South Korea and Iran have held working-level consultations to discuss ways to resolve yearslong disputes over Tehran's assets frozen here under US sanctions, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday. Iranian bankers and officials from the state-run oil company and the petroleum ministry are in the nation to meet with South Korean government and company officials to talk about pending economic iss...

K-pop supergroup BTS will hold its first live concerts in Seoul in about two and a half years next month, the group's management agency said Wednesday. Three concerts, titled "BTS Permission To Dance On Stage - Seoul," will be held on March 10 and March 12-13 at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium in southern Seoul, Big Hit Music said in a statement on Weverse. This will be the septet's first in-person ...

The coming-of-age zombie apocalypse drama "All of Us Are Dead" topped Netflix's weekly viewership chart for the third consecutive week, the global video streaming service said Wednesday. The 12-part Korean-language series marked 113.2 million hours of viewing for the week of Feb. 7-13 to lead Netflix's official top 10 list for non-English TV programs, according to Netflix. It has stayed at the ...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol and ruling party candidate Lee Jae-myung are running neck and neck with 42.4 percent and 41.9 percent support, respectively, a poll showed Wednesday. The survey by Hangil Research was conducted on 1,009 adults from Saturday to Monday, just before the start of the official campaign period on Tuesday. Yoon of the conservative People Power Party...

CHEONAN -- Ahn Cheol-soo, presidential candidate of the minor opposition People's Party (PP), has paid his respects to two campaign workers who were found dead in a bus apparently from gas poisoning, according to party officials Wednesday. The deceased workers, a local campaign chief and a bus driver, were found unconscious inside a campaign bus in Cheonan, about 90 kilometers south of Seoul, Tu...

South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases spiked to an all-time high Wednesday amid worries that the number could further increase as the government might ease current tough social distancing curbs later this week. The country reported 90,443 new COVID-19 infections, including 90,281 local cases, raising the total caseload to 1,552,851, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA...

이번 주부터는 시사적인 내용을 말할 때 도움이 될 영어다운 표현들을 보겠습니다. 저희 책 『나는 더 영어답게 말하고 싶다 시사이슈 편』에서 뽑은 표현들입니다. 1 A: There are fears that climbing household debt might spark another financial crisis. B: I hope it doesn’t happen, but if the interest rate increases, debtors will be more squeezed to sell their houses. A: 증가하는 가계빚이 또 다른 금융 위기를 촉발할 거라는 두려움이 있어. B: 그런 일이 없기를 바라지만, 금리가 오른다면 채무자들은 집을 팔아야 하는 압박에 더 시달리게 될...

The number of elementary and secondary school students in South Korea is expected to drop below 5 million for the first time in 2026, the government said, citing an ongoing decline of the school-age population. According to the Ministry of Education, the number of elementary, middle and high school students is expected to decrease each year, falling from 5.28 million this year to 5.21 million ...

South Korea reported the largest job growth in nearly 22 years in January as the job market improved to pre-pandemic levels due to a low base effect and the ongoing economic recovery, data showed Wednesday. The number of employed people came to 26.95 million last month, up 1.14 million from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. It marked the largest job growth sinc...

South Korea's three major instant noodle makers saw their operating profits tumble in 2021 due largely to increased costs, their regulatory filings showed Wednesday. Nongshim Co., the leading maker of instant noodles, or "ramyeon" in Korean, said that its 2021 operating income plunged 33.8 percent from the previous year. Ottogi Co. and Samyang Foods Co. also saw their operating profits for last...

K-pop supergroup BTS' V has become the fifth member of the group to test positive for COVID-19. The 26-year-old singer, whose original Korean name is Kim Tae-hyung, visited a hospital Tuesday to get a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test after experiencing a mild sore throat and received a positive result, the group's management agency Big Hit Music said in a statement posted to Weverse. He com...

South Korean stocks opened sharply higher Wednesday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street that stemmed from eased Ukraine tensions. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 40.21 points, or 1.5 percent, to trade at 2,716.75 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, US stocks rallied, snapping a three-day losing streak, on the back of overall gains in tech shar...

South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases surged to over 90,000, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday, as the country struggles to contain the spread of the omicron variant. Kim also said the government will decide whether to adjust current social distancing rules on Friday. "We have to decide after considering both the spread of the omicron variant ... and damage to people's livelihood coming f...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has attended a national meeting to celebrate the 80th birthday anniversary of his late father Kim Jong-il, according to Pyongyang's state media Wednesday. Kim was present at the event to pay tribute to the former leader, which was held in the northwestern city of Samjiyon the previous day, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. "A floral bas...

WASHINGTON -- South Korea and the United States are reviewing steps to induce North Korea back to dialogue, South Korean Ambassador to the United States Lee Soo-hyuck said Tuesday. Lee, however, noted the North continues to remain unresponsive to US overtures. "We are deeply concerned about North Korea firing a series of missiles at the start of the year, and are urging North Korea to refrain f...