The Bangladesh Embassy in Seoul and Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) on Monday commemorated Language Martyrs’ Day and International Mother Language Day 2022 in Seoul. Delivering opening remarks at the event, Bangladesh Ambassador to Korea Delwar Hossain honored those who had lost their lives in the 1952 protests calling for Bengali to be recognized as an official state language. The then-Pakistan government had forced people to speak Urdu, sparking protests in East Pakistan

LG Group said Monday it has formed an alliance with Google to create a global artificial intelligence ecosystem. According to the South Korean conglomerate, the partnership named Expert AI Alliance, will utilize LG AI Research’s hyperscale AI “Exaone” to create a new customer experience. Google will provide its cloud to accelerate the learning process of Exaone. Thirteen founding members are LG AI Research, LG Electronics, LG Chem, LG Uplus, LG CNS, Google, Woori Bank, Shut

Watcha, a homegrown over-the-top service, said Tuesday it plans to kick off a new platform that provides music and webtoon contents in addition to its current video streaming service. The latest move comes amid growing competition in the local video streaming market led by global streaming giant Netflix, followed by homegrown players Wavve and Tving. "Watcha will evolve from our current video streaming service provider into an integrated entertainment subscription service ... this will allo

BUSAN -- A three-year prison sentence has been confirmed for former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don, who was convicted of sexually assaulting female employees at work, as he decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court, judicial officials said Tuesday. The Busan High Court approved the prison sentence by a lower court for Oh on charges of sexually assaulting two female employees of the city government in 2018 and 2020, respectively, during a hearing on Feb. 9. Oh, who stepped down as mayor of the nation's

V, a member of K-pop juggernaut BTS, has fully recovered from COVID-19 and been released from isolation, his agency said Tuesday. The 26-year-old singer, whose real name is Kim Tae-hyung, tested positive a week ago after experiencing a mild sore throat. "V was released from isolation today as he was confirmed to have fully recovered from COVID-19," Big Hit Music said on the group's online fan community platform Weverse. He completed vaccination and showed no extraordinary symptoms whil

Solus Advanced Materials, which supplies electric vehicle battery materials to Tesla, will break ground on a new factory in Quebec, Canada, in July, the company said Monday. Once completed, the Quebec facility will begin the mass production of copper foils of up to 17,000 tons starting the second half of 2024. The annual production capacity could potentially expand up to 60,000 tons. Formerly known as Doosan Solus, the South Korean company manufactures copper foils that go inside EV batter

The chiefs of all three major telecommunication firms in South Korea -- KT, SK Telecom and LG Uplus -- are poised to attend the forthcoming tech event Mobile World Congress 2022 onsite in Barcelona, Spain, where next-generation network technologies are set to take center stage. At the MWC 2022, which runs from Feb. 28 to March 3, Korean telcos will showcase how they have shifted gears in their radio access network technology. This shift has enabled mobile handsets to be connected with a core n

South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. said Tuesday that a high-concentration version of its autoimmune disease biosimilar Yuflyma has won approval from European drug authorities. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave the green light to Celltrion's application to sell Yuflyma -- a biosimilar referencing blockbuster drug Humira by AbbVie Inc. The drug is used to treat patients with multiple chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, according to Celltr

South Korea's household debt reached a fresh high in the fourth quarter of last year, but it grew at a slower pace from the three months earlier amid tightened lending rules, central bank data showed Tuesday. Household credit came to 1,862.1 trillion won ($1.56 trillion) as of end-December, up 1 percent, or 19.1 trillion won, from three months earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The gain slowed from a 1.9 percent on-quarter increase in the third quarter. Household credit

President Moon Jae-in instructed officials Tuesday to make thorough preparations for a safe presidential election and swiftly execute a newly approved extra budget amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Moon made the remark during a Cabinet meeting at Cheong Wa Dae as daily COVID-19 cases have reached 100,000 in recent days with two weeks to go until the election on March 9. "The election management authorities and health authorities must prepare thoroughly to ensure our people can vote with as

The chief of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) has said the resumption of a shuttered inter-Korean joint industrial complex in North Korea is possible through conditional relief of sanctions and in-kind payment of wages, officials said Tuesday. Rep. Song Young-il made the remarks during a meeting Monday with Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on North Korea's human rights situation, as they discussed ways to improve the human rights situation in the North, according to the DP. Quintan

South Korea's Navy plans to participate in a multilateral naval exercise led by India starting later this week, informed sources said Tuesday. A Navy frigate with around 100 troops on board is heading to the Indian Ocean for Milan 2022, slated to run from Friday to March 4. The biennial exercise is aimed at improving counter-piracy capabilities and interoperability, they added. It was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Yonhap)

South Korea's leading botox maker Hugel Inc. said Tuesday its botulinum toxin product, Letybo, has won approval from Austrian drug authorities. The Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care granted the use of Letybo for the treatment of frown lines in adult patients. It marks the first time for a homegrown botulinum toxin product to win marketing approval from European authorities. The approval comes after Letybo received a positive recommendation from the Heads of Medicines Agencies for

The Seoul city government said Tuesday it will launch an experimental welfare program aimed at providing regular subsidies to low-income households in the capital under Mayor Oh Se-hoon's initiative. Under the project, a total of 800 households in the bottom 33 percent income bracket and with less than 326 million won ($272,575) in assets will be given monthly subsidies over the next three years, according to the city office. A total of 19.5 billion won of the city budget will be spent to financ

LG Electronics Inc. shipped more than four million units of premium OLED TVs last year, double the volume from a year earlier, on steady demand for premium TVs, a report showed Tuesday. The South Korean consumer electronics giant shipped a total of 4.04 million OLED TVs last year, with record quarterly sales of more than 1.41 million units in the fourth quarter, market researcher Omdia said. Last year, the global OLED TV sector grew a whopping 80 percent on-year to hit sales of more than 6.5 mil