Hyundai Motor Co. said Friday it seeks to raise its stake in its plant in Turkey by acquiring a 27 percent stake held by Kibar Holding in preparation for the post-coronavirus recovery. Early this month, Hyundai Motor submitted documents to the Turkish authorities to buy most of Kibar's stake in its local factory, a company spokesman said over the phone. The South Korean carmaker currently holds a 70 percent stake in the 230,000-unit-a-year plant in the northwestern city of Izmit, and Kibar ow

"또 트로트냐"고 질릴 때도 됐지만, 원조의 힘은 강력했다. 18일 시청률 조사회사 닐슨코리아에 따르면 전날 오후 10시 방송한 TV조선 트로트 오디션 예능 프로그램 '미스트롯' 시즌2 첫 회 시청률은 25.497%-28.649%(유료가구)를 기록했다. 순간 최고는 30.2%까지 치솟으며 이날 오전 1시까지 이어진 장장 3시간 동안의 방송 시간 동안 시청자의 눈을 꽉 붙들었다. '미스트롯' 시즌1의 첫 방송 시청률은 5.9%, 마지막 회는 18.1%, '미스터트롯'의 첫 회는 12.5%, 최종회는 35.7%였다. '미스트롯2' 첫 방송 성적은 '미스터트롯'이 한창 치고 올라가던 5~7회와 비슷한 수준이다. '미스터트롯'은 8회에서 30%를 넘었지만, '미스트롯2'는 이 기세대로라면 다음 회에 바로 30%대로 진입할 수도 있을 것으로 전망된다. 전날 방송에서는 마리아, 김태연, 윤태화, 홍지윤 등 새로운 실력자들의 무대가 연이어 펼쳐지며 심사위원단은 물론 시청자

BUSAN -- Former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don attended a court hearing here Friday on an arrest warrant sought against him over sexual harassment allegations. In a press statement released via his lawyer, Oh acknowledged the "charge," but he maintained that he does not remember exactly what happened. He apologized to Busan citizens and victims as well. Earlier this week, the Busan District Prosecutors Office requested the warrant against him on charges of sexual harassment, inflicting inj

The government's ongoing random testing, launched in the greater Seoul area at the beginning of this week, has identified 170 cases of COVID-19 so far, a government agency on the coronavirus pandemic said Friday. In a bid to preemptively find "hidden infected people" through random testing, the government has been installing temporary coronavirus testing facilities at about 150 locations in the capital area, including Seoul City Hall and Seoul Station, since Monday. Those random testi

South Korean biopharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. said Friday it has signed an agreement worth 240 billion won ($220 million) to supply a diagnostic kit for the novel coronavirus in the United States. Under the agreement, Celltrion's rapid antibody diagnostic test (RDT) kit for the new coronavirus, named DiaTrust, will be distributed by Prime Healthcare Distributors. The kit was co-developed by the South Korean in-vitro diagnostic company Humasis. The new antibody detection test is most sui

South Korea and France on Friday agreed to continue to support multilateralism over protectionism to overcome the economic fallout from the virus pandemic, and to expand cooperation in various areas from vaccines to green cars. "This year, the two countries have worked deeply together in multilateral frameworks, such as the Group of 20 and the OECD, to promote the travel of products, services and workforces despite the COVID-19 pandemic," Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee said during her m

The music video of "Dynamite," K-pop superstar BTS' 2020 megahit song, has racked up 700 million views on YouTube, its agency said Friday. The video surpassed the mark at around 9:41 p.m. Thursday, just four months after its release, according to Big Hit Entertainment. BTS now has six music videos that have more than 700 million views on the global video-sharing website, including "DNA," "Boy with Luv," "Fake Love," "MIC Drop (Steve Aoki Remix)&quo

South Korea said Friday it will push to sign COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts with Johnson & Johnson's Janssen and Pfizer later this month and ink another deal with Moderna next month. The health ministry last week said it has secured early access of the vaccines developed by four pharmaceutical companies and from a global vaccine project for 44 million people, enough to cover 88 percent of the nation's population. The government has formally struck a purchase deal with AstraZeneca,

South Korea formally inked a comprehensive trade deal with Indonesia on Friday, paving the way for local exporters to penetrate deeper into the Southeast Asian market. Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo met his Indonesian counterpart Agus Suparmanto here to sign the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA), according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The pact now needs a parliamentary approval. The two countries resumed their talks in 2019 after a five-year hiatus. The CEP

SEJONG -- South Korea's overseas direct investment tumbled 24 percent in the third quarter of the year as the coronavirus pandemic dented global investment flows, government data showed Friday.  The value of investments made by South Korean companies came to $10.77 billion in the July-September period, down 23.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. It marked the third consecutive quarterly decline. Overseas direct investment fell 4 p

South Korea has completed the culling of 6.1 million poultry nationwide to curb the nationwide spread of highly pathogenic bird flu, as the total farm-related caseload reached 18, the agricultural ministry said Friday. The destroyed poultry included 4 million chickens and 1.2 million quails, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Under the local law, poultry within a 3-kilometer radius of farms infected with highly pathogenic bird flu must be culled. South Korea has

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Friday it has suspended its Okpo shipyard for three days due to COVID-19 infections among its workers. Three workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, the company said. "The work suspension will have a limited impact on the construction of ships as it applies for just the one business day of Friday and the other two days are the weekend," Yoon Yohan, a company spokesman, told Yonhap News Agency. The shipyard is located

Dozens of cadets from the military nursing academy were sent to coronavirus treatment centers Friday to help out the government's fight against the fast-spreading pandemic, the defense ministry said. A total of 77 students and four nursing officers from the Korea Armed Forces Nursing Academy will support the medical staff at "residential treatment centers" that have been set up for mild COVID-19 patients so as to make more hospital beds available for serious patients. Of them, 56 cad

South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases topped the 1,000 mark for the third day Friday on continued cluster infections nationwide and increased tests, but health authorities remain cautious about adopting the toughest virus restrictions due to the far-reaching economic impact. The country added 1,062 more COVID-19 cases, including 1,036 local infections, raising the total caseload to 47,515, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). It is the first time that the da

South Korean stocks opened slightly higher Friday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street amid hopes of a new US stimulus deal and the possible rollout of US biotech company Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 1.65 points, or 0.06 percent, to 2,772.08 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.49 percent to reach a record high of 30,303.37 points, while the Nasdaq composite al

MOSCOW -- Russia will positively consider President Vladimir Putin visiting South Korea in the first half of next year, a foreign affairs adviser to Putin has been quoted as saying. The Kremlin official, Yury Ushakov, made the remark when he met with former South Korean Ambassador to Russia Woo Yoon-keun visiting Moscow in his capacity as special envoy of President Moon Jae-in, according to the envoy Thursday. Woo said he delivered Moon's personal letter requesting Putin's visit to Seoul next

Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday introduced new models of its Galaxy Book laptop series as the South Korean tech aims to boost personal computer (PC) sales amid the stay-at-home trend driven by the pandemic. Samsung said the Galaxy Book Flex2, Galaxy Book Flex2 5G and Galaxy Book Ion2 will be launched on Jan. 1, 2021. Preorders for the latest laptops, all powered by Intel Corp.'s 11th generation processor, will be available from Monday to Dec. 31 in South Korea. The Galaxy Book Flex2 is a 2

South Korean Premier League star Son Heung-min has won a FIFA award for the best goal of the year, the world's football governing body said Friday. He became the second Asian player and the first in South Korea to win the award. At the annual Best FIFA Football Awards ceremony held online, Son's wonder goal for Tottenham Hotspur against Burnley in December last year was named the winner of the annual FIFA Puskas Award. Established in 2009 in honor of former Real Madrid striker Ferenc Puskas,

WASHINGTON -- The US government had expressed concerns about a South Korean bill prohibiting the launch of anti-North Korea leaflets across the border before the South Korean parliament passed the bill this week, a news report said Thursday. Citing unidentified sources, the Washington Post said Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun had "privately conveyed" the US government's concerns during his trip to Seoul that ended last Friday. The bill passed Monday by a 187-0 vote in South

Three former ranking officials of ousted President Park Geun-hye's government were acquitted by an appellate court Thursday after being convicted of obstructing an independent panel's investigation into the cause of the deadly sinking of the Sewol ferry. The panel was set up in 2015 under a special law enacted to determine why the 6,800-ton ship capsized in waters off the southwest coast in 2014, killing more than 300 people, mostly high school students. The panel, composed of maritime experts,