The top national security advisers of South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet in Washington this week for talks on regional and foreign policy issues, the White House has announced, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will join his South Korean and Japanese counterparts -- Suh Hoon and Shigeru Kitamura -- for a trilateral dialogue on Friday (US time) at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, according to a statement on Tuesday. It will be the first such three-way talk

The former head of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) on Wednesday made a public apology in admission of the overall failure in the party's housing policy and a recent bombshell land speculation scandal involving public servants. The so-called LH scandal was triggered earlier this month when two civic groups alleged that employees at the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH) bought plots of land in two cities -- Gwangmyeong and Siheung in Gyeonggi Province -- before the government announced a massive

South Korea's terms of trade rose for the 11th consecutive month in February, as exports have shown signs of a gradual recovery, central bank data showed Wednesday. The nation's net terms-of-trade index for goods -- a gauge of trade terms -- increased 6.4 percent last month from a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the 11th straight month of an on-year rise since April last year, when the trade terms logged the first on-year hike in over two yea

South Korea's central bank said Wednesday the portion of its US dollar-denominated assets in its overall foreign assets declined last year due to the weakness of the greenback. At the end of last year, dollar-denominated holdings accounted for 67.7 percent of overall foreign assets held by the Bank of Korea (BOK), the central bank said in its annual report. The reading marks a 1.4 percentage-point drop from a year earlier. The portion of US dollar-denominated assets slightly fell due to a wea

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong expressed hope Wednesday for an early meeting with his Japanese counterpart, as South Korea seeks to improve ties with Japan in resuming diplomacy with North Korea amid the US' calls for stronger trilateral cooperation with its two Asian allies. Since his inauguration last month, Chung has not held talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi even by phone, let alone a face-to-face meeting, amid tensions between the two countries over wartime history a

President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday that the government will provide full support for the spread of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria in South Korea's business sector. He was speaking during the 48th Commerce & Industry Day event hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) at its headquarters in Seoul. The president declared a vision for turning 2021 into the original year for the expansion of "ESG management and entrepreneurship for all&qu

Genesis, the independent luxury brand of Hyundai Motor Co., on Wednesday unveiled a premium electric concept car ahead of the launch of the brand's first electric vehicle later this year. The Genesis X, showcased in a digital event and an offline debut in Los Angeles, is an EV-based high-performance Gran Turismo coupe and the brand's fifth concept car, Hyundai Motor said. The two-line lighting motif, applied throughout the interior and exterior, embodies the design language of future Genesis E

In a groupwide governance shakeup, SK Telecom Co., the telecom unit of SK Group, may morph into an intermediary holding company this year, analysts said Wednesday, as South Korea's No. 3 conglomerate seeks to strengthen its grip on chipmaking affiliate SK hynix Inc. The telecom operator's CEO Park Jung-ho told shareholders last Thursday that the company would soon unveil plans to reshape its governance structure in a signal that the conglomerate would revamp its governance structure this year.

The Gwangju Biennale, one of Asia's biggest events of its kind, will kick off its 40-day run this week, overcoming two delays due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, organizers said Wednesday. Under the theme of "Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning," the 13th edition of the biennial festival will open on Thursday and run through May 9 in the southwestern city of Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the organizers. It will display 200 works of art by 60 artists from 40 countri

South Korea's nationwide inoculation against the novel coronavirus is expected to lose pace due to vaccination delivery delays as health authorities aim to achieve so-called herd immunity by November. Earlier this week, the authorities announced that a planned delivery of COVID-19 vaccines by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University to the country has been pushed back to the third week of April. Initially, 690,000 doses, or shots for 345,000 people, of the AstraZe

An official at the country's arm procurement agency in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Wednesday. The official at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 after showing symptoms, according to the ministry. Among service members, four soldiers in the border county of Cheorwon and a Marine in Gimpo, west of the capital, have tested positive while in quarantine fter vacation. Ano

Recent satellite imagery showed steam from the plutonium reprocessing plant at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex, a US think tank said Wednesday, an indication of activity at the facility used to extract the key nuclear weapon ingredient. The imagery taken on Tuesday shows a plume of steam or smoke emanating from a small support building in the center of the reprocessing plant, known as the Radiochemical Laboratory, according to Beyond Parallel, a project of the Center for Strategic and In

President Moon Jae-in appointed Kim Gi-pyo, a prosecutor-turned-lawyer, as his new secretary for anti-corruption, Cheong Wa Dae announced Wednesday. The president also picked Deputy Finance Minister Lee Hyong-il as secretary for economic policy and Kim Jeong-won, information and communication policy chief at the science ministry, as secretary for digital innovation, according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kang Min-seok. Kim is succeeding Lee Myung-shin in a follow-up to Moon's replacement of seni

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki has forecast domestic demand and the job market will gradually improve as the country is on a recovery track amid the pandemic, the finance ministry said Wednesday. Hong made the assessment during his online meeting Tuesday with Alastair Wilson, managing director and head of the sovereign risk group of global rating agency Moody's Investors Service. The country held its annual consultation meetings with Moody's between March 25 and 30 over its economic conditions a

미국 뉴욕 한복판에서 증오범죄의 피해자가 된 아시아계 여성은 흑인 남성에게 첫 번째 공격을 당한 순간에 정신을 잃었지만, 폭행이 계속된 것으로 전해졌다. 뉴욕포스트는 30일(현지시간) 피해자의 딸과 교제하는 남자친구가 당시 상황을 공개했다면서 이같이 전했다. 보도에 따르면 전날 오전 11시 40분께 뉴욕 맨해튼 43번가를 걷던 65세의 피해자는 마주 오던 거구의 흑인과 눈이 마주치자 비켜서려고 했다. 그러나 흑인 남성은 피해자에게 곧바로 다가와 폭행을 시작했다. 당시 촬영된 폐쇄회로(CC)TV 영상에 따르면 흑인 남성은 갑자기 강하게 걷어찼고, 여성은 충격으로 바닥에 쓰러졌다. 이와 관련 피해자 딸의 남자친구는 "피해자는 첫 번째 공격을 받은 뒤 정신을 잃었다"고 말했다. 그러나 흑인 남성은 넘어진 여성의 머리를 다시 세 차례나 강하게 내리찍었다. 뉴욕대 병원으로 이송된 피해자는 골반 골절과 함께 안면을 심하게 다쳤지만, 생명에는 지장이 없는 것으로 전

South Korea's two major battery makers -- LG Energy Solution Ltd. and Samsung SDI Co. -- were ranked in the top three in the global smartphone battery market last year, a report showed Wednesday. LG Energy Solution, a wholly owned subsidiary of LG Chem Ltd., had a revenue share of 26 percent to rank second in the worldwide smartphone battery market in 2020, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics. Samsung SDI, an affiliate of the world's largest smartphone maker Samsung Electronics C

South Korea's national pension and other state funds sold more than 15 trillion won ($13.2 billion) worth of shares in the first quarter of the year due to their portfolio rules, data showed Wednesday. Net selling of shares listed on the main bourse by the National Pension Service and other state funds came to 15.7 trillion won in the January-March period, according to the data from the Korea Exchange. It accounted for 56 percent of institutional investors' total net selling worth 27.9 trillio

South Korean manufacturers' business sentiment rose for the third straight month for April, but concerns about sluggish consumption remained amid the COVID-19 pandemic, central bank data showed Wednesday. The business sentiment index (BSI) for local manufacturers came to 91 for April, up from 85 for March, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The index measures manufacturers' outlook on business conditions in the following month. A reading below 100 means pessimists outnumber op

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases bounced back above 500 on Wednesday, in a sign that virus infections are accelerating across the country as people's movement increases amid spring weather. The country reported 506 more COVID-19 cases, including 491 local infections, raising the total caseload to 103,088, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. It marked the highest daily tally in four days. The country added two more deaths from COVID-19, increasing the total to

North Korea's official newspaper on Wednesday urged stepped-up efforts for effective water management to prevent the recurrence of flooding that caused heavy damage to the country last summer. "Without well organizing rivers and streams, we could be faced with tremendous damage as our homes, public buildings, roads and railways could be inundated or destructed and our farmland could be lost," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the ruling Workers' Party, said. "Natural disasters w