South Korean stocks closed at an all-time high Monday as investors expect the US Federal Reserve to reiterate its support for accommodative policies in this week's monetary policy meeting. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kopsi) rose 2.81 points, or 0.09 percent, to close at 3,252.13 points, marking the highest closing ever. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.6 billion shares worth some 15 trillion won ($13.4 billion), with losers

Former President Chun Doo-hwan again failed to attend an appellate court hearing held Monday to deal with his defamation case related to a late Catholic priest's testimony about the military's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in the southeastern city in 1980. Last November, the Gwangju District Court sentenced Chun to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, on charges of defaming the late Catholic Priest Cho Pius, who testified to having witnessed Chun's troops shooting

The issue of China did not come up during South Korea's discussions with the Group of Seven (G-7) countries last week, a senior foreign ministry official said Monday. Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon made the remark during a radio interview, dismissing speculation that attending the gathering in Britain put Seoul in an awkward position as it might appear that South Korea has chimed in with the G-7 countries on their unified front against an assertive China. In the joint communique i

K-pop boy band EXO has added another album to its list of million-selling albums with the latest release "Don't Fight the Feeling," its management agency said Tuesday. The EP, released last week, has sold 1.09 million copies as of Sunday, becoming the nine-member group's sixth million-selling album, according to SM Entertainment. The group first earned a million-selling album record with its debut studio album "XOXO (Kiss & Hug)" in 2013. "Don't Fight the Feeling&

K-pop boy band Tomorrow X Together (TXT) saw its latest album land at fifth place on the Billboard main albums chart in its best record since debut. "South Korean pop quintet Tomorrow x Together notches its first top 10 album on the Billboard 200 as 'The Chaos Chapter: Freeze' debuts at No. 5 with 43,000 equivalent album units earned," the Billboard reported Sunday (local time). Album sales accounted for a majority of the total with 39,000, while the remaining units came from digital

Half of SsangYong Motor Co.'s workers will go on unpaid leave for two years beginning next month as part of self-help measures as the debt-ridden automaker is striving to speed up its sales process, the company said Monday. SsangYong said its management and labor union inked a deal on the corporate restructuring plan and will carry out the measures in July after ironing out the details. Over half of SsangYong workers last week voted for the company's proposal of a two-year unpaid leave to ha

A parcel delivery worker has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage caused by overwork and fallen into a coma, a couriers' advocacy group said Monday. According to the group, the 47-year-old employee at Lotte Global Logistics Co.'s branch in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, was sent to a hospital after showing abnormal symptoms, such as stiffness of the body, while he was sleeping at home early Sunday morning. The courier, surnamed Lim, underwent surgery for a serious case of a cerebral hemorrhage but r

South Korea's smaller firms on Monday called for a further delay in enforcing the 52-hour workweek system for them set to take effect next month amid the extended COVID-19 pandemic.   In a joint statement, the country's business lobby groups, such as the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Korea Enterprises Federation, called on the government to allow companies with a workforce of fewer than 50 people more time to prepare for the 52-hour workweek amid the prolonged fallou

The unification ministry on Monday urged North Korea to respect the spirit of reconciliation and to respond to calls for dialogue ahead of the anniversary of the first-ever summit between the two Koreas over two decades ago. South Korea on Tuesday is to mark the 21st anniversary of the June 15 Declaration adopted during the summit in Pyongyang in 2000 between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "The government will continue to implement its a

Young South Korean football players hoping to compete at the Tokyo Summer Games will be raring to take the field Tuesday, when they'll have one last opportunity to build their case for inclusion on the 18-man Olympic squad. Of 28 players at training camp for the men's Olympic football team, 18 saw action in the first of two friendlies against Ghana on Saturday. Head coach Kim Hak-bum had long declared he would use all 28 players across these two matches. But then he added two more players into

More than three-fourths of South Korean exporters to China have suffered damage from the coronavirus pandemic, a poll showed Monday. The survey of 540 exporting companies, taken by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), showed 75.7 percent of the respondents saying their businesses in the world's No. 2 economy have been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. Nearly 38 percent replied that they have suffered severe damage, while about 7 percent answered their Chinese businesses have benefited

Insurance firms in South Korea saw their risk-based capital ratio fall for the second straight quarter in the first quarter of this year amid rising market interest rates, data showed Monday. The risk-based capital (RBC) ratio of local insurance firms stood at 256 percent at end-March, down 19 percentage points from three months earlier, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). The fall in the RBC ratio came as a hike in bond yields incurred valuation losses from the

Support for the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) continued to grow last week, apparently driven by the ascent of a new leader, widening its gap with the ruling Democratic Party (DP) to nearly 10 percentage points, a poll showed Monday. In a Realmeter survey conducted from June 7-11, the PPP scored 39.1 percent of backing, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous week. It is close to its highest-ever point of 39.4 percent posted during the first week of April. The DP's support fell 0.

An Army soldier in his 20s has died six days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, officials said Monday. The soldier, based in Seoul, was found unconscious in his barracks the previous day and transferred to a nearby hospital but died. It wasn't immediately clear if the death was directly related to the vaccine. An autopsy is planned to look into the exact cause of the death, officials said. It is the second death of a service member following COVID-19 vaccination.

Japan called off agreed-upon talks between President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga during the Group of Seven (G-7) meeting in Britain due to Seoul's regular exercise to defend its easternmost islets of Dokdo, a foreign ministry official said Monday. Seoul and Tokyo had reached a tentative agreement to hold a "pull-aside" meeting between their leaders on the sidelines of the G-7 session in the seaside resort of Carbis Bay in Cornwall, the official said. The thr