South Korea's top diplomat will participate in a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers to be held in Belgium, his office said Tuesday. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong will head to Brussels later in the day for the session to open Thursday, which will be presided by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and attended by 30 nations, it said. The upcoming gatherin...

The Seoul city government will expand late night bus routes later this month in line with the country's gradual return to normalcy from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said Tuesday. The routes for night buses operating from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. will be increased to 14 from nine, with 100 buses to run on the lines, up 28 from now, according to the city government. The N65 route, c...

A first-term lawmaker has been named a new spokesperson for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol on Tuesday after Yoon's current spokesperson decided to run for governor of Gyeonggi Province in the June local elections. Outgoing spokesperson Rep. Kim Eun-hye said during a press briefing that Rep. Bae Hyun-jin of the People Power Party (PPP) will succeed her as spokesperson. "This is my last briefing a...

North Korea has a large number of "theater-class" missiles with a desire to develop a "credible" missile threat, a US commander has said, casting the recalcitrant regime as a strategic security challenge. Adm. Charles Richard, head of the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), made the assessment in a written statement to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense prior to a closed-door hearin...

The Cabinet will hold an extraordinary session this week to approve reserve government funds for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's plan to relocate the presidential office, Yoon's spokesperson said Tuesday. Yoon has been pushing to move the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae and into the defense ministry compound in Yongsan, central Seoul, before his May 10 inauguration, saying the relocatio...

Just in time for spring and the downward slope of the omicron variant peak, two new theme parks opened in South Korea offering a bunch of new thrill rides and attractions. One in Busan is a Lotte World franchise and the other in Chuncheon, a city in the mountainous Gangwon Province, is part of the global Legoland chain. Here’s a quick look at the new amusement parks and their most anticipated at...

SEOUL, South Korea , April 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Display, the world's leading innovator of display technologies, announced today that its three-part 'NO OLED. NO GAME.' video series is under the global limelight, hitting more than 100 million views on the Internet. By introducing the outstanding gaming performance of its latest OLED TV displays in this intriguing video series, the company r...

JAKARTA , April 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Assuming the presidency in the upcoming G20 summit, Indonesia has begun the Health Working Group (HWG) meeting series that took place on 28-30 March 2022 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia . Indonesia's Ministry of Health Discussed Global Standard Health Protocols in the Health Working Group Meetings Indonesia's G20 presidency seeks to harmonize safe and ...

South Korea's national debt rose to a record high last year as the government boosted a debt sale to fund its expansionary fiscal spending to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic-caused slump, the finance ministry said Tuesday. The sovereign debt, which covers bond sales and financial borrowing by central and provincial governments, amounted to 967.2 trillion won ($796 billion) last year, sharply up 1...

Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea fell 8.7 percent in March as chip shortages continued to affect vehicle production, an industry association said Tuesday. The number of newly registered foreign vehicles fell to 24,912 units last month from 27,297 units a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement. The three bestselling models last mo...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has drawn positive ratings from Americans for his handling of international affairs after Russia invaded his country last month, according to a survey released March 30. The Pew Research Center poll found that 72 percent of Americans have “a lot” or “some” confidence in Zelenskyy, higher than any other world leader included in the survey, while only 6 pe...

SEJONG -- South Korea will expand tax cuts on fuel consumption as part of efforts to ease inflation pressure that has been building up amid surging energy prices, the country's top economic policymaker said Tuesday. The government will expand fuel tax cuts from the current 20 percent to 30 percent from early May to end-July as the Russia-Ukraine war has sent crude oil and other commodity prices ...

Jet fuel consumption in South Korea tumbled to a 17-year low in 2021 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Jet fuel consumption in Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 21.17 million barrels last year, down 2.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the state-run Korea National Oil Corp. The decrease followed a 44 percent on-year nosedive in 2020, which ...

South Korea's consumer prices grew more than 4 percent for the first time in more than 10 years in March as energy prices jumped amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, data showed Tuesday. The consumer prices rose 4.1 percent last month from a year earlier, accelerating from a 3.7 percent on-year gain in February, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. Consumer inflation exceeded 4 per...

South Korea's foreign reserves shrank in March due to a decline in the dollar-converted value of its assets and unloading of dollars aimed at curbing the local currency's steep descent, central bank data showed Tuesday. The country's foreign reserves stood at $457.81 billion as of end-March, down $3.96 billion from the previous month, according to the data provided by the Bank of Korea (BOK). T...