Joining the ranks of Korean dramas and K-pop in gaining popularity worldwide is Korean animation series “Catch! Teenieping,” which has caught on with kids around the globe. “Catch! Teenieping” topped Netflix Korea’s trending kids category four days after the launch of its first season. YouTube channel Teenieping TV, meanwhile, has over 208,000 followers. The series has been widely watched in Australia and North America, where it has ranked No. 5 and No. 9, respect

South Korea plans to place emergency controls on production and provision of urea water solution (UWS), the prime minister's office said Tuesday, in a move to ease the supply crunch of the material used to reduce emissions in diesel vehicles. A government notice that allows public authorities to command urea water solution makers' production, shipment and sales is expected to be approved at the Cabinet's extraordinary meeting on Thursday and come into force no later than this week. South Kore

The sense of crisis is deepening in South Korea, as an acute shortage of a chemical called urea threatens to disrupt businesses across a vast spectrum from construction to retail.  Government officials are mobilizing diplomacy to secure urea supplies from overseas, but no immediate solution is in sight.  The Korea Herald looks at what is causing this sudden urea crunch and why this is such a hard problem to solve. 1. What is urea, anyway? Urea is a type of nitrogen made mainly of

President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday instructed aides to take steps to revise laws on workplace harassment in the civil service, citing a lack of legal stipulations on compensation for victims in the field of public administration. The instruction came after a newly recruited civil servant at the city government of Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, was found dead at the person's home in September, about three months after the official was assigned to the post.  Family members of the dec

South Korea plans to bring oral antivirals against COVID-19 to the country “no later than February,” Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Yoo Geun-heag told reporters Tuesday, in addition to the 90 million doses of vaccines that will be purchased for the third year of the pandemic. While refraining from calling oral antivirals a pandemic “game changer,” he said the government was working to make them available here possibly by January, a month earlier than previously p

South Korean stocks edged up Tuesday after a choppy session, led by institutional buying. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) added 2.26 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,962.46 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 699 million shares worth some 9.6 trillion won ($8.1 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 540 to 317. Institutions bought a net 274 billion won, while foreigners sold 138 billion won. Retail investors offloade

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Nearly half of new COVID-19 cases in South Korea over the past two weeks were breakthrough infections, health authorities said Tuesday. There were 8,336 breakthrough cases out of 17,325 new COVID-19 patients, or 48.1 percent, between Oct. 17 and Oct. 30, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. Breakthrough infections are those who test positive even after receiving the full-dose vaccine regimen. The rate of breakthrough cases occurring in people aged in their 70s was the h

Business leaders in South Korea and the US have called for the protection of confidential business information and urged to ensure the autonomy of the private sector as the post-COVID global supply chain is being realigned. During the 33rd Plenary Meeting of Korea-US & US-KOREA Business Councils on Tuesday, an event jointly held by the Federation of Korean Industries and the US Chamber of Commerce, issues such as bilateral relations, climate change and building a resilient global supply cha

South Korea's financial watchdog is closely monitoring the recent fast-rising interest rates banks impose on loans, its head said Tuesday, amid the government's beefed-up efforts to tighten regulations on household borrowing. Jeong Eun-bo, chief of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), made the remarks amid complaints that some top-tier banks are imposing higher interest rates on loans than cooperative banks, an unusual reversal of borrowing costs. "Interest rates are determined by the

The US-based global banking giant Citigroup will reportedly spend up to $1.5 billion, or 1.8 trillion won, on the withdrawal of its retail business in South Korea, according to news reports Tuesday. The group said in a regulatory filing that its expenditure on severance pay for employees at the Korean subsidiary’s retail banking operations will range between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion. It will pay the envisioned personnel costs in phases by the end of next year, the Wall Street Jour

South Korea's No. 2 retailer Shinsegae Inc. said Tuesday that its third-quarter net income steeply increased as its department store business got a boost from pent-up demand amid the extended coronavirus pandemic. Net income came to 188.9 billion won ($160.3 million) on a consolidated basis in the July-September period, sharply up from a profit of 858 million won a year ago, according to a corporate regulatory filing. Operating income rose 307.1 percent on-year to 102.4 billion won, and sales

South Korea’s exchange-traded fund market is getting very competitive and growing in a healthy way, in line with local asset management firms’ fierce competition, an executive from S&P Dow Jones Indices said Tuesday. “The Korean ETF market’s 10-year compound annual growth rate is around 25 percent, which is way above the global market’s rate of growth of 16 percent,” John Davies, global head of exchange-traded products at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said

Despite grand plans, banking giants take baby steps towards ESG at the moment, according to critics