South Korea's daily new coronavirus fell back to the 1,500s due to fewer tests over the weekend but marked the highest daily figure reported on a Monday amid concerns over a spike in cases following the Liberation Day holiday. The country added 1,556 more COVID-19 cases, including 1,493 local infections, raising the total caseload to 225,481, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Daily infections fell from 1,817 on Sunday and 1,930 on Saturday, but the de

By notching their third straight victory at home over the weekend, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors have made the battle for the South Korean football title more interesting than it should be. By beating FC Seoul 3-2 on Sunday at Jeonju World Cup Stadium in Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, Jeonbuk improved to 42 points after 22 matches. Thanks to Han Kyo-won's two-goal effort, Jeonbuk sit three points back of the K League-leading Ulsan Hyundai FC but also have two matches in hand. Ulsan only manag

South Korea has decided to temporarily close its embassy in Afghanistan and evacuated most of its diplomatic staff to a third country in the Middle East, the foreign ministry said Sunday. The decision came as the Taliban militant group reportedly entered the Afghan capital of Kabul and sought a "peaceful transfer of power" over the weekend, just weeks before the US completes the pullout of its troops to end nearly 20 years of war. A few embassy personnel, including the ambassador, re

The remains of Hong Beom-do, a historic Korean independence fighter, were brought home from Kazakhstan on Sunday, 78 years after his death in the Central Asian nation. 　President Moon Jae-in received and honored his remains at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, as Korea marked Liberation Day to commemorate the anniversary of its liberation from Japan‘s 1910-45 colonial rule. 　Hong, who served as general commander of Korea’s independence army, is a historic figure i

The US special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, is expected to visit Seoul later this month for talks with his South Korean counterpart and a trilateral session involving the Russian nuclear envoy, a diplomatic source said Sunday. Kim is expected to arrive on Saturday for a four-day visit, the source said. It will mark his second trip to South Korea since taking office as Washington‘s chief nuclear envoy. He last visited Seoul in June. While Kim is in town, Russia’s nuclea

South Korea is closely monitoring the situation in Afghanistan, the foreign ministry said Sunday, as Taliban fighters advanced to Kabul demanding the surrender of the central government, prompting citizens and foreigners to flee the city. 　“We still have staff stationed at the embassy. We are closely monitoring the situation,” a ministry official said on Sunday afternoon. 　Another official said the situation in Afghanistan is “very tense,” adding that they are &ldquo

South Korea and the United States will kick off a major summertime combined exercise in a scaled-back manner on Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced, after North Korea vowed to punish the two countries when they started a preliminary training last week. The nine-day computer-simulated Combined Command Post Training will not include outdoor drills, and the size of troops involved will be minimized in consideration of the virus situation, the JCS said in a statement. The decision to

JEJU -- The municipality of the southern resort island of Jeju decided Sunday to raise social distancing rules to the highest level starting Wednesday in a bid to stem a spike in COVID-19 cases. The virus curbs will be raised by one notch to Level 4, the highest level in the country's four-tier scheme, from the current Level 3, according to the Jeju provincial government. The move will be effective until Aug. 29. Jeju Island has joined the greater Seoul area and several non-capital areas that

NEW YORK/SEOUL -- A Harvard professor has claimed that Japan did not force Korean and other women into sexual slavery during World War II, renewing his much-denounced claims that the victims were actually prostitutes. J. Mark Ramseyer of the Harvard Law School made the claim in the preface to a recently published book on the victims, saying Japan's military did not need to forcibly mobilize what he characterized as prostitutes and had little room to do so. Authored by Tetsuo Arima, a social sc

Giant chipmaker Samsung Electronics Co. saw its presence on the main bourse drop to the lowest in 23 months in terms of market capitalization amid a sharp drop, data showed Sunday. The tech behemoth's value stood at some 444 trillion won ($400 billion) as of Friday, or 19.43 percent of the KOSPI's total market value of 2,285 trillion won. It is the first time that the bellwether's weighting against the total market cap fell below the 20-percent mark since September, 2019. The figure marks a s

The second batch of 400,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 vaccine that the United States promised to offer to South Korea arrived here on Sunday, officials said. The shipment departed from Tennessee on Saturday (US time) and landed in Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, at around 12:47 p.m., according to the officials. The newly arrived vaccines will be administered first to prisoners and sailors from Aug. 23 after undergoing a safety assessment. They do not requ

South Korea on Sunday expressed deep regret over Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's sending of offerings and other leader's visits to Yasukuni Shrine on the occasion of the anniversary of the end of World War II. "The government voices its deep disappointment and regret over Japanese leaders repeating the sending of offerings and visits to Yasukuni Shrine that beautifies Japan's past war of aggression and enshrines war criminals," Choi Young-sam, foreign ministry spokesperson, s

South Korea's antitrust regulator will soon decide on punitive actions against the country's leading shipper, HMM Co., and other shipping lines over suspected price fixing, government sources said Sunday. Since 2018, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has been looking into allegations that HMM and others colluded to fix higher freight rates for a Southeast Asian sea route. After expanding its investigation into foreign firms, the regulator informed 23 shippers at home and abroad in May tha

South Korea is seeking to draw up a national budget of around 600 trillion won ($513.3 billion) for next year in a bid to maintain expansionary fiscal spending amid the pandemic, government sources said Sunday. If confirmed, this would mark a 7.5 percent on-year increase from this year's national budget of 558 trillion won, according to sources at the finance ministry and the National Assembly. The government is seeking to keep the on-year growth pace of the 2022 budget in the 7-percent range,

President Moon Jae-in proposed Sunday that South and North Korea "institutionalize" peace on the peninsula and create a Germany-style trust-building system toward the longer-term goal of unification. "Firmly institutionalizing peace on the Korean Peninsula will definitely benefit both Koreas greatly," Moon said during his Liberation Day speech to commemorate the 76th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule.He described division as the biggest obstacle bl