17 trillion won ($2.81 billion), according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). South Korea secured and deployed 36 Boeing AH-64E Apache helicopters under the first round of the pro

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun on Wednesday criticized Japan for the country's latest territorial claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo and demanded that Tokyo withdraw its attempts to distort history. A textbook screening committee under Japan's education ministry approved 296 textbooks Tuesday for first-year high school students, including 30 kinds for social studies subjects that contain Tokyo's territorial claims to Dokdo. "We demand that Japan, as a responsible member of

South Korea and Japan will hold working-level diplomatic talks this week to discuss the protracted row over wartime history and trade, the foreign ministry said Wednesday. Lee Sang-ryol, director general for Asian and Pacific affairs at Seoul's foreign ministry, left for Tokyo earlier in the day for talks with his Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, the ministry said. The previous working-level talks took place via video links in January. This week's talks, slated for Thursday, come as S

South Korean stocks retreated Wednesday on the increase in the value of US currency and the valuation pressure of local stocks. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 8.58 points, or 0.28 percent, to close at 3,061.42 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.1 billion shares worth some 14.2 trillion won ($12.5 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 476 to 378. Foreigners sold a net 297 billion won, while retail investo

Producers of the popular Korean TV series "Vincenzo" said Wednesday that they will remove the controversial scene featuring a Chinese product from overseas streaming services amid rising domestic anger over Chinese sponsorship. In the eighth episode of the dark comedy that aired on March 14 on tvN, an instant Chinese bibimbap brand was exposed while the lead characters Vincenzo (Song Joong-ki) and Cha-young (Jeon Yeo-bin) have a meal. Bibimbap is a popular Korean dish consisting of a

The megahit BTS single "Dynamite" has tied the 2012 viral sensation "Gangnam Style" for the longest charting song by a South Korean act on Billboard's main singles chart. The disco-pop number, released in August, jumped eight notches to No. 26 on the weekly Hot 100 chart, refreshed Tuesday (US time). This marks the song's 31st consecutive week on the chart, equaling the record set by singer-producer Psy's "Gangnam Style" in 2012. Since its release, the septet's f

Noise complaints surged more than 60 percent last year, as people spend more time at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a state environment promotion agency said Wednesday. Korea Environment Corp. (KECO) said its hotline dedicated to the matter received 42,250 complaints in total last year, a 60.9 percent year-on-year increase. Inquiries for on-site inspections to determine the level of noise came to 12,139, which grew 52.3 percent from 7,971 cases in 2019. Noise disputes have long been an issu

A Japanese elementary school textbook published about a century ago did not define the easternmost Korean islets of Dokdo as Japanese territory, a Seoul-based public foundation said Wednesday. The state-funded Northeast Asian History Foundation disclosed the old Japanese geography textbook printed in 1904 at a seminar of history experts in Seoul, slamming Tokyo for its latest approval of school textbooks renewing territorial claims to Dokdo. A textbook screening committee under Japan's educati

South Korea said Wednesday it has launched a committee on carbon neutrality with automobile firms in line with efforts to effectively reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050. The committee will pave the way for the government to expand cooperation with local carmakers, including Hyundai Motor Group, in rolling out policies related to carbon neutrality, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. "In the long term, we plan to beef up our competitiveness in the electric and hyd

South Korea's three electric vehicle (EV) battery makers saw their global market shares fall in the first two months of the year amid Chinese rivals' big advances, a market tracker said Wednesday. Worldwide consumption of EV batteries stood at 25.2 gigawatt hours (GWh) in the January-February period, up 102.4 percent from a year earlier, according to SNE Research. South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd., which spun off from LG Chem Ltd. in December last year, shipped 4.8 GWh equival

Rival parties were rushing to rally support in their last-minute election campaigning Wednesday, with the Seoul and Busan mayoral by-elections, seen as a potential game changer for next year's presidential election, only a week away. Some 8.4 million voters in Seoul are set to vote for a new mayor on April 7 in the by-elections that come about a year ahead of the 2022 presidential poll. The mayoral seat in Busan, South Korea's second-biggest city, is also up for grabs in the elections, along w

The South Korean bourse operator said Wednesday that it will check on its regulations on stock short selling, a trading technique that has been temporarily banned here since March last year, before its resumption in May. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) banned short selling of stocks from March 16 for a six-month period, in a move to ease a market rout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary ban was extended twice until May 2, and short selling is set to resume on May 3. "W

North Korea's trade with the outside world has dropped to practically zero due to the country's tightened border controls amid the global coronavirus pandemic, the unification ministry said Wednesday. In January and February, the trade volume between the North and China stood at around $3.27 million, a ministry official said, citing Chinese customs data. "This figure includes the trade volume of electricity exported last year so there were no actual physical exchanges," a ministry of

North Korean people's access to outside information should be expanded but not at the expense of the safety of people living in border regions in South Korea, the unification ministry said Wednesday. A ministry official made the remarks after the US State Department stressed the importance of free flows of information to the reclusive North, referring to South Korea's recently enforced law banning the sending of anti-Pyongyang leaflets in its annual human rights report. "Our government al

The central and local governments will reduce their emergency coronavirus text alerts amid mounting complaints that frequent arrivals of such messages have increased the public weariness in the prolonged pandemic, the interior ministry said Wednesday. The revised guidelines for coronavirus-related text alerts, which go into effect Thursday, require only essential information to be sent out to the public and for the alert system to be turned off between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. To deal with growing p