Leaders of the southeastern metropolitan city of Daegu, 240 kilometers from Seoul, and the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province on Tuesday agreed on plans to launch an integrated provincial government in 2026 with support from the central government. The agreement was made at a meeting attended by Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo, North Gyeongsang Gov. Lee Cheol-woo, Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min and Woo Dong-gi, chairman of the Presidential Committee for Decentralization and Bala

S. Korea vows $14b in export finance for local companies heading to Africa, $10b development aid

Pansori sung in Korean, French at Cheong Wa Dae event

President Yoon Suk Yeol said in an opening speech of the 2024 Korea-Africa Summit Tuesday that the event marks a new era of ties between Asia's fourth-largest economy and the African continent. "Today's Summit will herald an important milestone of the new era of ties between South Korea and Africa," Yoon told delegations of 48 African countries in the largest multilateral summit hosted by the Yoon administration. "We hope we can briskly start our grand journey to achieve the futur

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Monday that South Korea will be Africa's "true friend" for the continent's common goal of achieving economic growth, given that South Korea, which was once one of the world's poorest countries, achieved its own economic breakthrough and prosperity in a dramatic fashion. At a welcoming dinner held Monday in Seoul on the eve of the 2024 Korea-Africa Summit, Yoon brought up "ubuntu," a term referring to the essence of humanity used amo

President Yoon Suk Yeol held a series of bilateral summit meetings with leaders of 10 African nations Monday to discuss ways to expand cooperation on the eve of the first-ever Korea-Africa Summit, the presidential office said. Yoon had back-to-back meetings with leaders from Lesotho, Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Togo, Rwanda, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde at the presidential office in Seoul. The leaders were in South Korea to attend the inaugural Korea-Afri

Importing nearly all the oil and gas it consumes, South Korea has long desired its own fuel wells. Yet, a discovery of one with massive deposits within its territory seemed almost too good to be true. On Monday, President Yoon Suk Yeol reignited the country’s fading dreams of becoming an oil-producing nation with a surprise announcement that there could be a significant fossil fuel field off the coast of Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. The promise is a reserve of 14 billion barrels of o

Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Act on the Management of Public Institutions Proposed by Rep. Song Ki-hun (Democratic Party of Korea) ● The current Act requires the Minister of Economy and Finance to evaluate the management performance of public enterprises and quasi-governmental institutions with evaluation criteria that include how rational management goals are, how well they are being achieved, and the adequacy of organizational and personnel management. However, despite the heightene

South Korean government on Monday authorized drilling off the country's southeastern coast for oil and natural gas reserves a recent study by a foreign seismic research company indicated would be equivalent to about 14 billion barrels of oil. The resources are believed to be in the in the shores off the Yeongil Bay near Pohang, about 260 kilometers southeast of Seoul, President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a briefing at the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul. If confirmed, he said the reserve would

SINGAPORE -- The defense ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan on Sunday agreed to launch a trilateral exercise under the name "Freedom Edge," starting this summer. The plan for the trilateral exercise was reached at a meeting held on the last day of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore. The trilateral exercise is to build on efforts outlined at the Camp David summit last year, according to the joint statement issued after the Singapore meeting. Ac

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday held two rounds of bilateral talks with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, respectively, on the sidelines of the 2024 Korea-Africa Summit scheduled for later this week in Seoul. Seoul described the meetings as a stepping-stone for Asia's fourth-largest economy to weather the transnational crises through increased strategic cooperation with the African continent. The Korean president and Hassan held a summit-level

The Constitutional Court of Korea has dismissed a constitutional petition by the bereaved families of April 2014 Sewol ferry disaster that the South Korean government had neglected its duty to rescue passengers from the capsized vessel. A 5-4 court ruling on Thursday dismissed the claim of state negligence filed in December 2014 and January 2015 for not meeting the relevant legal requirements, ending 10 years of legal actions by the victims' bereaved families. The petition stated that South

North Korea sent another batch of balloons carrying filth and propaganda to South Korea over the weekend, prompting a stern reaction from the South Korean government, which vowed Sunday to take “unendurable” action. “Dispatching of trash balloons and jamming GPS are despicable and irrational acts of provocation that could not have been imagined by a normal country,” National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said after presiding over a National Security Council meeting called

SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik on Saturday credited the bipartisan support from the US Congress for its role in protecting the US troop presence in South Korea. Shin held a closed-door meeting with the US House of Representatives delegation comprising Reps. Young Kim, Michael McCaul, Gregory Meeks, Joe Wilson and Joe Courtney at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit on this day, according to the minister’s office. The South Korean defense minister was quoted

SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik said Friday a delegation of US senators agreed to help raise bipartisan support on expanding the two countries’ cooperation in defense-related science and technology. The minister and the three US senators -- Sens. Tammy Duckworth, Laphonza Butler and Dan Sullivan -- held a closed-door meeting held at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for about half an hour. “The bipartisan US senate delegation, one Republican an