South Korean stocks rallied by more than 1 percent as the US Federal Reserve's monetary meeting results largely fell within investors' expectations and optimism for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. The Korean won soared by the largest margin in two years against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) advanced 35.28 points, or 1.33 percent, to close at 2,694.51 points....

South Korea’s Finance Ministry will no longer limit duty-free item purchases to $5,000 for outbound Korean nationals starting Friday, it said Thursday. But a government cap on how much is exempt from tax remains unchanged. Duties are exempt for purchases up to $600 of goods, one bottle of liquor worth up to $400, 200 cigarettes, and up to 60 milliliters of perfume. The Finance Ministry explaine...

SEJONG -- The Korean government will lower tariffs on a portion of imports for three major rare gases -- neon, xenon and krypton -- which are used during the process of manufacturing semiconductors down to zero percent, starting from next month. The action of slashing tariffs for a certain portion of imports of the three gases, but not for all, comes as part of the government’s countermeasures a...

Cost and inconvenience The cost of relocation has also become a subject of criticism from opponents. Only the prospects are laid out of the relocation costs, but it is estimated that it would cost some hundreds of billions of won. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has reported to Yoon’s presidential transition committee that it would cost about 50 billion won ($41 million) for the preside...

More South Koreans are choosing to divorce at an older age, government data showed Thursday, with divorce rates among people 60 and older increasing as the nation rapidly approaches a super-aged society. The average age for males and females going through divorce here both rose 0.8 year on-year to 50.1 and 46.8, respectively, last year, according to data compiled by Statistics Korea. In the last...

ATLANTA -- A year after the fatal shootings at three Georgia massage businesses, crowds gathered at rallies across the country Wednesday to remember the victims and denounce anti-Asian violence that has risen sharply in recent years. Six women of Asian descent were among the eight people killed in and near Atlanta on March 16, 2021. The slayings contributed to fear and anger among Asian American...

Samsung SDI CEO Choi Yoon-ho on Thursday hinted at the possibility of building the battery maker’s own plant in the US, a burgeoning market for electric vehicles where the company is setting up a joint venture with Stellantis, the maker of Jeep, Fiat and Peugeot vehicles. “Adding to the joint venture with Stellantis, we think there needs to be our own production base in the US,” Choi told report...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve launched a high-risk effort Wednesday to tame the worst inflation since the early 1980s, raising its benchmark short-term interest rate and signaling up to six additional rate hikes this year. The Fed's quarter-point hike in its key rate, which it had pinned near zero since the pandemic recession struck two years ago, marks the start of its effort to curb t...

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an additional 16-month jail sentence to former Samsung Electronics Vice President Kang Kyung-hoon for his attempts to break up a labor union in South Korea‘s largest conglomerate. This is the final court ruling that found the executive guilty over his scheme to sabotage labor union activities at Everland, an operator of an amusement park in Korea. Everland wa...

Coupang Eats, the food delivery service launched by South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang, is getting into delivering drinks. The company said on its webpage earlier this week that it will start allowing restaurants signed up on the platform to sell alcohol, in an effort to help them increase sales. The new service will be rolled out within the first half of this year. Coupang Eats had kept alc...

Netflix proposed ways to reduce the burden on network providers in the first appellate court hearing over whether the streaming service is liable to pay network usage fees to SK Broadband. The court hearing, held Wednesday evening at the Seoul High Court, is the first since a preliminary hearing took place in December. The case follows a district court ruling in June that gave SK Broadband an u...

Microfilter Co., an affiliate of water purifier maker ChungHo Nais Co., said 37 of its products have been certified by NSF International for removing microplastics. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, less than 5 micrometers in length, that are extremely difficult to detect. They are known to cause harmful effects to human body, including cell death and allergic reactions. NSF Internation...

KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine accused Russia Thursday of bombing a theatre that was sheltering more than 1,000 civilians in the city of Mariupol, after US President Joe Biden branded Vladimir Putin a "war criminal." The latest assaults on civilians across Ukraine came as President Volodymyr Zelensky made a searing appeal for help to the US, which responded by pledging $1 billion in new weapons to figh...

When a TV psychiatrist in South Korea recently gave advice in hopes of correcting the gender nonconforming behavior of a child, some experts and LGBT activists expressed concern. Critics say that seeing such behavior as “problematic” and “something to be corrected” can limit children’s gender expression and can also be harmful in worse cases. The latest episode of “My Golden Kids,” which aired ...