South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. said Tuesday that it has obtained a 310.5 billion won ($261.4 million) order to build four container carriers. Under the deal with a European shipper, Hanjin Heavy will deliver the vessels by November, 2023, the company said in a regulatory filing. In April, creditors of Hanjin Heavy, led by the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB), signed a deal with a consortium led by local builder Dongbu Corp. to sell it a 66.85 percen

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Tuesday that it has won approval for the design of its cyber safety solutions for ships from ABS, a US ship quality assurance and risk management company. The solutions, named DSME Smartship Solutions (DS4), will be used to protect the data and software of ships from outside hacking, the shipbuilder said in an emailed statement. The PDA (product design assessment) approval for the DS4 means the DS4 is designed under the standard for th

Apple Inc.'s new smartwatch will be launched in South Korea next week, the US tech titan said Tuesday, as it eyes to beef up its presence on the home turf of its archrival Samsung Electronics Co. Apple Watch Series 7 will be available here from Oct. 15, with preorders starting from Friday, according to the company. Its starting price has been set at 499,000 won ($420). Apple's latest smartwatch features a nearly 20-percent-larger screen and 40-percent-thinner bezel than its predecessor at 1.7 mi

The unification ministry will keep a close eye on discussions between North Korea and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for any possibility of its participation in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, an official said Tuesday. Last month, the IOC decided to suspend the North from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing for refusing to participate in the recent Tokyo Games over COVID-19 concerns. The IOC said the participation of any individual North Korean athletes in the Beijing Olympics will be de

After trip to Italy, National Assembly Speaker Park to visit Egypt to discuss economic, defense industry cooperation

South Korea continues to make preparations necessary to resume long-stalled dialogue with North Korea after their inter-Korean communication lines were restored following about two months of suspension, a unification ministry official said Tuesday. On Monday, the two Koreas reopened their liaison and military hotlines, which had been suspended since early August due to Pyongyang's protest of a joint military drill by South Korea and the United States. Their reactivation came days after North Ko

LG Electronics Inc. said Tuesday it has expanded its technology discussion group as the company tries to better explore its future growth engines. LG Electronics said its Innovation Council now involves other LG Group affiliates, including South Korea's No. 1 chemical company LG Chem Ltd., telecommunications giant LG Uplus Corp. and IT service arm LG CNS Co. The Innovation Council, a networking group with industry experts, was launched by LG Electronics in July 2020 to seek new business opportun

A Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) officer and five Army soldiers have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Tuesday. The JCS officer, based in Seoul, was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 after developing symptoms, according to the ministry. No additional cases were reported from subsequent tests conducted on other members based on contact tracing, officials said. Separately, three Army officers and two enlistees were found to have contracted the virus during a

China supplied about 12,000 barrels of refined oil to North Korea in August, the largest monthly shipments in 13 months, a UN report showed Tuesday. According to the report posted on the website of the UN sanctions committee on North Korea, China's monthly supplies of refined oil to its communist ally came to 11,745 barrels, or 1,410 tons, in August. The amount represented the largest since July last year when the corresponding figure stood at 12,479 barrels. During the January-August period,

A lawmaker, who formerly headed a major civic group supporting women forced into wartime sexual slavery by Japan, has been accused of embezzling the organization's funds 217 times, mostly for personal purposes, such as paying at "galbi" or rib restaurants, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday. Rep. Youn Mee-hyang, who led the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan until her election in 2020, spent over 100 million won ($84,300) of

K-pop supergroup BTS made another No. 1 debut on Billboard's main singles chart with a collaboration single with British rock band Coldplay, Billboard said. "Coldplay and BTS rocket onto the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart at No. 1 with their collaborative new single 'My Universe'," Billboard said on its website Monday (US time). It marks BTS' sixth No. 1 debut and Coldplay's second on the Hot 100, one of the pop music industry's most influential music charts. Billboard said "My

South and North Korea held daily phone calls via their liaison and military hotlines Tuesday, officials said, a day after Pyongyang restored the inter-Korean communication channels. On Monday, the two Koreas reopened the cross-border communication lines following a near two-month suspension. The move came hours after the North's state media announced that the lines would be back in normal operation as of 9 a.m. on the day. "South and North Korea's daily call at 9 a.m. took place normall

Samsung Display Co., a major display panel maker in South Korea, dominated the global smartphone panel market in the first half of the year, a report showed Tuesday, though its market share declined slightly from a year earlier. Samsung Display, an affiliate of top smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co., grabbed a 48 percent revenue share in the global smartphone display panel market in the first six months of 2021, down from a 50 percent share a year earlier, according to a report from market

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday it plans to complete its review within this year of a deal by Korean Air Lines Co., the country's biggest carrier, to buy the debt-ridden Asiana Airlines Inc. In a report to the National Assembly, the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said it plans to speed up the review in consideration of the value that the deal has for the country's economy. In November 2020, Korean Air said it will acquire its smaller rival Asiana Airlines in a deal valued at