Last month, a speeding car driven by an 80-something person rammed into another car and plowed into a grandmother and her granddaughter walking nearby in the southern port city of Busan, resulting in the death of the two pedestrians. Months earlier, multiple people were injured after a five-vehicle crash caused by a 73-year-old driver in the southeastern city of Changwon. Both drivers claimed their cars began suddenly accelerating without their control, but the accidents renewed safety concern

Home transactions in South Korea tumbled nearly 43 percent on-year in November amid lending curbs and rising interest rates, government data showed Tuesday. The number of homes changing hands nationwide stood at 67,159 in November, down 42.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Compared with the previous month, the November tally was down 10.8 percent. The number of home transactions in the greater Seoul area, which includ

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Monday the government needs to mobilize all available policy means to tame inflationary pressure and stabilize the housing market in the new year. Hong also said the country will prioritize supporting small merchants hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and vulnerable people and strengthen social safety nets. "The government faces an urgent need to stabilize inflation and the housing market at an early date by mobilizing all available means," Hong said.

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's biggest carmaker, said Monday its sales fell 11 percent last month from a year earlier amid global chip shortages. Hyundai Motor sold 334,242 vehicles in December, down from 375,193 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales declined 3.5 percent to 66,112 units from 68,486 during the mentioned period, as the lack of semiconductor parts continued to affect vehicle production and sales, it said. Overseas sales also dropped 13 percent t

SsangYong Motor Co. said Monday its sales fell 17 percent last month from a year earlier as a prolonged chip shortage continued to affect its vehicle production. SsangYong Motor sold 8,755 vehicles in December, down from 10,561 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales declined 31 percent to 5,810 units last month from 8,449 a year ago, while exports climbed 39 percent to 2,975 units from 2,142 during the same period, it said. For the whole of 2021, its sales dippe

South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. said Monday that its antibody treatment candidate against COVID-19 has shown safety in its clinical trial. Celltrion said it has enrolled 24 healthy volunteers in its global phase one clinical trial and confirmed the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of CT-P63. Separately, Celltrion said that CT-P63 has maintained strong neutralizing ability against the omicron variant during pseudo-virus testing conducted by the U.S. National Institutes

South Korea's antitrust regulator plans to take stern actions against unfair business activities by online platform operators in a bid to protect small merchants and consumers, its chief said Monday. Concerns have mounted that powerful online platform operators, such as Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp., have abused their dominant market status and engaged in unfair business practices against contractors, posing a threat to the survival of small merchants. "The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) will

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases among young students has been on the decline in accordance with their rising vaccination rate, the beginning of winter break and a downward trend in the nation's total infections, the government said Monday. According to the education ministry, the daily average of virus infections among kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school students from last Thursday to Sunday was 487.3. The daily average for students peaked at 963.9 from Dec. 9-15 before dec

South Korea's low-cost carriers said Monday they have delayed or reduced their flights on international routes due to the spread of the omicron variant. Air Seoul Inc., a budget carrier unit of Asiana Airlines Inc., has delayed its planned flights to Guam from Jan. 29 to March 27. Air Seoul has offered one flight a week, respectively, on the routes from Incheon to Qingdao and Yantai in China since the summer of 2020 to meet business travel demands. Jeju Air Co., the country's biggest low-cost

Suga of K-pop supergroup BTS has fully recovered from the new coronavirus and been released from isolation, his agency said Monday. "Suga was released from isolation at noon as he was confirmed to have fully recovered from COVID-19," Big Hit Music said on the agency's fan community platform Weverse. The rapper tested positive for the virus on Dec. 24 after returning home the previous day from Los Angeles, where the group had large-scale live concerts between late November and early D

Six Afghan evacuees airlifted to South Korea from Afghanistan taken over by the Taliban last year have found jobs, the justice ministry said Monday. The six recently got employed at a manufacturer in Incheon, 40 kilometers west of Seoul, and other companies, while another person was admitted to a graduate school in an unidentified regional city. Accordingly, a total of 20 evacuees from seven households will start leaving their temporary residences in the southwestern city of Yeosu early this m

The upcoming expansion of South Korea's vaccine pass requirement to big box and department stores is inflaming protests that the measure represents discrimination against unvaccinated people and a breach of their right to basic needs. Under a revised vaccine pass scheme announced Friday, people will be required to present proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result to shop at discount or department stores measuring 3,000 square meters or more, starting Jan. 10. The fresh addition o

Two deaths in connection with the omicron variant of the coronavirus were reported in South Korea on Monday, reportedly the first deaths in the country linked to the highly transmissible variant, officials said. Health authorizes in Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul, said two recently deceased coronavirus patients in the city, both in their 90s, have posthumously tested positive for the omicron variant. The patients, who died last Monday and Wednesday, respectively, both tested positive f

The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) on Monday promised a sweeping overhaul of its campaign committee and shed a feminist politician unpopular among young male voters as the party scrambled to stop the declining support of its presidential nominee Yoon Suk-yeol. The party's floor leader, Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon, and its chief policymaker, Rep. Kim Do-eup, also offered to leave their positions in a demonstration of their commitment to overhauling the campaign plagued by factional feuding. The

South Korea's defense ministry said Monday the person that crossed the eastern inter-Korean border into North Korea over the weekend is presumed to be a North Korean defector. The ministry's statement came amid reports the man appears to be the one who crossed a barbed wire fence on the heavily fortified border to enter the South in November 2020. "Regarding the border crossing, the authorities presume the person is a North Korean defector and are in the process of verifying related facts