South Korea has decided to partly ease current social distancing curbs, the government announced Friday. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said the current 9 p.m. curfew for dining out at restaurants and other businesses will be pushed back by an hour to 10 p.m. Kim, however, noted that the government will keep the six-person limit on private gatherings. The change will become effective from Saturday...

Global DRAM shipments dropped nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter from three months earlier, a report showed Friday, amid sluggish demand from manufacturers that had hoarded up the key consumer electronics component over continued chip shortages. DRAM shipments during the October-December period were valued at $25 billion, down 5.8 percent globally from the previous quarter, according to the ...

KT, South Korea’s largest telecommunications firm by sales, will pay a total of $6.3 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve charges for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, an SEC announcement showed Friday. The SEC ordered the Seoul-based firm to pay $3.5 million in civil payments and $2.8 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest within a month, more tha...

President Moon Jae-in on Friday stepped up calls for the National Assembly to swiftly approve an extra budget bill, citing "desperate" hardship facing small merchants hit by the COVID-19 restrictions. "As the situation of small merchants and self-employed people is desperate, the National Assembly should actively cooperate to resolve the difficulties of people's livelihoods by approving an extra...

Korean Air Lines Co., South Korea's biggest carrier, said Friday it will use more environmentally friendly aviation fuel on its Incheon-Paris route as part of efforts to join global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The move to use the so-called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for the route comes as Europe and the United States are leading efforts to build SAF production facilities and supply ...

Minor presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo will resume campaigning this weekend after attending the funerals of two campaign workers who died in an accident this week, an official said Friday. Ahn of the centrist People's Party suspended his campaign activities after a local campaign chief and a bus driver were found dead inside a campaign vehicle on Tuesday apparently due to gas poisoning from ...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol is leading his ruling party rival Lee Jae-myung with 41 percent public support against Lee's 34 percent, a survey showed Friday. Yoon of the conservative People Power Party gained 4 percentage points from last week, while Lee of the liberal Democratic Party lost 2 percentage points, according to the poll conducted on 1,007 adults from Tuesday ...

The labor ministry on Friday raided an air conditioning component manufacturer in the southern city of Changwon over suspected violations of the workplace disaster prevention law after 16 workers were diagnosed with acute poisoning with a hazardous substance. The raid into Doosung Co. came after acute chloroform intoxication was reported in the 16 workers showing liver function problems after th...

South Korea's military has successfully conducted a low-temperature flight test on a light-armed helicopter under a plan to complete its development by year's end, the state arms procurement agency said Friday. The LAH helicopter went through a nine-week evaluation program ending earlier this month in Yellowknife, Canada where the temperature dips to around minus 32 C in winter, according to the...

South Korea's economy is on a recovery path on the back of robust exports, but the fast spread of the omicron variant is feared to hurt the recovery of private spending, the finance ministry said Friday. External economic uncertainties also heightened as oil prices have surged and volatility in the financial market has increased amid geopolitical risks between Russia and Ukraine, the ministry sa...

One out of 4 South Korean students think that unification with North Korea is unnecessary, a survey showed Friday. In the online survey of 72,524 elementary, middle and high school students conducted by the education ministry and the unification ministry from Nov. 1 to Dec. 10, 61.2 percent replied that unification is necessary, while 25 percent said it is not needed. The rate of students again...

토익은 Test of English for International Communication의 줄임말이다. 국제적인 의사소통을 위한 시험이다. 당연히 실용영어 시험인데 여기에 나오는 단어나 표현을 실용영어로 잘 활용하지 못하는 경우가 많다! 정답을 맞추는 것은 기본이다. 추가적으로 이 시험에 나오는 단어나 표현을 실제 쓸 수 있도록 응용하는 것이 중요하다. 필자는 지금도 매 회 토익 시험을 보고 시험 본 직후 라이브 토익 후기를 진행하고 있다. 토익을 보시는 독자들도 함께 하시면 무척 반가울 것 같다. 며칠 전 최신 기출 단어와 표현을 저작권에 전혀 영향을 받지 않게 완전히 새로운 예문들로 제공한다. Part 1 flyer(광고지, 광고전단) 유사단어들 : pamphlet, brochure, le...

The South Korean market of instant meals jumped more than 145 percent in 2020 from four years earlier on the increased number of convenience stores and the coronavirus pandemic, data showed. Shipments of ready-to-eat items, known as home meal replacement products in South Korea, came to 2.01 trillion won ($1.7 billion) in 2020, up a whopping 145.3 percent from 2016, according to the data from ...

South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases exceeded 100,000 on Friday for the first time since the pandemic began about two years ago as the highly transmissible omicron variant spreads rapidly. The cases could continue to rise going forward as the government is set to partially relax social distancing rules, apparently to help small merchants taking the brunt of the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic....

A senior Chinese official has said Beijing will continue support for North Korea on the 80th birth anniversary of the North's former leader Kim Jong-il, describing their relations as "forged by blood," according to Pyongyang's state media Friday. Ji Bingxuan, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, made the remarks Wednesday during an event held at the Nort...