Around 16,000 new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones were put into service here Wednesday, an indication that the Samsung device is still popular among local consumers despite the global recall incident.The nation's three major mobile carriers -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. -- resumed activating phablets sold in pre-orders last month.Roughly 16,000 units were put into service across the country, apparently a good sales record for a new smartphone model marketed in South Korea."Consumers s

The United States is actively investigating additional Chinese companies over dealings with North Korea after imposing the first-ever sanctions on a Chinese firm earlier this week in connection with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, a senior State Department official said Wednesday."We're investigating. The Treasury and State are investigating a number of companies around the world," Daniel Fried, the department's coordinator for sanctions policy, said during a Senate hearing in response

A new organization tasked with investigating and documenting North Korea's human rights abuses began operations on Wednesday to implement South Korea's law aimed at improving the rights of people living in the reclusive country.Seoul's unification ministry said it held a ceremony to mark the opening of the Center for North Korean Human Rights Records, attended by Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo and others including Suh Doo-hyun, the head of the center.Under the law which took effect on Sept.

Asiana Airlines Co., South Korea's No. 2 flag carrier, said Wednesday that its Incheon-bound flight has returned to Los Angeles earlier in the day apparently due to a malfunction of a smoke alarm for the cargo section.The A380 plane with 358 passengers on board returned to Los Angeles three hours after its departure at 12:10 p.m. Tuesday (local time), after a smoke warning light came on for the cargo area.Asiana said aviation officials there didn't find any signs of fire or smoke in the cargo se

More than 9 out of every 10 South Koreans have more than one insurance policy, a survey showed Wednesday.The survey on 1,200 South Korean adults released by the Korea Insurance Research Institute showed that 93.8 percent of people had individual life insurance coverage, down from 96.7 percent last year.It also showed that 73.4 percent had individual life insurance while 76.2 percent owned individual non-life insurance.The survey said that 81.8 percent of South Korean households had life insuranc

The daughter of the embattled Lotte Group's founder, currently standing trial for a string of corruption allegations, has been additionally charged with evading some tens of billions of won in taxes, prosecutors said Wednesday.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, which is looking into the alleged corporate crimes of the country's fifth-largest conglomerate, said Shin Young-ja is suspected of evading some 56 billion won ($51 million) in gift taxes in the process of receiving shares of

President Park Geun-hye stressed the role of female financiers in strengthening South Korea's financial sector and boosting growth Wednesday, saying their efforts are crucial to address an array of economic and social challenges facing the nation.In her video message to a gathering of women financiers in Seoul, Park also called on the participants to make the best use of their abilities to enhance the competitiveness of the high value-added service industry."I hope you will put yourselves at the

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday around 250,000 tourists are set to visit the city in early October thanks to China celebrating a key holiday, stressing every effort will be made to offer various programs to welcome the visitors.Seoul said it will operate visitors' centers in major tourist areas throughout the city, including the shopping districts of Myeongdong and Dongdaemun, which are hubs for the country's fashion industry. The centers will provide a variety of information to

More than 3 trillion won ($2.73 billion) in luxury brand knockoffs, most of them from China, were caught while being smuggled into the country over the past five years, with watches replacing handbags as the most popular items, tallies from the customs agency showed Wednesday.Records given to the parliamentary finance committee by the Korea Customs Service said the agency nabbed 3,088 smuggling cases involving fake goods, amounting to 3.24 trillion won.Fake watches accounted for 987.7 billion wo

Stung by persistently low oil prices that prompted foreign orders to dry up, South Korean construction firms have been preparing for restructuring plans, according to company officials Wednesday. POSCO E&C, a construction arm of steelmaker POSCO, plans to cut 500 jobs by the end of this year via a voluntary retirement program. In the first half of the year, POSCO E&C reported a loss of 177.1 billion won ($161.6 million). POSCO E&C saw sales fall by more than 1 trillion won in the first six month

South Korea said Wednesday it has handed out 84 percent of support funds earmarked for local firms that operated factories in the now-shuttered joint industrial park in North Korea to help cover their financial losses.The government has offered 438.5 billion won ($399.8 million) out of about 500 billion won in state funds to South Korean companies that had factories at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, according to Seoul's unification ministry.Seoul shut down the factory zone in the North's border

The number of childbirths in South Korea sank at the fastest clip in nearly three years in July amid a continued low birth rate and late marriage trend, government data showed Wednesday.About 33,900 babies were born in July, down 7.4 percent, or 2,700, from 36,600 a year earlier, marking the steepest monthly drop since November 2013, when it posted a 12.3 percent on-year plunge, according to the data from Statistics Korea.The number of marriages fell 10.2 percent on-year to a 10-month low of 21,