Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., a major shipyard in South Korea, said Thursday that it has clinched a 30 billion-won ($26.7 million) deal from Indonesia's Navy to provide maintenance and upgrade services for one of its submarines.Under the deal, Daewoo Shipbuilding will work with Indonesia's largest shipyard, PT. PAL, on the maintenance of a submarine operated by the Indonesia's Navy by 2020.Early this month, Daewoo Shipbuilding handed over a 1,400-ton diesel-electric submarine to

South Korea ranked No. 1 in the level of development in its information and communications technologies in 2016, the second year in a row that it topped the global ranking, a government report showed Thursday.According to the annual report by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the International Telecommunications Union said Asia's fourth-largest economy ranked first among 175 countries surveyed last year. (Yonhap)After losing its top spot to Denmark in 2015 for the first time since 2010, South Kor

South Korea's total population rose slightly last year, but senior people outnumbered children for the first time in history amid a rapid aging trend, a national census showed Thursday.A total of 51.27 million people lived in South Korea as of Nov. 1, 2016, up 0.4 percent, or 200,000, from a year earlier, according to the 2016 census by Statistics Korea.The agency started to hold a census based on the national resident registration records every year starting from 2016, with the conventional per

A top US military commander has said that North Korea is forecast to perfect its intercontinental ballistic missile by the end of next year, the chief of South Korea's parliamentary defense committee said Thursday.Kim Young-woo of the minor opposition Bareun Party told media that US Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris made the remarks during their recent meeting in Seoul.Earlier, the Washington Post said that the US' Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the communist regime would b

South Korean stocks traded slightly lower Thursday morning as foreign investors are set to extend their selling to a fifth straight day.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index shed 7.88 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,364.40 as of 11:15 a.m.Market heavyweights traded mixed, with market kingpin Samsung Electronics up 0.48 percent. SK hynix, a major chipmaker, rose 0.15 percent, and POSCO, the No. 1 steelmaker, gained 1.93 percent.In contrast, Naver, the country's top Internet portal operato

A group of lawmakers on Thursday proposed a parliamentary resolution calling on President Moon Jae-in to scrap a South Korea-US missile guideline, saying it has restricted Seoul's missile capabilities and commercial rocket development.The 26 lawmakers, led by Kim Kyung-jin of the minor opposition People's Party, claimed that the "humiliating" guideline has seriously infringed on the country's self-reliant defense capabilities amid the grave security tensions triggered by North Korea's provocatio

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday its inverter compressors for refrigerators won a certificate from a German evaluator for boasting an operational lifespan of more than two decades.Citing Germany's Verband Deutscher Elektrotrchniker, the South Korean tech giant said its inverter compressors, which act as a key part of refrigerators, can last at least 21 years without problems.Inverter compressors are significant as they play a crucial role in a refrigerator's power consumption, noise and vib

DAEGU -- Two men were killed and another went missing after a fishing boat collided with a barge in waters off Pohang on South Korea's southeastern coast Thursday, the Coast Guard said.Around 4:42 a.m., the 4.6-ton fishing boat collided with the 1,207-ton barge at the entrance of a port in the city of Pohang, causing the three fishermen on the boat to drown.The Coast Guard rescued two of the three, but they were pronounced dead at a hospital later.  A rescuer reaches a submerged fishing boat in

K-pop group Twice's music video for "Signal" surpassed 100 million views on YouTube, its agency said Thursday. Released on May 15, the video reached the milestone late Wednesday, becoming the fifth video by the band to reach the milestone, according to JYP Entertainment. (JYP Entertainment)Twice has stormed the K-pop scene since its debut in October 2015. Starting with its debut track "OOH-AHH" and up until "Signal," all of its five lead tracks have nabbed the top spots on major music streaming

The government announced Thursday it will abolish the assignment of soldiers to the official residences of commanders in an effort to eradicate the possibility of mistreatment of such staff.A total of 122 soldiers currently carrying out such duties will be re-assigned to combat units by the end of October, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. Fifty-nine soldiers currently assigned to military tennis courts and golf courses will also be withdrawn, it said.The measures came after publi

South Korea's defense ministry said Thursday it will create a task force on military reform in early September.The move comes days after President Moon Jae-in ordered measures to streamline the country's 625,000-strong armed forces and root out corruption related to arms development and purchases.Moon called for the establishment of the "new war concept," especially on "how to fight." An image of the South Korean defense ministry headquarters in a photo provided by Yonhap News TV. (Yonhap)He str

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday vowed to greatly enhance his country's cooperation and exchanges with Latin American countries, stressing the need for the countries to work together to address various regional and global issues, such as climate change and the fourth-industrial revolution."I believe the relationship between Asia and Latin America is very important. The South Korean government will further strengthen its efforts to spearhead peace and prosperity of Asia in the futur

South Korea's corporate watchdog said Thursday that it has put four more affiliates of large business groups under tight restrictions on mutual investment and loan guarantees.The Fair Trade Commission said 1,281 firms were on its monthly watch list as of end-August, up four from the previous month.They are owned by the country's 31 largest business groups, including Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group, with assets of 10 trillion won ($8.5 billion) or more. Three groups, like Hanwha and LS

In its latest ballistic missile launch, North Korea halved the range to around 2,700 kilometers, South Korea's defense ministry said Thursday.In a report to the National Assembly, the ministry said the Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile was fired at a "normal" angle but at half range.It means the missile's full range is between 4,500-5,000 km.The missile, launched at the Sunan airfield in Pyongyang on Tuesday morning overflew the northern territory of Japan and splashed into nearby

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Wednesday called for Latin American countries' support of Seoul's efforts to rein in North Korea's continued provocations during her meeting with senior officials from the region, the foreign ministry said.Kang met with vice foreign ministers from six Latin American nations earlier in the day on the sidelines of the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperationin Busan.They are Colombia, El Salvador, Venezuela, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and