North Korea's mortality rate for children under age 5 was estimated at 17 per 1,000 births last year with a 3.2 percent annual rate of reduction over the past three decades, a recent UN report showed. The number is down from 43 in 1990 and 60 in 2000, according to the Level and Trends in Child Mortality: Report 2021. The global average of under-five mortality rate came to 37 per 1,000 in 2020, while the comparable figure for South Korea declined from 16 in 1990 to eight in 2000 and three last

Two-time Olympic short track speed skating champion Shim Suk-hee was slapped with a two-month ban for disparaging coaches and teammates Tuesday, a decision that, barring a successful appeal, will keep her out of the Beijing Winter Games in February. The Korea Skating Union held a disciplinary meeting Tuesday at its Seoul headquarters to hand down the punishment on Shim, who denigrated members of the South Korean team in expletive-laden text exchanges with a national team coach during the 2018 P

South Korea on Tuesday voiced concerns as the operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant filed for approval for its plan to release radioactive water into the sea. The Seoul government held an emergency vice-ministerial meeting after Tokyo Electric Power Co. submitted an application for the planned release to Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority. "We express serious concerns as Japan is proceeding with its plan to unilaterally release the contaminated water into the sea d

Kyobo Life Insurance, the No. 3 life insurer in South Korea, has applied for a preliminary approval to list its shares on the country's main bourse, the stock market operator said Tuesday. Kyobo Life Insurance submitted the application with the Korea Exchange (KRX) for an initial public offering (IPO) and picked NH Investment and Securities Co. as the lead manager for the envisioned stock listing, according to the operator. Other details were not disclosed. In November, Kyobo Life Insurance s

South Korea said Tuesday it will hold high-level strategic talks with China via video links this week, the first bilateral session of its kind in more than four years. Choi Jong-kun, first vice foreign minister, is scheduled to hold the 9th Strategic Dialogue with his Chinese counterpart, Le Yucheng, Thursday afternoon, according to Choi Young-sam, spokesman for Seoul's foreign ministry. They had the 8th Strategic Dialogue meeting in June 2017. The two sides plan to have discussions on a wide

Hyundai Motor Group raised its global electric vehicle (EV) sales target for 2026 to 1.7 million units from 1 million units, its chief executive has said, underscoring the automaker's push to meet the growing EV demand. Hyundai Motor CEO Chang Jae-hoon made the remark in an interview with the US-based Automotive News published on Tuesday, saying that the company will double the EV lineup to at least 13 models by 2026.  "That's very ambitious. Next year, we expect to sell about 220,

The chief of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said Tuesday he will quit all his positions in the party's presidential campaign committee following a dispute with a senior member of the committee. Lee Jun-seok announced his departure at a press briefing at the National Assembly after Rep. Cho Su-jin, the PPP campaign's communications chief, disobeyed his order and said she would listen only to the party's presidential nominee, Yoon Suk-yeol. Later in the day, Cho also offered to res

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to a proposal from ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung to temporarily postpone heavy taxation on owners of multiple homes, saying it will bring down people's trust in government policies. Lee has been calling for the government to delay imposing a heavy capital gains tax on owners of multiple homes when they sell their properties, claiming that such a move will put more homes on the market and thus help stabilize soa

President Moon Jae-in called on the government Tuesday to prepare for the scenario of the omicron variant becoming the dominant version of COVID-19 in the country while making sure to reinforce the country's medical capacity. Moon made the remarks at a Cabinet meeting held after the country reported 49 new omicron cases, bringing the accumulated total to 227. South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases have recently hovered in the 7,000's, marked by alarming growth in the number of critically ill patie

South Korean stocks rebounded Tuesday, as investors sought to buy oversold stocks after the key index's recent plunge. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 12.03 points, or 0.41 percent, to close at 2,975.03 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 396 million shares worth some 8.6 trillion won ($7.2 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 428 to 415. Institutions bought a net 601 billion won and foreigners purchased 3

The labor union of South Korea's biggest carrier Korean Air Lines Co. on Tuesday lodged a complaint against a female YouTuber who appears in underwear in a lookbook video before putting on flight attendant uniforms, alleging that she defamed the reputation of flight attendants. The complaint was filed with Seoul's Gangnam Police Station against the YouTuber who recently triggered a sexual commodification controversy by uploading an 8-minute video in which she appears only in underwear and chang

Owners of restaurants, cafes and other small businesses plan to hold a rally in Seoul this week to protest the government's implementation of toughened gathering restrictions and business curfews, according an association of small merchants Tuesday. The so-called national emergency association of small business against COVID-19 said it plans to hold the rally Wednesday afternoon near Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul. The number of participants was set at 299 in line with the latest gathering

Families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in South Korea have produced more than 24,000 video messages for their long-lost relatives in the North, but almost all of them have yet to be delivered, Seoul's unification ministry said Tuesday. Of the 24,077 video letters produced since 2005, including 1,004 created this year, only 20 of them were sent to North Korea in 2008 following inter-Korean Red Cross talks the previous year, according to the ministry. South Korea has been pushing to hold r

South Korea's chief financial regulator said Tuesday that his agency will take "necessary" action if the spread between interest rates on loans and deposits widens beyond "reasonable" levels. Jeong Eun-bo, chief of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), made the remarks during an online press conference amid criticism that banks and other financial firms are quicker to increase their loan rates than raise rates on deposits. The rate hikes are in line with the central bank

Samsung Electronics Co. began a two-day companywide global strategy meeting, industry sources said Tuesday, the first since it appointed new CEOs in its first major reshuffle in three years and streamlined its structure after 10 years earlier this month. The biannual meeting used to take place in-person with attendance of hundreds of senior executives from at-home and abroad to discuss the company's global strategy and other core business issues. But it has moved online since last year amid the