The Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives will hold a joint webinar with its counterpart in Thailand on Friday under the theme “The Role of Financial Cooperatives and Future Directions.” The webinar is designed to discover the value of financial cooperatives in the two countries and seek ways to cooperate, the KFCC said. Students and officials at cooperatives as well as participants from Myanmar, Laos, Fiji and Uganda will take part in the three-hour webinar. The semin

SEJONG -- The number of paid jobs for South Koreans in their 30s has declined for a seventh consecutive quarter. This could indicate a lack of job security for the core working age bracket, despite recent improvement in hiring indexes for other age groups. Statistics Korea said Thursday that the tally for salaried jobs increased by 681,000 on-year for all age groups in the second quarter. By age, the figure decreased only among those aged between 30-39. Those in their 60s and older topped the

Samsung Biologics and Boston-based biotech firm GreenLight Biosciences have teamed up to help make COVID-19 vaccines more accessible to people in poor countries, especially in Africa, the Korean pharmaceutical company said Thursday.  Under a contract manufacturing deal signed earlier in the day, Samsung Biologics will produce drug substances for GreenLight’s messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate.  The drugmaking unit of Samsung Group said it is adding new production facilit

Country sees yet another record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations

A subcommittee of the South Korean National Assembly’s defense committee reached a standstill in its deliberations on changes to the Military Service Act, the so-called BTS law, Thursday. The subcommittee discussed whether the country should grant exemptions from military service to pop artists who have helped elevate its global standing. The bill, if passed, would allow K-pop stars to work in their field for 34 months under an alternative program instead of undertaking active-duty servic

The following article was contributed by the Embassy of Oman in Seoul. — Ed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sultanate of Oman will mark the 51st National Day of the Renaissance, Nov. 18. The event comes around at a time when Omanis ponder about the achievements made so far and brace for further accomplishments, with firm resolve, under the astute leadership of His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik who pledged to hold high the banner of the Rene

The Boyz on Thursday shared a timetable for celebrating their fourth debut anniversary with a batch of photographs. 　 Each of the 11 members posed for individual shots as athletes in different sports, ranging from soccer and hockey to shooting and archery, as part of its forthcoming season’s greeting campaign named “Athlete Club.” 　 The band will host an in-person concert, named “The B-Zone,” Dec. 3-5, to mark the anniversary. It has been close to three years sinc

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug met with the World Health Organization chief to discuss COVID-19 vaccine cooperation and the launch of the organization’s training hub, the speaker’s office said Thursday. During his visit to Switzerland, Park met with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Tuesday and told him South Korea is an optimal place for the launch of its Global Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Hub, which is curren

Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday it would test its Level 4 autonomous driving system in downtown Seoul under its new mobility service “RoboRide,” using its fully electric compact Ioniq 5 as early as next year. The Korean auto giant said running RoboRide will be set the grounds for the company’s advancement of self-driving tech, in a step toward the commercialization of uncrewed mobility services. “We’ve been developing autonomous driving technology for all to mov

Biannual auto extravaganza, though downsized under COVID, exhibits heated race for green technology

South Korean stocks closed lower to extend their losing streak to a third day Thursday as the country's central bank raised its key policy rate to fight inflation and household debt. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) retreated 14.02 points, or 0.47 percent, to close at 2,980.27 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 587 million shares worth some 9.3 trillion won ($7.8 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 642 to 228. Foreigners and institutions offloaded a ne

Kakao Brain, an AI technology research and development subsidiary of Kakao, said Thursday it will upgrade its Korean-language AI model to go full swing in promoting the development of local AI industry. According to the AI company, it plans to enhance the deep learning process of KoGPT, Kako Brain’s Korean- language AI model, and make it 100 times more efficient by using Google Cloud’s supercomputer, Google Tensor Processing Unit. Google TPU is a large-scale computing system that

NongHyup among Korean lenders jumping on digital bandwagon, but resistance persists

Government to launch official consultative body to discuss ban on dog meat consumption