Tottenham Hotspurs' Son Heung-min has scored his ninth goal of the Premier League season after returning from a monthlong injury but could not prevent his team from losing two matches in a row. Son netted his ninth goal in the league -- 10th in all competitions for the 2021-22 season -- in Tottenham's 3-2 defeat against Southampton at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Thursday (Korean time). Thanks to the goal, Son marked double-digit figures for goals for the sixth straight season. And it

South Korea's daily COVID-19 infections rose sharply to hit another high of over 50,000 on Thursday amid the fast spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant across the nation. The country reported 54,122 new COVID-19 infections, including 54,034 local cases, raising the total to 1,185,361, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). It marked the first time that the daily tally exceeded the 50,000 level. The previous daily record high was 49,567 recorded Wed

South Korean telecom giant KT Corp. said Thursday it rolled out a new service that allows customers to enjoy Amazon's voice assistant on its artificial intelligence speakers to better meet demand for English education. KT said it has joined hands with US retail giant Amazon.com Inc. to launch the Dual Brain AI service, which integrates Amazon's Alexa virtual voice service into its GiGA Genie speakers to support both Korean and English languages. The service is available immediately on all 3.1

The defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to closely cooperate in countering North Korea's evolving missile threats in their phone talks Thursday, Seoul's defense ministry said. The talks among Defense Minister Suh Wook and his US and Japanese counterparts -- Lloyd Austin and Nobuo Kishi -- followed a series of the North's missile tests, including the launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) on Jan. 30. "The three ministers agreed that the three c

South Korean stocks opened higher Thursday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 10.23 points, or 0.37 percent, to trade at 2,779.08 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite jumped 2.08 percent on tech gains, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.86 percent. In Seoul, market bellwether Samsung Electronics added 0.67 percent, and No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix advanced 1.98 percent. I

President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday congratulated short track speed skater Hwang Dae-heon for winning the men's 1,500m, bringing South Korea its first gold medal of Beijing 2022. Moon sent a congratulatory message to Hwang shortly after the skater grabbed his first career Olympic gold medal, according to Moon's office. In the message, Moon praised Hwang's "overwhelming talent" and lauded his win as a feat that wiped away "the sense of unfairness" that he had undergone followin

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Thursday he will meet with the central bank chief and the top financial regulator this week to discuss policy coordination, volatility in the financial market and economic risk factors. Hong plans to hold a meeting Friday with Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Lee Ju-yeol; Koh Seung-beom, chairman of the Financial Services Commission; and Jeong Eun-bo, chief of the Financial Supervisory Service. The finance minister said the main agenda will include how to coordinate fis

South Korea's current account surplus was halved in December from a year earlier as imports grew at a much faster pace than exports amid higher energy and raw material prices, central bank data showed Thursday. The current account surplus amounted to $6.06 billion in December, compared with a surplus of $12.06 billion a year earlier, according to the preliminary data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade. The December figure was also smal

BEIJING -- After three days' worth of races, South Korea finally has its first gold medal in short track speed skating at Beijing 2022. On Friday, Choi Min-jeong will try to add to that total. Choi, the double gold medalist from PyeongChang 2018, will compete in the quarterfinals of the women's 1,000m at Capital Indoor Stadium, with the semifinals and the final also scheduled for later in the evening. Hwang Dae-heon came through with South Korea's first gold in short track and also its first gol

HONOLULU -- North Korea's relationship with South Korea and other countries is at a critical moment that can move in either direction resulting in confrontation or reconciliation, South Korea's top nuclear envoy said Wednesday, stressing the importance of direct engagement with North Korea. Noh Kyu-duk also said he and his US and Japanese counterparts will discuss ways to persuade North Korea to return to the dialogue table when they meet here on Thursday. "I believe now is a very important

In May 1993, Estonia’s first post-Soviet leader Lennart Meri -- a wise man with bitter experience of life in the Soviet Union -- told the visiting US deputy secretary of state that Estonia urgently needed to join NATO. It was, he said, the only guarantee that Russia wouldn’t invade the Baltic state once a less Western-friendly and authoritarian Russian leader replaced then-President Boris Yeltsin. Meanwhile, Yeltsin openly warned the US that NATO’s expansion to the east would

  The 2022 Winter Olympics are underway in Beijing, among the nation’s closest foreign capitals at just some 950 kilometers from Seoul, four years after South Korea hosted the PyeongChang Games in Gangwon Province. Sixty-four Korean athletes are competing on snow and ice with the modest goal of ranking 15th or 16th in the medal standing. Famous movie director Zhang Yimou used a lot of his genius and high technology to add a landmark in the ongoing rise of China, but the opening cere

An exhibition that underlines the daily use of Korea traditional clothing, hanbok, launched on Wednesday in Seoul. The exhibition, co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports and Korea Craft & Design Foundation, introduces uniforms created by hanbok designers Kwon Hye-jin of Hyeon, Kim Nan-hee of Dolsilnai, Baek Dahami of Daham Hanbok, Hwang Sun-tae of Hanbok Moon, Shin Sang-hwa as well as You Eun-chae, a college student whose hanbok design received an award last year. &ldqu