Former major league All-Star Choo Shin-soo will report to his second South Korean baseball spring training behind schedule following an offseason elbow operation, an official with the club said Wednesday. Choo, the veteran outfielder and designated hitter for the SSG Landers, had surgery on his left elbow in November in the United States, trying to fix ligament damage that had compromised him as an outfielder late last season. The Landers will open camp Monday, and the team official said Choo w

A man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for forming a criminal organization and distributing marijuana in South Korea through the dark web, a court said Wednesday. The 40-year-old man, surnamed Kim, was found to have created a criminal organization with six accomplices and sold 1,992 grams of marijuana worth about 230 million won ($192,000) from 2017 to April after growing the plant at an isolated factory building. They were paid in cryptocurrency from buyers on the dark web, an area

The music video for K-pop girl group BLACKPINK's "Kill This Love" has exceeded 1.5 billion views on YouTube, its management agency said Wednesday. The video hit the milestone at about 6 p.m. the previous day, becoming the second video from the group to do so after the 2018 hit song "Ddu-du Ddu-du," according to YG Entertainment. BLACKPINK is now the only K-pop group with more than one music video that has over 1.5 billion views. "Kill This Love" reached No. 41 of

South Korea for the first time entered five digits in daily new COVID-19 cases for Wednesday, just days after omicron officially replaced delta as the dominant variant here. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told a meeting of the government COVID-19 response headquarters that in the latest 24 hours 13,012 cases had been recorded -- marking a stark jump from the prior record of 8,571 cases set the previous day. “Omicron spread is beginning,” the prime minister said. &l

South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday as investors sought to buy oversold stocks after the recent stock plunge. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 18.01 points, or 0.66 percent, to 2,738.4 in the first 15 minutes of trading. On Tuesday, the key stock index closed at an almost 14-month low amid lingering uncertainties about the ongoing US Federal Reserve meeting. Overnight, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite plunged 2.58 percent amid expectations of the Fed's hawki

North Korea has decided to upgrade its agricultural ministry to a state commission, according to Pyongyang's media Wednesday, as the country has tapped agricultural development as one of its top policy priorities for the new year amid chronic food shortages. The Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, the North's rubber-stamp legislature, made the decision to better "lead the country's agricultural production in a unified manner," the North's official Korean Central Broad

South Korea's business sentiment edged up for February but remained below par for the second consecutive month amid high raw material prices and global supply chain disruptions, a poll showed Wednesday. The business survey index (BSI) of the country's top 600 companies by sales came to 99.7 for next month, up 3.2 points from January, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) said. Yet February represents the second month in a row that the monthly yardstick of business sentiment has been below

South Korea's consumer sentiment improved in January as health authorities' tough antivirus rules mitigated worries over the spread of the coronavirus, the central bank said Wednesday. The composite consumer sentiment index (CCSI) came to 104.4 in January, up 0.6 point from the previous month, according to data from the Bank of Korea. The rise followed a 3.8 point on-month decline tallied in December. A reading above 100 means optimists outnumber pessimists. The rise is ascribed to health aut

WASHINGTON -- The United States remains committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through diplomacy and dialogue, state department press secretary Ned Price said Tuesday. The spokesperson also reiterated that the US harbors no hostile intent toward North Korea. "We have no hostile intent. We harbor no hostile intent towards the DPRK. We are open to dialogue. We're open to diplomacy," Price said in a press briefing, referring to North Korea by its official nam

진행: 홍유, Brolley Genster 1. KBS ‘The King of Tears, Lee Bang-won’ continues to take beating for abusing horse to death 기사 요약: 낙마씬 찍다 고꾸라져 죽은 말…KBS '학대 촬영' 거센 논란 [1] Criticisms over territorial broadcaster KBS1 abusing a horse to film a scene for the 7th episode of the period drama “The King of Tears, Lee Bang-won” is continuing even after the apology statement was released on Thursday. *criticism: 비판, 비난 *abuse: 학대하다 *apology statement: 사과문 [2] The scene,

It had been months since the president’s last East Room press conference. And his team’s best and brightest understood that, just like sports stars, all-star political communicators can get rusty riding the bench, away from the game’s give-and-take. This time they were determined to leave nothing to chance. Their president was sitting in the center of the Cabinet Room, awaiting his advisers’ tough rehearsal questions. They realized his last full-fledged press conference

Back when I lived in the US pursuing an advanced degree in the 1970s, Americans frequently exchanged a salutary “Hi!” or “Hello!” when they passed by on the street, even if they were total strangers. Even today, when a baby wakes up in the morning, American parents teach the baby how to greet, by saying “Hi!” with a bright smile. Surely, such warm and friendly greetings, among other things, made Americans among the friendliest people in the world. However, t