Rose of K-pop girl band BLACKPINK has dominated iTunes charts in 51 countries, with her latest solo song, her agency said Saturday. According to YG Entertainment, the song, "On The Ground," from her first solo album "R," topped iTunes Top Songs charts in countries that included the United States, France and Thailand. The English song has also landed on top spots in multiple local music streaming charts. The song's music video has garnered more than 36 million views on You

  A state housing developer official was found dead Saturday, police said, in what could be an apparent suicide as a scandal of land speculation by public servants has been rocking the nation. The official of the Korea Land and Housing Corp. was found hanging inside a container in Paju, north of Seoul, at around 10:05 a.m., according to the police.  No suicide note has been found, the police said, but the official is said to have sent a text message to his family early Saturday, impl

K-pop boy band SHINee will hold its first-ever online concert next month after coming back from a two-year hiatus, the group's management agency said Saturday. The concert, titled "Beyond LIVE - SHINee: SHINee World," will be livestreamed on April 4 on V Live, a streaming platform of the country's leading internet portal operator, Naver, SM Entertainment said.  It will be the four-member group's first solo concert since a February 2018 performance in Japan. They will showcase

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases reached the highest in 22 days Saturday, stubbornly remaining above 400 for the fifth consecutive day. The country reported 490 more COVID-19 cases, including 474 local infections, raising the total caseload to 95,176, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. The country added five more deaths from COVID-19, increasing the total to 1,667. The daily caseload has stayed in the 400s since early this week, with 470 cases Wednesday, 465 cases

South Korean stocks are likely to continue choppy trading through next week but under a higher ceiling, following the recent passing of a US relief package and the injection of ample liquidity for a big initial public offering event set for next week, analysts said Saturday. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed at 3,054.39 points Friday, up 0.93 percent from a week ago. The KOSPI retreated for five sessions in a row through Wednesday as investors turned risk-averse on concern

  The United States is expected to complete its ongoing review of its North Korea policy in a few "weeks," a senior US State Department official said Friday, ahead of Secretary Antony Blinken's upcoming trip to South Korea and Japan to discuss the issue. Sung Kim, acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said the secretary's visit to the countries will provide great opportunities for the Asian allies to offer their own input into a new US policy to

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to Japan and South Korea will give him a chance to coordinate US policy and its approach toward North Korea, a State Department official said Friday. Ned Price said Blinken's talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts will provide an important ingredient for a new US policy toward the North, but said the policy itself will likely be announced at a later date. "It's an especially important one because it's an especially important ingre

The top diplomats of South Korea and Australia had phone consultations Friday on a wide array of issues, including the political unrest in Myanmar and the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) summit, Seoul's foreign ministry said. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne agreed that the two sides will cooperate for the immediate release of detainees in Myanmar, a halt to the use of force against civilians and a peaceful resolution based on a legitimate and democratic

South Korean e-commerce grocer Market Kurly said Friday it has decided to go public within this year and is exploring whether to make its stock market debut at home or in the United States. "We received positive statements from our accounting consultants about going public within this year," Market Kurly spokesman Song Cheol-wook said. "We are open to all options," he said, though he said the US is not a fixed destination as debuting on the New York Stock Exchange would req

An ultrafine dust air pollution advisory was lifted for all of Seoul at 3 p.m. Friday after 43 hours, the metropolitan government said. The city-run Research Institute of Public Health and Environment announced the termination of the advisory, saying the capital's hourly average concentration of ultrafine dust particles fell to 33 micrograms per cubic meter, lower than the advisory clearance level of 35 micrograms. The institute issued the ultrafine dust advisory for all of Seoul at 8 p.m. Wed

JINJU -- The number of coronavirus cases linked to a bathhouse in the southeastern city of Jinju increased to 92 Friday, as local authorities scrambled to curb the spread from the latest cluster of infections. The local government announced 80 new cases traced to the sauna facility in a residential area, confirmed over a period of about 24 hours since Thursday afternoon. The total caseload reached 97 since some patients diagnosed with COVID-19 were found Wednesday to have visited there during

An appellate court on Friday reduced the prison sentence of a taxi driver convicted for having repeatedly extorted settlements related to traffic accidents that had been staged on purpose. The Seoul Eastern District Court's appellate division reduced the prison sentence given to the 32-year-old taxi driver, surnamed Choi, on charges of fraud, obstruction of business and others, from24 months to 20. The court said it considered the defendant's regretful attitude and that he has reached settlem

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung and former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl were tied atop the list of potential candidates for next year's presidential election, a new poll showed Friday. Yoon has soared in opinion surveys since he resigned on March 4 in protest of the ruling Democratic Party (DP)'s push to create a new investigative body that reduces the prosecution's power. Gallup Korea, a pollster, said both Gov. Lee and Yoon garnered 24 percent of support in its latest survey conduc

Kim Jin-wook, the head of a new powerful state investigative agency, said Friday the agency will not take on a travel ban case involving a former vice justice minister as its first case, citing "realistic conditions." "After serious consideration, we have decided to refer the case back to the prosecution," he wrote on the official Facebook page of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), ending days of speculation that the case could be the agen

Police said Friday they have arrested four people on charges of smuggling and distributing illegal drugs from Southeast Asia. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has recently busted a drug trafficking operation that brought in 6.3 kilograms of methamphetamine from March to November last year, according to officials. The narcotics have an estimated street value of 21 billion won ($18.6 million) and are enough to be used by 210,000 people, the agency said. The authorities seized 4.3 kg of thei

Major South Korean builder DL E&C Co. said Friday it has signed a 327.1 billion-won ($290 million) interim deal to upgrade an oil refinery in Russia. Under the deal with Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft, DL E&C will build a plant for adding and cracking hydrogen at Gazprom Neft's refinery southeast of Moscow. Completion is scheduled for the second half of 2024, and the two sides plan to seal a formal contract within three months, DL E&C said. Gazprom Neft is a subsidiary of Russi

Two military officers and a draftee tested positive for the new coronavirus, the latest in a series of confirmed cases at barracks across the country, the defense ministry said Friday. One Army officer stationed in the central city of Sejong was confirmed to have been infected in a test required to exit quarantine. He has been in isolation after coming into contact with a colleague who earlier tested positive, according to the ministry. The Sejong unit has reported nine COVID-19 cases until no

K-pop superstar BTS swept the top two spots on a worldwide album sales chart last year, according to an organization representing the global recording industry. The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said Thursday (US time) that "Map of the Soul: 7" ranked No. 1 and "BE" No. 2 on the 2020 Global Album Sales Chart. The albums were released in February and November of last year, respectively. "Map of the Soul: 7 - The Journey," another album th

Posco Chairman Choi Jeong-woo won a second term to lead the South Korean steel giant for another three years, Posco said Friday. The decision at the company's annual shareholders meeting came as Posco has been pushing to boost production capacity of key components for electric vehicle batteries as part of a diversification strategy. Earlier this week, Posco International Corp. said its steel processing unit, Posco SPS, will produce 10,000 tons a year of fuel-cell bipolar plates by 2027, which

South Korea's Christian community has expressed concerns about political instability in Myanmar in connection with the recent coup and vowed for solidarity with the pro-democracy movement there. "The Catholic Church in Korea expresses her deepest concern about the outbreak of violence and the subsequent bloodshed in our neighboring country, Myanmar," the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea said in a statement released Thursday. It said South Korea has gone through similar military