Saudi Arabia is pouring money into South Korean game makers NCSoft and Nexon, doubling down on its bet in the gaming industry. Public Investment Fund, the Middle Eastern country’s sovereign wealth fund, acquired an additional 563,566 shares of NCSoft for about 290 billion won ($240 million) through six transactions between Feb. 8 to 16., according to a regulatory filing submitted to the Financia...

The military on Friday reported 2,014 additional COVID-19 cases, setting a fresh high and raising the total caseload among its domestic personnel to 33,052. The new cases included 1,228 from the Army, 291 from the Navy, 230 from the Air Force, 124 from units under the direct control of the defense ministry and 119 from the Marine Corps. There were also 12 cases from the ministry and 10 from the...

The military has identified the remains of a South Korean soldier killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, about a decade after their excavation from a former battle site, the defense ministry said Friday. The ministry's excavation team found the remains of Pfc. Ahn Seung-won in Seongnam, south of Seoul, in 2012. They were identified as his thanks to a DNA sample his younger sister had registered w...

South Korea and the US have seen their trade volume surge almost 70 percent since a free trade pact was signed in 2011, with their economic ties being enhanced as a key partnership to resolve the current supply chain disruptions. According to a report released Friday by the Korea International Trade Association that marks the 10th anniversary of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, trade volume be...

Spending on private after-school classes hit a record high of 23.4 trillion won ($18.9 billion) last year amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic that restricted in-person school education, according to a survey released by the education ministry Friday. The 2021 expenditures, based on a survey of some 74,000 elementary to high school students nationwide, marked a solid increase from 21 trillion wo...

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has told leaders of neighboring Japan and China to develop relations further. The leaders agreed to strengthen ties with South Korea. On Friday morning, Yoon met with the Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming in Seoul, saying he is confident that Korea-China relations will develop further. “China is Korea‘s largest trading partner, and we are China’s third...

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on Friday tested positive for COVID-19 in a self-test kit check and is now waiting for the results of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, officials said. The mayor canceled an in-person meeting of his staff at Seoul City Hall while heading to work in the morning and held an online meeting instead. "We are currently waiting for the test result," a city government offic...

Heo Koo-youn, a commentator for MBC, was nominated Friday to serve as the next head of South Korean professional baseball. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced that its board of directors advanced Heo's nomination as the new league commissioner to the general assembly, comprised of owners of its 10 clubs. Heo, 71, will become the KBO chief if his nomination is passed by a three-quart...

Samsung Heavy Industries Co., the world's third-biggest shipbuilder by order backlog, said Friday it has received a 609 billion-won ($494 million) container ship order in Europe. Samsung Heavy obtained the order to build four liquefied natural gas-powered container carriers from an unidentified European shipper by 2024, the company said in a statement. With this latest order, Samsung Heavy has ...

Amid the global popularity of Korean cultural content, an online education platform for learning traditional Korean music in German has been launched. The Korean Cultural Center in Germany has started the service to assist Germans interested in studying traditional Korean music, according to the KCCG on Thursday. The platform was built in collaboration with the Hamburg University of Music and T...

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said Friday he hopes South Korea, the United States and Japan will further strengthen coordination on Korean Peninsula issues as he spoke by phone with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Yoon talked with Kishida two days after his election, saying he hopes the two sides will work together to promote "friendly cooperative" ties between their countries. "South Ko...

Health authorities are expecting the omicron variant spread to reach its peak within 10 days, reaching some 370,000 COVID-19 cases a day. South Korea saw 282,987 new confirmed cases as of Thursday midnight, while the number of deaths hit 229. “According to predictions from multiple research teams, the spread will reach its peak within 10 days. The average daily new cases can reach the maximum o...

Police are tracking down two Russians who escaped from a COVID-19 treatment center in North Chungcheong Province, violating their quarantine requirement, according to the North Chungcheong Provincial Office Friday. The undocumented foreigners in their 30s were quarantined in separate rooms on the fourth floor of the facility located in Jangan-myeon, Boeun-gun, sources said. They sneaked out of ...

South Korean actors Lee Jung-jae, Jung Ho-yeon and Park Hae-soo of Netflix's smash hit "Squid Game" will present at this year's US Critics Choice Awards. The three were in the star-studded lineup of presenters who will take the stage at the 27th annual ceremony Monday (US time), the Critics Choice Association recently announced on its website. Among other presenters were Jimmy Kimmel and Alan K...

Popular TV series have recently made their presence felt not only on the global viewership charts but also on local bestselling book lists. The script book of the romantic comedy "Our Beloved Summer," published on Feb. 16, placed second on the weekly bestsellers list for the third week of February by Kyobo Book Center, the biggest bookstore chain in South Korea. On the weekly sales list of Yes2...