National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug met with the World Health Organization (WHO) chief to discuss cooperation on vaccines and humanitarian aid to North Korea, his office said Wednesday. During the meeting with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Park also emphasized that South Korea is the "optimal location" for a bio and vaccine workforce development hub planned by the WHO, the office said. "Korea is equipped with the educational infrastructure and global v

A Korean woman had a stillbirth after being confirmed with COVID-19 and the deceased fetus tested positive, officials said Wednesday. It is the first COVID-19 death in Korea in a child under the age of 19. “The route of infection has not been confirmed,” authorities said. “It was a stillbirth case before birth registration, so we decided to separate it from the confirmed cases.” The mother’s gestation period was 24 weeks and she was not vaccinated against COVID-

Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) will open an office in Costa Rica, as part of an agreement reached Monday.  The agreement was signed following a meeting between Costa Rican delegation led by President Carlos Alvarado Quesada and GGGI President Chair Ban Ki-moon and GGGI Director-General Frank Rijsberman. “With the host country agreement and a new country office in San Jose, I hope GGGI can help Costa Rica to do more in-country and share Costa Rica’s experience with other

IT giant offers sneak peek into new metaverse platform Arcverse, world’s first artificial intelligence operating in Korean

Democratic Party election committee officials resign en masse to support Lee

Samsung Electronics will invest $17 billion into its foundry sector, a business that makes money by manufacturing chips clients have designed. But some experts say that despite the staggering size of the investment, the South Korean tech giant is unlikely to challenge the global foundry race led by TSMC. Instead of splurging cash, a structural change must occur to catch up with TSMC, a No. 1 foundry player with a global market share of 58 percent as of second quarter this year, they said. &ld

Senior officials of the ruling Democratic Party offered to resign en masse on Wednesday, saying they hope to inject fresh vigor into the flailing campaign of its presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung. Rep. Youn Kwan-suk, the party's secretary-general, said the decision involved himself and four other lawmakers in political posts who wished to "put the party before self." The others are chief policymaker Park Wan-joo, deputy chief policymaker You Dong-soo, chief spokesperson Koh Yong-jin

Hanwha Solutions said Wednesday it has invested $100 million in a Houston-based tech company Lancium, which aims to build bitcoin mines across Texas that will run on renewable energy. According to the solar-to-hydrogen business unit of South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, Lancium has purchased 9.5 square kilometers of land in Texas and plans to establish over 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity across multiple sites. Lancium develops software and technology that connects bitcoin mines

South Korean stocks closed slightly lower Wednesday as investors took to the sidelines ahead of the central bank's monetary policy meeting. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) slipped 3.04 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 2,994.29 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 540 million shares worth some 10.7 trillion won ($9 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 477 to 373. Institutions sold a net 592 billion won, while f

Korea Aerospace Industries announced Wednesday that it will acquire a 10 percent stake in Konan Technology, a company specialized in AI and big data. This investment in shares comes as an effort to acquire future industry-related technology by implementing AI, big data and deep learning into the aviation and defense sectors. KAI and Konan Technology will work together on developing an AI-based prognostics and health management system that can be used on Korean Utility Helicopter, KF-21, FA-50,

The Seoul Mobility Show, the only official motor show in South Korea, will kick off this Friday simultaneously at Kintex in Goyang and Paju in Gyeonggi Province as well as Seoul, showcasing 18 new cars. According to the organizer for the show, the exhibition will continue until Dec. 5 with over 100 automobile and mobility companies from six different countries taking part. The main exhibition at Kintex includes vehicles from Kia, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, BMW, Audi, Isuzu, Genesis, Porsch

Though two main contenders dominate the race, four party-backed candidates are gunning for the presidency

Prosecutors questioned a former chief secretary to Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party, on Wednesday in connection with a far-reaching corruption scandal surrounding a development project undertaken in the city of Seongnam when Lee was mayor. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office summoned Lim Seong-min, who served as Lee's chief of staff while he was serving as Seongnam mayor, for questioning as a witness earlier in the day, according to officials.

Victims of the brutal crackdown on a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju have launched a damage suit against the government, a lawyer's group announced Wednesday, a day after the death of former President Chun Doo-hwan accused of ordering the crackdown. Lawyers for a Democratic Society said it has filed the suit on behalf of 70 people who were subject to brutal violence by soldiers during the democracy protests in May 1980 in Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul, a

For director and actor Yoo Teo, releasing “Log in Belgium” as his debut film was never part of the plan. “Shooting a video was a way for me to endure the self-quarantine period in an unfamiliar city of Antwerp, Belgium, shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when countries closed their borders and locked themselves down,” Yoo said in a press conference Tuesday at CGV Yongsan in central Seoul. He was in Antwerp working on the joint German-Japanese drama prod