Hanwha Solutions said Tuesday it will go carbon neutral by 2050 by utilizing its renewable and hydrogen technologies. According to the South Korean solar-to-hydrogen energy company, it will curb carbon emissions totaling 3.58 million tons by 2050. The firm emitted 2.46 million tons last year and is expected to generate an additional 1.12 million tons in the future. “All of Hanwha Solutions’ businesses will join a Korean version of Renewable Energy 100 and use electricity genera

  The number of delivery workers in South Korea swelled nearly 12 percent in the second half of last year to hit a record high amid the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 390,000 carriers as of the end of December last year, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. The tally covers mail carriers, door-to-door couriers, food delivery workers, newspaper delivery workers and carriers of milk and other bev

South Korea plans to buy back 2 trillion won ($1.7 billion) worth of government bonds in a bid to tackle a sharp hike in bond yields, a senior government official said Tuesday. Second Vice Finance Minister Ahn Do-geol said the government will actively seek policy coordination with the Bank of Korea (BOK), when needed, to stabilize the bond market. "The stable management of the government bond market has become more important than at any time to support the fiscal policy's role and the smo

President Moon Jae-in made another overture toward North Korea at a UN climate summit Monday, suggesting planting trees together to reduce carbon emissions on the Korean Peninsula and pledging to make good on a 3-year-old promise in an apparent bid to reengage Pyongyang. “The Republic of Korea will take a leading role in cooperation for reforestation,” Moon said in his keynote speech at the 26th Conference of the Parties or COP26 held in Glasgow, Scotland, calling tree planting one

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) launched its presidential election committee on Tuesday to help steer its presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung to victory in the upcoming election in March. The committee is the liberal party's largest ever and includes all 169 of its National Assembly lawmakers with party chairman Song Young-gil as its standing chief and 12 others as co-chiefs. The party held a massive launching ceremony that was expected to be attended by up to 499 people under the government

Nearly half of all recent COVID-19 cases in Seoul were breakthrough infections, a Seoul city official said Tuesday. "Of the 646 new cases confirmed in Seoul on Sunday, 49.4 percent, or 319 cases, were breakthrough cases," Park Yoo-mi, a disease control official at the Seoul metropolitan government, said in a briefing. "The rate of breakthrough infections in Seoul is higher than the nationwide average," she noted. According to the city government, Seoul has recorded 12,663

Seoulites complain of noise, frequent traffic violations as motorcyclists rush deliveries

If anti-corruption agency secures critical evidence, future probe to point to Yoon

Global Green Growth week 2021 discusses success standards for developed and developing countries The Global Green Growth Institute and the British Embassy in Seoul co-organized a hybrid session to discuss standards for developed and developing countries, at GGGI headquarters on Oct. 27 Experts and decision-makers from developing and developed nations attended the session, part of GGGI week 2021, titled “Road to COP 26: what does success look like for developed and developing countries?&

K bank, South Korea’s first internet-only bank, saw its third-quarter earnings surge 115 percent from the previous quarter on the growing number of customers and amount of money deposited, officials said Tuesday. It was the first time the bank posted a net profit for two quarters in a row since its inception in 2017. It posted its first quarterly profit of 3.9 billion won ($3.32 million) three months ago, marking a sharp turnaround from a deficit of 12.3 billion won in the first quarter.

As the leaders of Asia and the Pacific prepare to head to Glasgow for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), they can be sure that our region will be in the spotlight: Many of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change are located here; the seven G20 members from this region are responsible for over half of global GHG emissions; and five of the 10 top countries with the greatest historic responsibility for emissions since the beginning of

Banks’ lending rates sharply inch up after BOK’s rate hike, driving up preference for savings

National health authorities on Tuesday called on baseball fans to refrain from chanting at stadiums, pointing to risks of spreading COVID-19 even among masked individuals. In a press briefing, Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, reminded fans that vocal cheering is still prohibited at Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) games, despite stadiums being fully open again. Starting this month, the KBO decided to operate all stadiums at 100 percent capacity for the postseason, provided th

Lisa, a member of K-pop girl group BLACKPINK, scored her second-ever appearance on the Hot 100, Billboard's main singles chart, with "Money." According to Billboard on Monday (US time), "Money," a track from Lisa's first individual single album released in September, opened at 90th on the chart for the week ending Nov. 6. The singer and rapper first entered the chart with "Lalisa," the title track of the album, ranking No. 84 in the first week of its release. The