The Koreas are set for a women's hockey showdown south of the border next week, a match taking place against the backdrop of increasing tension on the peninsula.Gangneung, Gangwon Province, some 230 kilometers east of Seoul, will host the International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship Division II Group A starting Sunday. Gangneung Hockey Centre and Kwandong Hockey Centre will be the two venues during the April 2-8 tournament, which doubles as a test event for the 2018 PyeongChang

The Internet bank of Kakao Corp., South Korea's dominant chat app, is expected to win a final regulatory approval early next month, an industry source said Thursday, clearing the final hurdle for Kakao to launch the nation's second Internet bank. The Financial Services Commission will hold a meeting on April 5 to grant the final approval for Kakao's Internet bank, the source said on the condition of anonymity. (Yonhap)An Internet bank offers banking and financial services without any branch netw

South Korea's major business groups prefer scholars to retired government officials as outside directors, data showed Thursday, as local companies move to cope with alleged bribery involving former President Park Geun-hye and some conglomerates.As many as 57 out of 126 outside directors appointed by the country's 10 biggest conglomerates this year were professors, according to the data by market researcher Chaebul.com. (Yonhap)The comparable figure for last year was 45 professors, or 33.8 percen

South Korea and the United States are considering curbing oil exports to North Korea as part of punitive measures against its possible additional nuclear test, diplomatic sources said Thursday.Multiple news reports have raised the possibility of the North carrying out its sixth nuclear detonation test by pointing to increased excavation activity at its Punggye-ri test site.(Yonhap)According to the sources, Seoul and Washington are considering making a push to curb oil exports to the North throug

The main creditor of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. on Thursday informed private creditors and bondholders of the outcome of due diligence on the troubled shipbuilder, as part of its efforts to persuade them to agree on a debt-for-equity swap.The state-run Korea Development Bank, the main creditor, was holding a meeting with stakeholders of Daewoo Shipbuilding, including the National Pension Service and the Korea Post, to discuss the financial arrangements that have to be undertake

South Korea's central bank vowed Thursday to maintain the current monetary easing policy to support growth.The Bank of Korea has left its key rate unchanged at an all-time low of 1.25 percent since June when it made a surprise rate cut to bolster Asia's fourth-biggest economy.(Yonhap)The BOK will "maintain its stance of monetary policy accommodation as the inflationary pressures are not expected to be high given the moderate pace of domestic economic growth," the BOK said in a report submitted t

MEXICO CITY -- Ecuador on Wednesday called off a visa waiver program for North Korea in an apparent response to UN sanctions on the North's nuclear and missile tests. The step took effect immediately after a foreign minister order requiring North Koreans to get a visa to enter Ecuador was announced in the official gazette on the day.Up until now, North Koreans could stay in the South American nation without a visa for up to 90 days.  This is an Ecuadorian Foreign Minister order to exclude North

Three Russian nationals have been arrested on charges of smuggling North Korean medicines into South Korea for online sales, police here said Thursday.The Russians, including a 47-year-old woman, are accused of importing North Korea-made medicines and health supplements via Russia by airmail and selling them without a permit to South Korean consumers through social media sites, Geumjung Police Station in this port city said. This photo provided by Busan's Geumjung Police Station on March 30, 201

Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said the largest corporate tax in South Korea in 2015, with the top 10 taxpayers accounting for about 24 percent of the total corporate tax revenue, data showed Thursday.Samsung Electronics, the flagship of South Korea's leading conglomerate Samsung Group, paid 3.2 trillion won ($2.87 billion) in taxes in 2015, taking up 7.1 percent of the total revenue, according to the data by the National Assembly Budget Office. (Yonhap)No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. follo

The number of unfair trade practices in South Korea plunged in 2016 from the previous year due largely to a drop in newspaper companies' violations of the nation's fair trade, officials said Thursday.The Fair Trade Commission, the country's antitrust watchdog, imposed sanctions on 60 unfair business practices last year, down 43 cases from the previous year.  (Yonhap)The number covered violations for which the FTC issued administrative warnings or stricter penalties. It marked the first time in 2

South Korea has the world's fourth largest number of Starbucks Coffee stores in relation to its population, industry data showed Thursday.Starbucks Coffee Korea, the local unit of the US coffee giant, said it has 1,008 stores across the country as of the end of February, meaning one outlet for every 50,000 South Koreans. South Korea's population is 50.5 million as of the end of July last year.(Yonhap)Canada topped the list with 1,035 shops for a population of 36.2 million, translating into one s

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has called on the UN Security Council to discuss North Korean human rights issues, a US report said Thursday. (Yonhap)"I believe the time has come for the UNSC to clarify the relations between human rights and security," she was quoted by the Washington-based Voice of America, as saying during a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations held in the United States on Wednesday."UNSC members should start discussing the matter, which is the right thi

South Korean women who take maternity and childcare leave are likely to give birth to more babies than those who don't use them, a report said Thursday.According to the report by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, women taking maternity leave are 1.2 times more likely to have more children than nonusers. (Yonhap)Women who take childcare leave are 1.3 times more likely to have more babies, said the report based on a 2015 survey of 4,235 married women in their 20s to 40s with child

Presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in continued to maintain what many have called a comfortable lead in a weekly poll on the upcoming presidential election released Thursday, while his ally-turned-rival Ahn Cheol-soo jumped to second place for the first time.Moon, a presidential hopeful and former chief of the liberal Democratic Party, posted an approval rating of 35.2 percent, gaining 0.8 percentage point from a week earlier and keeping the top position for the 13th consecutive week, according

North Korea said Thursday that the United States should be accountable for a possible outbreak of a war on the Korean Peninsula, warning that Pyongyang is ready to stage pre-emptive attacks in a resolute manner.North Korea has ratcheted up its bellicose rhetoric against ongoing joint military drills between Seoul and Washington, which involved US strategic assets, claiming that they are staging war rehearsals against the North.(Yonhap)A spokesman at North Korea's foreign ministry warned that arm