South Korea's tourism promotion agency said Monday that it has held a two-day event in Thailand over the weekend to attract more Thai tourists and promote Korean goods.During the 2017 Love Korea Weekend organized by the Korea Tourism Organization, a slew of South Korean firms set up booths to promote their goods as well. Visitors look around booths during a Korean tour fair that took place in Bangkok on Sept. 9, 2017, in this photo provided by the Korea Tourism Organization. (Yonhap)According to

South Korea's defense ministry said Monday it has launched a special investigation team to look into the 1980 massacre of pro-democracy movement in Gwangju under the junta of Chun Doo-hwan.The special committee will focus on allegations that soldiers were ordered to fire at protesters from helicopters and that fighter jets were ready to support the deadly crackdown that left hundreds of people dead, it said.The probe comes weeks after President Moon Jae-in formally instructed the military to inv

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating fell for the second straight week amid nuclear tensions with North Korea, according to a weekly poll released Monday. The Realmeter poll put Moon's approval rating at 69.1 percent, down 4 percentage points from a week earlier. It was the first time his support has fallen below 70 percent in a Realmeter survey since he took office in May.The survey of 2,543 adults from Sept. 4-8 also showed those with a negative assessment of Moon's performance rising 2.8 p

South Korea's youth baseball team has finished second at a world championships in Canada after losing to the United States. South Korea was blanked by the US 8-0 in the final at the U-18 Baseball World Cup at Port Arthur Stadium in Thunder Bay, Canada, on Sunday (local time). It was South Korea's first runner-up finish at the competition formerly known as the World Junior Baseball Championship.  In this photo provided by the Korea Baseball Softball Association on Sept. 7, 2017, South Korea`s Kan

South Korea's exports fell 8.7 percent in the first 10 days of this month from a year earlier due to decreased business days, the latest customs data showed Monday.Total outbound shipments reached $12.3 billion from Sept. 1-10, down from $13.5 billion tallied over the same period last year, according to numbers compiled by the Korea Customs Service.The drop came as there were seven business days during the 10-day period, compared with the previous year's eight. Exports of semiconductors con

LG Electronics Inc.'s high-end organic light-emitting diode TV products have won positive responses from American and European consumer magazines, industry sources said Monday.The LG OLEDB7V model, a 65-inch OLED UHD TV, made by the South Korean home appliance giant has topped evaluations conducted by leading consumer magazines from nine European countries, including Italy-based Altroconsumo, Germany-based Stiftung Warentest, France-based Que Choisir and Spain-based OCU, they said. (Yonhap)The U

South Korean stocks opened higher Monday as institutional buyers scooped up large-cap tech shares, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 17.05 points, or 0.73 percent, to 2,360.77 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Wall Street stocks finished lower Friday (local time), with the S&P 500 shedding 0.2 percent and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbling 0.6 percent.Most large caps on the Seoul bourse opened higher, with tech shares leading the gain. Market bell

South Korea's stock market volatility is expected to grow early this week ahead of the so-called quadruple witching day that comes on top of escalating geopolitical tensions here, analysts said Monday.The third quadruple witching day of the year, which falls on Thursday, may prompt local brokerage houses and foreign investors to rush to take profits through computer-based program trading, making the market more volatile, they said."Quadruple witching" refers to the simultaneous expirat

Units of South Korea's top 10 family-controlled conglomerates contributed nearly 60 percent to the first-half operating income of all listed companies, data showed Monday, pointing to their huge presence here.The combined operating income of 91 listed companies belonging to the leading business groups soared 72.1 percent on-year to 39.3 trillion won ($34.7 billion) in the January-June period, with the number for the remaining 1,813 firms rising a mere 1.3 percent to 26.8 trillion won.The top 10

Foreign investors hold more than half of electric and electronics shares listed on South Korea's main stock market, data showed Monday.Foreign ownership of those stocks traded on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index market came to 51.2 percent of their total market capitalization as of Wednesday, the highest among all industrial sectors, according to the data from the Korea Exchange.The communication sector came next with 44.8 percent, followed by the steel and metal industry with 37 percent. I

North Korea warned Monday that the United States will suffer the "greatest pain" if it pushes ahead with new tougher UN sanctions over its sixth nuclear test.Pyongyang's threat comes as the US asked the United Nations Security Council last week to vote on new sanctions Monday in response to the North's most powerful nuclear test.North Korea's foreign ministry said it will make the US pay a "due price" if Washington goes ahead with the vote on a resolution on harsher sanctions."The DPRK is ready

WASHINGTON -- An influential American senator on Sunday called for serious consideration of redeploying US nuclear weapons to South Korea.In an interview with CNN, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he thinks "it ought to be seriously considered" in the wake of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile threats.South Korea's conservative main opposition party has stepped up calls for the redeployment, although the liberal Moon Jae-in administration insists i

WASHINGTON -- North Korea is suspected of working with Syria on its chemical weapons and ballistic missile programs in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, a UN panel of experts has said.The eight-member panel tasked with monitoring sanctions implementation against Pyongyang made the observation in a 111-page report published online on Saturday, two days before the US-proposed date for a new Security Council resolution vote.The panel said it is investigating "reported prohibited chemica

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating saw a substantial dip from last month as the government faces an increasing security dilemma over North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship, according to a poll released Sunday.According to the poll conducted by the Korea Society Opinion Institute, 78.2 percent of those surveyed said the new president was doing a good job in managing state affairs. The reading marked a 7.1 percentage-point drop from KSOI's presidential poll announced on Aug. 20.The poll was condu