South Korea recorded its highest average temperature for March last month, with Seoul seeing its earliest cherry blossom bloom on record, the state weather agency said Tuesday. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), last month's average temperature was 8.9 C, the highest since monitoring on a national scale began in 1973. The previous records were 8.1 C in 2018 and 7.9 C in 2020. High atmospheric pressure brought high temperatures, which in turn led to the earliest cherry

Kim Chong-in, the interim leader of the main opposition People Power Party, said Tuesday he will leave the party this week after seeing the results of local by-elections. The veteran politician took office as chairman of the emergency leadership committee in June 2020. At that time he promised to quit after refurbishing the conservative party to better compete in the presidential election slated for March 2022. "I will leave the party after the emergency committee's meeting the day after

South Korea is willing to cooperate with the member countries of the US-led Quad forum on an issue-by-issue basis, a foreign ministry official said Tuesday, amid speculation Washington wants Seoul to join the forum seen as a counterbalance to China's influence. Officials in Seoul have made it clear that there has been no formal request from the US to join the Quad, also involving Australia, India and Japan, stressing that the country would take part in an initiative of any form as long as it se

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday it has decided to fine leading beverage maker Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co. and its wine-selling affiliate a combined 1.1 billion won ($978,000) for hampering market competition. Lotte Chilsung unfairly supported its wholly owned unit MJA Wine for 10 years since 2009 in a bid to improve the affiliate's profitability, according to the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC). Lotte Chilsung supplied wines to its affiliate at lower prices and shouldered lab

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Tuesday that South Korea is at a critical juncture this week in its bid to preclude a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections. "A sense of crisis is heightening, with coronavirus cases spreading rapidly especially in the greater Seoul area," he said during a daily interagency meeting on the coronavirus response. This week will be a "grave watershed" to determine whether the country enters the path of a fourth wave of large-scale outbreaks or it

A revised law took effect Tuesday to give employers greater flexibility in implementing the 52-hour legal workweek, the labor ministry said. The revised Labor Standards Act increases the time period over which employers must ensure employees work no more than an average of 52 hours a week, from three months to a maximum of six months, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The change comes at the request of businesses that have complained of difficulties in meeting production deadl

On the eve of the April 7 Seoul and Busan mayoral by-elections, rival parties scrambled to make final appeals to voters in the country's two biggest cities Tuesday. Voting for the two mayoral seats and 19 other regional public posts is set to begin at 6 a.m. and last till 8 p.m. on Wednesday at 3,459 polling stations across the country in by-elections that are deemed harbingers of public opinions ahead of next year's presidential poll. Leaders and candidates of the ruling Democratic Party (DP)

An arms procurement agency official, a civilian worker for the military and a soldier tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Tuesday. The official at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, was confirmed to have been infected after showing symptoms. Over the past week, the agency reported three COVID-19 patients, including the latest one. "Contact tracing is under way. All the employees who use the same building w

North Korea on Tuesday slammed a recent UN report on child malnutrition in the country as a "sheer lie," saying it will need to review whether humanitarian assistance can "truly help us." The director of the Research Institute for Nutrition Care of Children from the North's health ministry made the statement in response to the panel of experts report that close to 100,000 kindergarten-aged children in the North lack access to fortified foods due to border restrictions over t

LG Innotek Co., a major electronics parts maker in South Korea, said Tuesday it has established an artificial intelligence (AI) powered patent search and analysis system to beef up its research and development (R&D) efforts. With its deep learning technology, the affiliate of LG Electronics Co. said the system leverages sentence recognition algorithms which it developed with LG AI Research, an AI technology research hub for LG Group. Its solution can execute real-time analysis of context a

South Korea has inoculated over 1 million people in 40 days since the country launched its long-awaited COVID-19 vaccination campaign, health authorities here said Tuesday. An accumulated 1,014,019 people were administered with their first shots as of noon Tuesday, which account for around 1.95 percent of the country's 52 million population, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). On Feb. 26, the country began its inoculation program, with health care workers and p

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases stayed in the 400s for the second day in a row Tuesday amid sporadic cluster infections nationwide, with a potential resurgence looming amid loosened vigilance and increased spring travelers. The country reported 478 more COVID-19 cases, including 460 local infections, raising the total caseload to 106,230, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The daily caseload had been hovering above 500 since Wednesday last week, before falli

Leaders of grassroots units of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party visited several museums and historical sites in Pyongyang, state media reported Tuesday, in an apparent effort to tighten internal unity ahead of a conference. State media earlier said that the conference of secretaries of "party cells" was set to take place early this month to discuss "affairs in prioritizing the position and the role" of the cells, without specifying the date. Party cells refer to the party

South Korean stocks opened higher Tuesday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street on the back of strong US jobs data. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 12.36 points, or 0.40 percent, to reach 3,133.19 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. The strong start followed overnight gains on Wall Street, which got a boost from better-than-expected US jobs data released Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.13 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite adde

The United States takes its defense alliance with South Korea very seriously, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday, highlighting US efforts to ensure the countries' joint defense readiness at all times. John Kirby also said the US always evaluates its military exercises in any given year to make sure that the military is ready. "Obviously, we're all committed to the denuclearization of North Korea, and to security and stability on the peninsula," he said when asked about the US' ongoing

LG Electronics Inc. said Tuesday it plans to develop cross-platform artificial intelligence (AI)-powered services with KT Corp., South Korea's major telecom operator, to expand use of its human-like algorithm. LG and KT plan to commercialize services that support AI platforms from both companies after developing a joint interface. The two companies recently verified compatibility between LG's ThinQ and KT's GiGA Genie AI platforms. The South Korean tech giant tested its smart mirror to find

North Korea said Tuesday it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Summer Olympics to protect its athletes against the coronavirus pandemic, dashing South Korea's hopes to use the games to kickstart the stalled peace process with Pyongyang. The decision was made during a general assembly meeting of the North's Olympic Committee held in Pyongyang on March 25, according to Sports in the DPRK Korea, a website on sports affairs in North Korea. "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea ha

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, a potential presidential candidate, is likely to offer his resignation as early as next week, a source said Monday. "Chung has made up his mind to offer his resignation to President Moon Jae-in next week when he returns from a visit to the Middle East," said the source who asked not to be named. Chung is scheduled to visit Tehran to close the negotiations with Iranian officials regarding a South Korean ship was seized by Iran over three months ago. The

The top diplomats of South Korea and Thailand agreed to launch a "two plus two" dialogue of foreign and health ministers to discuss cooperation in health and other related fields, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong agreed to hold such a meeting "at an appropriate time" when he spoke by phone with his Thai counterpart, Don Pramudwina, earlier in the day, the ministry said in a release. The ministers also agreed to work together to resume h

Seoul and Washington reached an agreement "in principle" to hold a summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Joe Biden in Washington, Seoul's national security adviser Suh Hoon said Monday. Suh made the remarks as he arrived in Seoul from a three-way meeting with his US and Japanese counterparts, Jake Sullivan and Shigeru Kitamura, at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Suh, however, stopped short of saying when Moon and Biden will hold a summit, b