South Korea reintroduced direct presidential elections in 1987, after decades under the rule of military dictators. Since then there have been six elections held every five years. Tuesday’s vote is the first presidential by-election since democratization, resulted from the nation’s first presidential impeachment which removed former President Park Geun-hye from office in March. The winner will take office immediately after the conformation of his or her election and will get a full five-year ter

IDC reported an 8.5 percent drop in global tablet shipments to 36.2 million. This was the 10th straight quarterly decline for tablets.Apple led the market with a 24.6 percent share in the first quarter, despite a 13 percent sales drop. Samsung sales fell 1.1 percent but retained the number two spot at 16.5 percent, data showed. China’s Huawei was the only major vendor to show growth -- reporting a 31.7 percent jump, garnering a 7.4 percent share, after introducing new “detachable” tablets powere

Many factors come into play determining voter turnout and conventional wisdom is a bad weather could dampen electoral participation. Yet, a look at past elections in South Korea does not show a clear correlation between weather conditions and voter participation rates. In the previous 2012 poll in which Park Geun-hye was elected as president, the morning low in Seoul recorded 10 degrees below zero. But the voter turnout was 12.8 percent points higher than in elections held in warmer times. For T

  

South Korea’s exports to the United States are expected to suffer losses of as much as $17 billion over five years if the two nations renegotiate their bilateral free trade deal, according to a report. The Korea Economic Research Institute, a private think tank in Seoul, said in the report that South Korea’s auto, machine and steel sectors would suffer the most if tariff rates are revised upon renegotiation.In another possible scenario, if the two agree to delay the tariff eliminatio

South Korea paid 932 billion won ($828 million) to host American soldiers here last year, according to government data. The amount that Seoul paid was in accordance with the allies’ defense cost-sharing agreement. It has increased by nearly nine times compared to 107 billion won in 1991, the first year when the contribution was paid officially.Seoul’s share of the cost of stationing nearly 28,000 US soldiers here is set out in the Special Measurement Agreement under the Status Forces Agreement b

Samsung and Apple maintained their leadership in the smartphone market in early 2017 while Chinese-based Huawei’s strong growth cemented its No. 3 position, a market tracker said Thursday.According to a survey, Samsung led the market in the first quarter with a 22.8 percent share against Apple’s 14.9 percent share. There was little growth for the top two companies. On the other hand, Huawei’s sales jumped 21.7 percent, giving it a 9.8 percent share. Fellow Chinese smartphone makers Oppo and Vivo

Research firm IDC put out its latest quarterly report on the state of the PC market, and as the chart here shows, HP is the worldwide leader in terms of market share.The California-based company retook the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2013, according to IDC, pulling ahead of No. 2 Lenovo. Third-place Dell grew decently over the past year. Same goes for fourth-place Apple, which recently said its Mac business is now worth $25 billion, a testament to its exclusively high-end lineup. Acer is

The US remained the top military spender last year, with its expenditure growing by 1.7 percent to reach $611 billion between 2015 and 2016, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.China increased its expenditure by 5.4 percent to $215 billion, a lower rate than in previous years, Russia’s military spending was $69.2 billion, making it the world’s third-largest military spender in 2016.Saudi Arabia was the third-largest spender in 2015, but dropped to fourth place in 20

The number of unemployed people with a bachelor‘s degree in South Korea surpassed 500,000 in the first quarter for the first time, Statistics Korea‘s data showed.The number of unemployed college graduates is 543,000, unemployed high school graduates were tallied at 451,000 and middle and primary school graduates at 174,000.The number of people who are jobless reached 1.17 million in the January-March period, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the government data.

The total number of smokers and tobacco-related deaths worldwide has increased, reported a consortium of researchers. According to the Global Burden of Disease report, the number of deaths attributed to tobacco use surpassed 6.4 million in 2015, up 4.7 percent compared to 1990, due to the expanding world population. More than 930 million people smoked daily in 2015, a 7 percent jump compared to 870 million in 1990.Smoking causes 1 in 10 deaths worldwide, with half of them in just four countries:

Sales of South Korea‘s major chicken franchises rose last year from the previous year despite the bird flu outbreak and weak economic growth, according to Yonhap News Agency.Kyochon, the biggest franchise, posted a 13-percent increase to 291 billion won ($255 million) last year from 257 billion won a year earlier, according to the statistics compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service.BHC witnessed a whopping 26-percent surge to 232 billion won last year, taking back the status as the country’

Italian Emma Morano’s death at the age of 117 years has left Jamaican Violet Brown, born March 10 1900, as the oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.Here is the number of people aged over 110 by country, all of whom are women, according to the US-based group.The list is dominated by Japanese and Italian women with the oldest man coming in at 16th place at the age of 113.

A total of 42.1 billion won ($37.1 million) of campaign subsidies was provided Tuesday to political parties with candidates for the 19th presidential election in South Korea, according to the National Election Commission. The amount given corresponded to the proportion of parliamentary seats held by each party and the number of votes each party had gained at the general election. The liberal Democratic Party of Korea received the highest amount, at 12.3 billion won. It has 119 of the current 292

The world’s thirst for wine continues to grow, despite weather affecting production.The United States, France and Italy were the three largest consumers of wine in 2016, with consumption of 31.8 million, 27 million and 22.5 million hectoliters, respectively, last year, according to the International Organization of Vine and Wine. On the other hand, the volume consumed in France and Argentina saw the largest declinesMeanwhile, bad weather in many regions was behind the 3.2 percent fall in global