South Korea's daily coronavirus cases climbed back above 4,000 on Tuesday as health authorities remain vigilant over a possible upsurge in infections and the spread of the omicron variant ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The country added 4,072 new COVID-19 infections, including 3,763 local infections, raising the total caseload to 700,102, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients stood at 543 Tuesday. The country r

South Korean stocks opened a tad lower Tuesday, weighed down by persistent inflation woes at home and in the United States. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) edged up 1.08 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,973.56 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks came off to a lackluster start after the key stock index retreated for the previous three straight sessions amid jitters over the US Federal Reserve's faster-than-anticipated tapering and rate hikes to tame inflation.

K-pop boy group Enhypen's latest repackage album sold more than 500,000 copies in the first week of its release, the group's management agency said Tuesday. "Dimension: Answer," a repackaged version of the group's first full-length album "Dimension: Dilemma" released in October, has sold 514,291 copies for a week from last Monday when the album dropped, Belift Lab said, citing data from Hanteo Chart, a local album sales tracker. It was the second straight success for the ro

The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) in South Korea shrank 22 percent on-year in 2021 due to declined sales of government-led mortgage securities, data showed Tuesday. The ABS issued last year were valued at 61.7 trillion won ($51.8 billion), down 17.4 trillion won from a year earlier, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). ABS refer to securities based on such assets as mortgages, auto loans, credit-card receivables and student loans. The decline stemmed

Kim Tae-ho, the star producer best known for the hit MBC TV show "Infinite Challenge," has left the broadcaster after 21 years. Monday was the last day of Kim's 21-year-long work for MBC, company officials said Tuesday. Kim began working for the broadcaster in January 2001. He went on to produce "Infinite Challenge" for 13 years and "Hangout with Yoo," also a hit variety show starring comedian Yoo Jae-suk, from 2019 until recently. He also produced Netflix's Kore

DUBAI --  President Moon Jae-in has held telephone talks with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and expressed condolences to victims of a suspected drone attack claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, Moon's office said. The 25-minute telephone talks Monday evening came after the scheduled summit between Moon, who is on a weeklong trip to the Middle East, and the UAE's de facto ruler was canceled due to an "unforeseen and urgent matter of state" by the UAE side, accor

North Korea said Tuesday that it conducted the test-firing of a tactical guided missile a day earlier to confirm the accuracy of the weapons system under production. On Monday, South Korea's military said the North fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles eastward from the Sunan airfield in Pyongyang, marking its fourth show of force this month. "The test-fire was aimed to selectively evaluate tactical guided missiles being produced and deployed and to verify the accuracy of the

After a half century or so in politics, Joe Biden sure didn’t need to be reminded -- by a pollster, or a political science professor or a media pundit -- of the secret of winning elections. Because this is one secret that every politico knows. Namely: A politician will never be able to convince people that their perceived problems aren’t real -- or aren’t being fixed -- if voters are sure the problem is real because they keep seeing it on the news or encountering it in their d

The highly anticipated “7 Fates: Chakho,” a joint webtoon project between Naver Webtoon and Hybe, the K-pop powerhouse behind the superband BTS, is drawing mixed reactions from both webtoon and BTS fans at home and abroad. “7 Fates: Chakho,” the webtoon and web-novel series starring BTS members, released its first episode on Saturday. The series received a 7.70 rating as of Monday, which is a harsh start considering most of the Naver platform series have ratings above 8

K-pop girl group Fromis_9 is back more daring yet mature with “DM,” the title song of their fourth EP “Midnight Guest,” on Monday. Ahead of dropping their new album, the nine members conducted a media showcase in Seoul on Monday afternoon, with the event livestreamed online via YouTube due to concerns of the novel coronavirus spread. Returning in four months with new music, the members greeted their fans, Flover, first. “We received huge love with our previous al

 Indonesia will bolster economic ties with Korea through a range of projects involving cooperation through bilateral and multinational agreements and private sectors, said Indonesia’s newly appointed ambassador to Korea Gandi Sulistiyanto Soeherman. Through private-public partnerships (PPP), the Indonesia-Korea comprehensive economic partnership agreement (IK-CEPA), the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP), foreign direct investment (FDI), and the creative economy, the

Seoul on Monday strongly protested against Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi’s remarks that renewed territorial claims over South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, demanding an immediate retraction.  South Korea’s reaction came after Hayashi reiterated Tokyo’s stance that Dokdo, which is known as Takeshima in Japan, is a territory inherent to Japan in view of historical facts and international law in his speech outlining the government’s foreign