South Korea said Thursday it plans to beef up its readiness against African swine fever (ASF) at inter-Korean border areas by hunting more wild boars and installing more fences to prevent them from traveling farther south. Under the plan, the country will reduce their number to just one per square kilometer at the areas infected with ASF from the current 1.4 by hunting more of them in March and April, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The number of wild boars na

South Korea and the United States have yet to finalize the schedule and other details of a planned combined springtime military exercise, the defense ministry said Thursday. The joint computer-simulated command post training is expected to kick off in around the second week of March for about 10 days. But exactly when and how the exercise will be staged has not yet been announced. "The date, content and other details of the combined exercise to be held in the first half of the year are no

South Korea's fisheries output hit a four-year low last year due largely to sluggish aquaculture production and a fall in consumption amid the pandemic, data showed Thursday. The total fisheries output amounted to 3.71 million tons last year, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, according to Statistics Korea. The tally marked the smallest since 2016, when such output reached 3.26 million tons.Last year, the output from seaweed and oyster farming remained sluggish amid long rainy seasons. Fis

The number of jobs for wage workers in South Korea increased on-year in the June-August period of last year, but those in their 20s and 30s suffered extended employment slumps amid the pandemic, data showed Thursday. The number of paid employee jobs reached 19.1 million in the cited period, up 369,000 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The quarterly tally was higher than an increase of 211,000 in the March-May period of 2020, when such jobs rose by the sma

The number of people working at restaurants and hotels fell by a record 24,000 in January amid the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the labor ministry said Thursday. The total number of workers in the restaurant and hotel industry stood at 1.05 million last month, down 24,000, or 18.7 percent, from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor. It is the biggest decline for the sector since record keeping began in June 2009, the ministry said. Restaurants

South Korea's top nuclear envoy held video talks with a senior US diplomat Thursday about North Korea's denuclearization and related issues, the foreign ministry said. The talks between Noh Kyu-duk and Sung Kim, acting US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, came as the new US administration of President Joe Biden has been conducting a review of policy on North Korea. The US has stressed that the policy review will be carried out in close consultations with South Ko

South Korean automaking giant Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday it has earned the most Top Safety Pick awards from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Hyundai Motor Co., Hyundai's independent brand Genesis and affiliate Kia Corp. received 12 Top Safety Pick (TSP) and five Top Safety Pick+ (TSP+) ratings from the IIHS in its latest round of crash-testing evaluations, a Hyundai spokesman said. Hyundai's Palisade SUV and Nexo hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle, Kia's K5 sedan and

Retail sales in South Korea rose 6 percent in January from a year earlier as more consumers purchased daily necessities from online stores, with the demand for gift items ahead of the Lunar New Year's holiday also bolstering the sales, data showed Thursday. The combined sales of 26 major offline and online retailers reached 12.5 trillion won ($11.2 billion) last month, up from 11.7 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Online

An Army soldier based in Paju, north of Seoul, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Thursday. The soldier was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 in a virus test conducted after a vacation in Seoul, according to the ministry. The latest case raised the total number of infections reported among the military population to 571. Of them, 558 have been fully cured and 13 are under treatment. Nationwide, South Korea added 396 new cases Thursday, bringing the tota

South Korea's agricultural ministry said Thursday it has confirmed yet another case of highly pathogenic bird flu, raising the total caseload to 102. The latest confirmed case of the H5N8 strain of avian influenza came from an egg farm in Wonju, 132 kilometers east of Seoul, on the previous day, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul accounted for 36 cases, followed by South Jeolla Province with 17. North Jeolla Province took up

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun on Thursday called on the public to actively participate in the government's public coronavirus vaccine program, as authorities move swiftly to make last minute preparations on the eve of the nationwide inoculation campaign. Earlier in the day, trucks and ships packed with the first of some 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines headed to long-term care hospitals and public health centers across the country. "Please have trust in the government

프로축구 FC서울의 국가대표 출신 미드필더 기성용(32) 측은 이른바 '초등 축구부 성폭력 사건'과 무관하다고 24일 주장했다. 기성용의 에이전트사인 씨투글로벌은 이날 보도자료를 내고 이 사건과 관련해 "기성용 선수가 가해자로 지목되고 있는 상황"이라면서 "본인에게 확인한 결과, 피해자임을 주장하는 사람의 보도 내용에 대해서 전혀 관련이 없음을 확인했다"고 주장했다. 씨투글로벌은 "추후 이와 관련한 오명으로 입은 피해와 향후 발생 가능한 피해에 대해서는 법적 대응도 불사할 것"이라고 밝혔다. 앞서 축구 선수 출신인 C씨와 D씨는 전남의 한 초등학교에서 축구부 생활을 하던 2000년 1~6월 A선수 등 선배 2명으로부터 성폭행을 당했다고 이날 법무법인 현의 박지훈 변호사를 통해 폭로했다. C씨와 D씨 측은 A선수의 실명을 밝히지는 않았으며, A선수가 '최근 수도권 모 명문구단에 입단한 국가대표 출신의 스타플레이어'라고 설명했

South Korea's central bank on Thursday held its benchmark policy rate unchanged at a record low of 0.5 percent, as the third wave of the new coronavirus undermined the scope of sustaining an economic recovery. As widely expected, the monetary policy board of the Bank of Korea (BOK) voted to leave the base rate steady in this year's second rate-setting meeting. The Bank of Korea (BOK) also maintained its growth outlook for the year at 3 percent but hinted it may revise up the figure depending

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases fell slightly below 400 on Thursday, a day ahead of the country's first rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, as sporadic cluster infections continued to pop up across the country. The country reported 396 more virus cases, including 369 local infections, raising the total caseload to 88,516, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Thursday's daily caseload marks a slight drop from 440 tallied the previous day. The figures hovered

South Korean stocks opened steeply higher Thursday as the US Federal Reserve chairman's comments soothed inflation worries. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 47.82 points, or 1.6 percent, to 3,042.8 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks lifted largely on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's overnight reiteration that the world's largest economy still has a long way to go to recover from the pandemic's fallout. The rebound came a day after the key

Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon has called for multilateral cooperation in addressing the challenges of new and emerging technologies to the efforts to protect human rights at a global forum, the foreign ministry said Thursday. Choi made the call at a virtual session of the Alliance for Multilateralism, a forum launched in 2019 to reinforce multilateralism, on Wednesday (Geneva time), as concerns rise that artificial intelligence and other digital technologies could hurt privacy and other

A potential joint bid by South Korea and North Korea to co-host the 2032 Summer Olympics has apparently collapsed before it took off in earnest, following a decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to pick an Australian city as its preferred candidate. After a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Wednesday (local time), the IOC's Executive Board announced Brisbane will be its partner for "a targeted dialogue" on staging the 2032 Summer Olympics. The right to host the com

Trucks packed with the first of some 1.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines were distributed across South Korea on Thursday as long-term care hospitals and public health centers rushed to prepare for the country's ambitious vaccination program. The nationwide distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine for some 750,000 people, mostly health care workers and patients at nursing homes, came as the country is set to kick off the free inoculation campaign Friday. On the first day of the five-day lo

An impeachment trial for Judge Lim Seong-geun has been rescheduled to a later date, the Constitutional Court said Thursday. The court originally planned to hold a pretrial preparation session Friday, two days before he retires as a judge, where both sides set forth their main arguments and a list of evidence, and discuss how to proceed with the upcoming trial. The court said it has yet to determine the date for the session. The National Assembly led by the ruling Democratic Party voted to imp

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a Central Military Commission meeting to urge disciple among military officials and stricter control over younger officers, state media reported Thursday. At the expanded military commission meeting of the ruling Workers' Party on Wednesday, Kim stressed the importance of establishing "revolutionary moral discipline" particularly among the younger generation in the army, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "To establish the