Retail sales in South Korea surged 14.4 percent in October from a year earlier as more consumers opened their wallets amid various promotional events and cold weather, the industry ministry said Monday. The combined sales of 25 major offline and online retailers reached 13.6 trillion won ($11.41 billion) last month, compared with 12.01 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Sales from offline stores rose 10 percent on-year in

A 35-year-old stalking murder suspect timidly apologized Monday as he appeared before the public eye for the first time since he was arrested and had his identity disclosed on suspicions of stalking and brutally killing his ex-girlfriend. Kim Byung-chan stood in front of reporters and photographers as he was taken from Seoul Namdaemun Police Station to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office for a further investigation and indictment on the stalking murder charges. Kim repeatedly said,

South Korea will closely monitor global and local financial markets for any impact from the emergence of the omicron variant of the coronavirus and take action in a preemptive and active manner, if necessary, to reduce market volatility, a senior finance ministry official said Monday. First Vice Finance Minister Lee Eog-weon made the remark at a meeting to discuss macroeconomic issues amid concerns that financial market volatility could intensify due to the spread of the potentially more transm

South Korea kicked off annual consultation meetings with global rating appraiser Standard & Poor's Global Ratings (S&P) on Monday to discuss the country's credit valuation and economic outlook, the finance ministry said. The delegation, led by Kim Eng Tan, senior director of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at S&P, visited South Korea for four days of consultations through Thursday, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. It will be the first face-to-face meetings between th

North Korea said Monday it has strengthened preventive measures against COVID-19 in response to growing concern about the Omicron variant, a move that heralds a further delay in easing its stringent border control. The reclusive nation had been seen preparing to reopen its land border with China and Russia, at least partially, before the end of this year. But the emergence of a new variant of the coronavirus has put the country and many other parts of the world on high alert. In a report, the

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Seoul this week for annual defense talks with his South Korean counterpart on the envisioned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON), North Korean threats, cybersecurity and other issues, Seoul officials have said. Austin is set to depart for South Korea on Tuesday (Washington time) to attend the 53rd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) slated for Thursday. It marks the first SCM between Seoul's Defense Minister Suh Wook and Austin since the

Samsung Heavy Industries Co. said Monday it has signed a deal with Microsoft Korea to cooperate on the digitalization of its shipyard. Samsung Heavy said it plans to build up a collaboration system among each shipbuilding sector in its shipyard by using cloud computing service Azure, artificial intelligence, group chat software Teams and metaverse technologies, which will be provided by Microsoft under the deal. Samsung Heavy said the latest deal will accelerate the digitalization of its shipy

South Korea's new coronavirus cases stayed below 4,000 for the second straight day Monday due largely to fewer tests, but the high number of critically ill patients remained worrisome amid concerns about the new virus variant. The country reported 3,309 new COVID-19 cases, including 3,286 local infections, raising the total caseload to 444,200, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Monday's tally was down from 3,928 reported Sunday and 4,068 on Saturday. The cou

South Korean stocks opened lower Monday, largely as investors wondered how the omicron variant of the coronavirus would affect the global economic reopening. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) fell 21.9 points, or 0.75 percent, to 2,914.54 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. South Korea reported 3,309 new COVID-19 cases Monday, none of which have been confirmed as an infection from the omicron variant. Most sectors traded lower, except vaccine-related bio and medic

　Paul Rudd, 52, the affable actor best known for playing “Ant-Man,” was named People magazine’s sexiest man alive, joining the likes of Idris Elba, George Clooney and Bradley Cooper. 　Rudd played the kind boyfriend of Lisa Kudrow’s wacky Phoebe on TV comedy “Friends” and later took larger roles in comedies like “Knocked Up” before playing Ant-Man in the Marvel superhero movie, followed by a sequel and appearances as the character in “Captai

RM, leader of the K-pop sensation BTS, said Sunday (US time) he felt there is an "invisible wall" for Korean artists despite the group's back-to-back success in the global music industry. The remark was seen as referring to the group's failure to win nomination for the top four Grammys despite a series of dazzling successes, such as producing back-to-back Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers and winning the coveted top honor at the American Music Awards. "We secured the AMAs' artist

Nearly half of South Korean hospitality companies were unable to service their debts with earnings in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Monday. The report from the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the lobby for South Korea's family-controlled conglomerates, showed 45.4 percent of firms in the local hospitality industry had an interest coverage ratio below 1 last year. The figure is up 11.3 percentage points from 2018, indicating those companies have been hit h

Presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl of the main opposition People Power Party is leading his ruling Democratic Party rival Lee Jae-myung by 9.4 percentage points in a hypothetical multicandidate race, a survey showed Monday. Yoon had 46.3 percent support against Lee's 36.9 percent in the survey of 3,023 adults conducted last Monday to Friday by Realmeter. The difference fell outside the margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. Ahn Cheol-soo, t

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, first raised the idea of restoring video art pioneer Paik Nam-June’s largest installation work, “The More the Better,” after it was shut down in 2018 due to technical problems. The museum is conducting a three-year restoration project for the masterpiece, which began last year. “We are replacing 268 CRT monitors, which are 6 or 10 inches, installed at the upper part of the video tower, with LED monitors. We will