Electric scooters and other personal transporters will be allowed to use bicycle lanes at Han River parks starting this week, the Seoul city government said Wednesday. Use of the lanes was granted under revised laws on road traffic and bicycle use, which are set to take effect Thursday, the city government said. Riders will be required to keep a speed limit of 20 kph and wear a helmet. They will also be banned from riding under the influence and parking or abandoning their vehicles anywhere in

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Wednesday that the government will concentrate "all of its capabilities" on countering the rapid spread of COVID-19 in and around Seoul. "(The government) will focus all of its capabilities (in the greater Seoul area)," he said, stressing the significance of turning around the situations in the region where around half of South Korea's 52-million population reside. "The trend of COVID-19 spreading in the capital region is very serious

LG Electronics Inc. said Wednesday it has signed a partnership with Swedish door opening solutions firm Assa Abloy Entrance Systems to commercialize automatic sliding doors with transparent OLED displays. The product combines LG's 55-inch transparent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) signage and related software with the automated glass sliding doors of Assa Abloy, the South Korean tech firm said. Such a product can be used in various commercial applications, showing advertisements and oth

Japan is likely to name its ambassador to Israel, Koichi Aiboshi, as the top envoy to South Korea, replacing Koji Tomita, who is expected to take over as new ambassador to the United States, diplomatic sources and reports said Wednesday. Aiboshi, 61, served in posts at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in 1999, 2000 and 2006 and headed the consular affairs bureau at Tokyo's foreign ministry before he became the ambassador to Israel in July 2018, according to reports. The replacement, if confirmed,

Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday it has signed a partnership with Google on smart home solutions as the South Korean tech giant tries to expand its presence in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. Samsung said its IoT platform, SmartThings, will support Google Nest devices, including thermostats, cameras and doorbells, starting next month. With the latest integration, SmartThings users will be able to control a Nest thermostat to adjust the temperature, see live camera feeds from outdoor

South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday, tracking overnight Wall Street gains, as Britain started mass-vaccinations against COVID-19 amid optimism over US stimulus talks. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 23.39 points, or 0.87 percent, to 2,724.32 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Local stocks traded bullish with reignited stimulus hopes in the United States, following Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's offer to set aside some deadlock factors from the relief pa

South Korea will develop an autonomous underwater mine detector with its indigenous technologies to boost the military's capabilities in mine countermeasure operations, the arms procurement agency said Wednesday. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said it has signed a 12 billion-won ($11 million) contract with LIG Nex1 Co. to develop the robot capable of autonomously searching for mines in waters some hundreds of meters below the surface for over 20 hours. Currently, the military u

North Korean leader's sister Kim Yo-Jong on Wednesday slammed South Korea's foreign minister over her recent remarks on Pyongyang's antivirus measures, saying that she will "pay dearly" for them and warning the already frozen inter-Korean relations could get worse. Last week, South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a forum in Bahrain that the North has been unresponsive to Seoul's calls for cross-border antivirus cooperation, adding that Pyongyang's claim that it has no cor

박세리와 엘드릭은 총 3라운드 경기에서 겨룬다. 종목은 롱드라이브, 홀인원, 퍼팅이다. 롱드라이브는 말 그대로 장타 대결이며 홀인원은 총 30회, 퍼팅은 6회의 기회를 준다. 미국에서 건너온 엘드릭은 로봇에 AI를 탑재한, 스윙머신을 좀 더 발전시킨 형태다. 18홀을 모두 돌기는 어렵고, 벙커에 들어가면 망가진다는 점을 제외하면 엄청난 '스펙'을 보유하고 있다. 엘드릭은 평균 드라이브 거리 300야드를 넘나드는 강력한 힘과, 5m 이내 퍼팅 적중률이 60%에 이르는 정교함을 갖췄다. 또 골퍼 1만7천명의 샷을 학습해 타이거 우즈의 스팅어샷은 물론, 장타 괴물 브라이슨 디샘보의 샷까지 복제할 수 있다. 아울러 바람의 세기와 방향을 읽어내 샷의 일관성을 스스로 판단하며, 인간의 어깨 회전과 손목 동작을 그대로 재현해 부드럽고 정교한 샷을 칠 수 있다. 이러한 스펙을 토대로 파3홀에서 5번 만에 홀인원에 성공한 기록도 보유했다. 1998년 외환위기 당시 US오픈 연장전 '맨발

Unionized workers of Kia Motors Corp., South Korea's second-biggest carmaker, entered a partial strike again Wednesday as they failed to reach an agreement with the management over working conditions. Kia Motors and its union have held 15 rounds of meetings in this year's wage talks, but the two sides failed to narrow their differences over overtime work hours in the latest negotiation. Day and night shift workers will each stage four-hour strikes daily from Wednesday to Friday at plants in

WASHINGTON -- John Hamre, president and CEO of a Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was on Tuesday awarded South Korea's highest medal of diplomatic service merit. Hamre was conferred the Kwanghwa Medal by South Korean Ambassador to the United States Lee Soo-hyuck in a ceremony held in Washington, according to the Korean Embassy. "Amb. Lee said the government's decision to give the Kwanghwa Medal to Hamre was based on the recognition of

Major South Korean companies' spending on research and development (R&D) rose nearly 2 percent in the first three quarters of the year despite weaker sales amid the coronavirus pandemic, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. R&D expenditures by 217 large companies in Asia's fourth-largest economy totaled 40.2 trillion won ($37 billion) in the January-September period, up 2.03 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from CEO Score. Their combined sales fell 4.85 percent on-year

Two South Korean football teams left standing at Asia's top club competition have avoided facing each other in the quarterfinals. The draw for the final eight at the Asian Football Confederation Champions League took place on Tuesday, with Ulsan Hyundai FC getting Beijing Guoan, and Suwon Samsung Bluewings drawing Vissel Kobe. Both of the quarterfinal matches will take place Thursday at Al Janoub Stadium in Al Wakrah, just south of the Qatari capital of Doha. The first match between Ulsan and

JYP Entertainment's new girl group NiziU has topped Japan's Oricon weekly music chart with its debut single album, the company said Tuesday. The nine-member group's album, "Step and a Step," ranked No. 1 on Japan's Oricon weekly singles chart for the first week of this month, just five days after it topped the daily CD singles chart of the Japanese music publisher, according to the agency. NiziU is only the second girl group to reach the top of the weekly Oricon chart with its debut

South Korean stocks dipped more than 1.5 percent Tuesday, snapping a five-session winning streak on concerns over the new coronavirus resurgence around the globe. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) retreated 44.51 points, or 1.62 percent, to close at 2,700.93. Trading volume was high at about 1.4 billion shares worth some 16.9 trillion won ($15.6 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 567 to 277. Foreigners sold a net 846 bi

A parliamentary committee on Tuesday passed a bill that would strip the opposition of its power to frustrate the process to launch a new agency investigating high-profile corruption cases. The Legislation and Judiciary Committee, where the ruling Democratic Party controls a majority, railroaded the bill to revise the act on the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials. The revision bill aims to lower the bar on picking candidates for the inaugural CIO chief, as the oppositio

Random cluster infections are breaking out across the country and the South Korean music industry is no exception from the new coronavirus. In most cases, infections have escalated into bigger cases involving consecutive screening tests, as music programs and events often feature multiple artists and a big production staff. Earlier this month, Kogyeol and Bit-to of boy group UP10TION tested positive for the infectious virus after Bit-to came into contact with a COVID-19 patient. While no addi

The government on Tuesday designated June 10 as a national day to commemorate an independence movement held in 1926 against Japanese colonial rule. The interior ministry said the designation was made under a revised regulation and approved at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day. "We hope this designation of a national day will lead to a reappraisal of the historical significance of the June 10 independence movement and the succession and development of our patriotic martyrs' spirit among

LG Uplus Corp., a major South Korean telecom operator, said Tuesday it will start testing millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G at a university campus under a government-led program as the country prepares to roll out the fastest version of the latest generation network. The mobile carrier said it has completed installing 5G network infrastructure at Kumoh National Institute of Technology in Gumi, about 200 kilometers south of Seoul, allowing the carrier to test mmWave 5G in certain areas of the campus.

A state prosecutor was indicted Tuesday, along with two others, on corruption charges in a financial fraud scandal involving Lime Asset Management. The indictment came 53 days after Kim Bong-hyun, the jailed former chairman of Star Mobility known as the main financial source for Lime Asset, revealed a related allegation in a letter. Kim is a key suspect in the high-profile scandal, in which he's alleged to have bribed lawmakers, prosecutors and government officials to cover up the fraud case an