South Korean shares rose for a second straight session Tuesday, as investors hold on to hopes for progress in the new US stimulus talks. The Korean won rose to an 18-month high against the US dollar. After choppy trading, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 11.67 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 2,358.41. Trading volume was moderate at about 862 million shares worth some 11.7 trillion won ($10.3 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 514 to 323. Foreigners boug

The unification ministry is looking into speculation that a state-run port operator has secretly pushed to invest in North Korea despite global sanctions, a ministry official said Tuesday. Opposition lawmaker Rep. Kwon Seong-dong raised the possibility that the Busan Port Authority is pushing for cooperation with a Chinese firm in investing in the North's northeastern port town of Rajin. He made the claim based on a document obtained from the state-run firm that controls terminals in the count

Defense Minister Suh Wook and Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, discussed the security situation on the Korean Peninsula Tuesday and vowed a stronger combined readiness posture to support diplomacy to denuclearize North Korea, Seoul's defense ministry said. The US commander arrived here Monday for a two-day visit as part of his trip to Asia. During the meeting in Seoul, Suh and Davidson "shared the importance of the command's role for the complete denuclearizat

A septuagenarian was found dead inside her home in the southwestern province of North Jeolla on Tuesday after getting a flu vaccine shot at a neighborhood clinic the previous day, provincial officials said. The 78-year-old resident of Gochang, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul, was discovered dead at her rural home by one of her neighbors around 7:35 a.m. The woman reportedly received a seasonal flu vaccine shot from a neighborhood clinic at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, prompting local quarantine au

Hyundai Motor Co. said Tuesday its brand value was ranked fifth among global automakers on its efforts to evolve into a future mobility solutions provider. Hyundai Motor's brand value rose 1 percent to $14.3 billion in 2020 from $14.1 billion a year earlier, the company said, citing global brand consulting firm Interbrand's top 100 brand rankings for this year. Hyundai Motor's brand value ranking was up one notch from the prior year, and it marks the first time for South Korea's leading automa

JEJU -- A court on the southern island of Jeju on Tuesday upheld the local government's revocation of the business license of what would have been the nation's first for-profit hospital. The operator of the Greenland International Medical Center, owned by a Chinese real estate developer, filed a lawsuit in May 2019 against the provincial government's decision to cancel the approval after the hospital missed the deadline for opening. The company, Greenland Jeju Healthcare Town Co., also lodge

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's leading maker of smartphones and memory chips, said Tuesday its brand value was ranked fifth in the world this year for the first time. Samsung moved up to fifth most-valuable global brand this year with a record value of $62.3 billion, up 2 percent from last year's $61.1 billion, according to Interbrand's latest top 100 best global brands list. This is the first time Samsung ascended to the list of the global top five after initial evaluation of its brand

South Korea has pledged to continue its contributions over the next four years to a multilateral fund designed to help war-torn Afghanistan rebuild security forces, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.   Kim Young-chae, Seoul's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, made the pledge in the plenary board meeting of the Afghan National Army Trust Fund (ANATF) run by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and held in Brussels on Monday (local time), the ministry said in

LG Electronics Inc. on Tuesday released the world's first rollable TV in South Korea at a jaw-dropping price of 100 million won ($87,000) as the tech giant aims to target high-end consumers amid the pandemic. The company said overseas launch schedules of LG Signature OLED R have not been fixed yet due to the COVID-19 situation in each country. LG said the product, which uses flexible OLED display that leverages self-lighting pixel technology, is designed to deliver a differentiated user expe

President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday urged the administration to step up efforts in tackling the seemingly expanding labor market inequality caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. "COVID-19 is increasingly pushing the livelihoods of workers within economic blind spots, including those of special-employment type workers, towards the brink," Moon said during a weekly Cabinet meeting held at Cheong Wa Dae. The president highlighted the growing number of death reports of overworked parce

Seventeen people were injured in a multi-vehicle pileup on a foggy expressway in central South Korea on Tuesday, police said. The 15-car crash occurred at 5:52 a.m. on a section of the Seohaean (west coast) Expressway in Dangjin, about 120 kilometers south of Seoul, when a 25-ton truck was rear-ended by another 25-ton truck. Nine other vehicles following behind the two trucks slammed on their brakes but collided with one another, while a separate pileup involving four cars took place farther b

South Korea plans to bring in the intelligence analysis system for the advanced unmanned aircraft Global Hawk from the United States next month in a move expected to enhance the country's capabilities to monitor threats from North Korea, the arms procurement agency said Tuesday. Under a 2011 deal worth 965.9 billion won ($847.2 million), South Korea bought four RQ-4 Block 30 Global Hawk Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA). The first unit arrived here in December last year, and the last unit in Sep

South Korea said Tuesday it will lift the export ban on nonwoven fabrics this week that are used to produce protective masks as the domestic supply of the materials and masks stabilized. Under the decision, the country will lift the regulation that bans firms from exporting more than 15 percent of their production of nonwoven fabrics starting Friday, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Earlier this year, the country ran out of melt-blown nonwoven fabric filters amid soarin

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Tuesday it has developed an AI robot for metalworking in the construction of ships for the first time in the world. The AI hot working robot, called Goknuri, is now used to shape steel plates into curved ones at the front and the rear of a steel hull in Daewoo Shipbuilding's shipyard in Geoje Island, about 400 kilometers south of Seoul, South Korea's leading shipbuilder said. Hot working is the metalworking process carried out above 800 C

Sales of bonds and certificates of deposits (CDs) in South Korea climbed more than 14 percent in the third quarter of the year from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday. The value of those debt instruments issued in the July-September period came to 114 trillion won ($100 billion), up 14.1 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository (KSD). The third-quarter amount, however, was down 14.8 percent from the previous quarter. The KSD didn't give reasons for

소득과 차량가액 등 자격 기준을 위반한 채 서울시 공공임대주택에 살다가 적발된 사례가 연 평균 400건에 육박하는 것으로 나타났다. 20일 국회 국토교통위원회 조오섭 더불어민주당 의원이 서울시에서 제출받은 자료에 따르면 최근 5년간 서울시 공공임대주택 부적격 입주 건수는 1천896건이다. 주택을 소유했다가 적발된 경우가 1천108건으로 절반을 넘었다. 나머지는 ▲ 소득 기준 초과 551건 ▲ 부동산 초과 118건 ▲ 차량가액 초과 68건 ▲ 불법 전대 51건 등이었다. 공공임대주택은 주가취약계층에게 월 10만∼30만원대 임대료로 공급되는 주택이다. 이 때문에 유형별로 소득과 차량가액에 상한을 두고 있다. 조 의원은 "행복주택에 거주하는 한 세입자는 차량가액 9천908만원인 마세라티 기블리를, 국민임대주택에 거주하는 다른 세입자는 5천352만원인 벤츠 E300를 보유하고 있다가 기준 초과로 퇴거당했다"며 철저한 점검을 주문했다. (연합뉴스)

When their 2020 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers begins in a Texas bubble this week, the Tampa Bay Rays and their South Korean first baseman, Choi Ji-man, will also start their pursuit of "firsts." As in: the Rays, who began play in 1998, will chase their first-ever World Series title. And whatever Choi does at the plate and on the field will be a first for a South Korean position player. Choi is the fourth South Korean to reach the World Series but the first batter to mak

A North Korean propaganda outlet on Tuesday slammed South Korea over recent defense talks between Seoul and Washington about deterring nuclear threats from the communist nation, calling the discussion a "reckless scheme to crush its own race with its master." Last week, Seoul and Washington held their annual ministerial talks, the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), and reaffirmed their joint efforts to denuclearize North Korea, noting that the communist state's nuclear and ballistic

A total of 24 F-35A next-generation fighter jets have arrived in South Korea from the United States so far, the arms procurement agency said Tuesday, as Seoul pushes to enhance its operational capabilities against outside threats. South Korea began bringing in the advanced stealth fighters from March last year to beef up reconnaissance capabilities under a plan to deploy 40 units through next year. "We experienced some delay in the delivery due to the COVID-19 situation, but through Sout

LG Household & Health Care Ltd. is estimated to have outperformed industry leader Amorepacific in the third quarter, thanks to a robust growth in the non-cosmetics business, a poll showed Tuesday. South Korea's No. 2 cosmetics company is projected to have logged an operating profit of 320.9 billion won ($281.5 million) in the July-September period, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency. The figure is abou