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Hyundai wins most 2021 Top Safety Pick awards

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 up 6% in Jan. on strong online sales

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

Today
Industry
YMCA hosts 2nd International School Ski Racing Competition

It was a tough season for skiers this winter with many events canceled or scaled down to meet the COVID-19 safety requirements. However, Seoul YMCA managed to go ahead with its series of competitions for junior ski racers, while strictly complying with all COVID-19 regulations. The organization persevered to give youth skiers a sense of continuance after training hard all season. “Despite the hardships brought on by COVID-19, we believed it would be important to hold the competitions as

Today
People
Army soldier tests positive for COVID-19

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

Today
Defense
Green witch works her magic in Korea

‘Wicked’ cast members open up about being part of the iconic musical

Today
Theater
S. Korea reports another highly pathogenic bird flu case, total now at 102

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

Today
Social affairs
PM calls for active participation in COVID-19 vaccine program

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

Today
Politics
[Graphic News] Samsung remains No. 2 chip buyer in 2020: report

　Samsung Electronics remained the world’s second-largest chip buyer behind US tech titan Apple last year, a report showed, while manufacturers’ spending on semiconductors increased due to the pandemic-induced stay-at-home economy. 　Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone and TV maker, accounted for 8.1 percent of global semiconductor spending in 2020 after purchasing $36.4 billion worth of chips, up 20.4 percent from a year earlier, according to preliminary results from m

Today
Business
Provisioning, relief measures to support S. Korean banks’ performance: Fitch

US credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday that the near-term performance of South Korea's four major banks will be supported by loan-loss provisioning already made in 2020 and sustained relief measures introduced by the regulator. The pressure on their financial profiles, however, may persist as the ramification of last year’s pandemic-induced recession is likely to linger and affect the banks' asset quality and profitability, according to the company. “The prelimina

Today
Markets
BOK keeps key rate at record low amid lingering uncertainties

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. In a statement, the BOK said South Korea's economy has continued to recover at a modest pace, supported by exports and facility invest

Today
Economy
[Herald Review] Hanmac: OB comes up with a fairly good rice-based lager

Oriental Brewery unveiled its new beer “Hanmac” late last month, boasting it as “Korea’s representative lager project.” As the label suggests, the company, famous for its pale lager Cass, set the bar high for itself. ”Some lagers are more than just beers and represent their regions as they do in Germany, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. We hope that ‘Hanmac’ will captivate consumers with its refreshing flavor of Korean rice and become a true &ls

Today
Retail
New virus cases still rising 1 day before mass vaccine rollout

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 posted the previous day. The figures hovered a

Today
Social affairs
Seoul stocks open steeply higher on US Fed Chairman's soothing comments

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

Today
Markets
Vice FM calls for multilateral responses to human rights challenges posed by new technologies

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

Today
Foreign affairs
[Newsmaker] Koreas appear out of running for 2032 Olympics following IOC decision

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

Today
Olympic Games

The Korea Herald by Herald Corporation

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