The presidential campaign for Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea is embroiled in fresh controversy, this time over accusations of posthumous defamation of two iconic progressive presidents. The Democratic Party on Saturday uploaded two videos on its official YouTube channel featuring former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. The videos portrayed the two presidents backi...

The market saw a record high of 19.7 trillion won ($16.4 billion) flowing in to initial public offering deals last year, a 333.9 percent increase on-year from 4.5 trillion won the previous year, data from the nation’s financial watchdog showed Monday. Buoyed by the surge in local stock prices and ample liquidity, the number of firms that debuted on the market last year increased 27.1 percent to ...

Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co. on Monday reported its fourth-quarter net loss of 3.2 billion won ($2.7 million), remaining in the red compared with a year ago. The company said in a regulatory filing that operating income for the October-December period rose 469.8 percent on-year to 18.9 billion won. Revenue increased 18.2 percent to 599.6 billion won. The operating profit was 49.0 percent higher ...

Twenty-nine Afghan evacuees airlifted to South Korea last year have been hired by a subcontractor of the shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., leading to their departure Monday from the government-provided temporary residence, officials said. The newly hired and their family members, totaling 157 people from 29 households, will move into company housing provided by Hyundai Heavy in Ulsan, ab...

Celltrion has confirmed the safety of its inhalable antibody treatment for COVID-19 in a phase one clinical trial in Australia, the pharmaceutical company said Monday. Celltrion’s US partner Inhalon Biopharma completed the planned administering of the drugs for 24 volunteers after it acquired testing approval from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration in August. The results of the cli...

NextRise 2022, Seoul, a global startup conference co-hosted by the Korea International Trade Association and Korea Development Bank, is set to be held in Seoul on June 16 and 17, with aims to connect startups and their potential business partners and spur innovation among them. Launched in 2019, the conference has become Asia’s largest startup fair in terms of the size. Last year’s event attract...

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has demand for at-home test kits rising at an alarming rate, with major convenience store chain CU temporarily ceasing distribution to franchises. According to local reports Monday, CU stores across the country have been unable to order new stock of at-home kits since Friday. This is believed to be due to a spike in sales during the Lunar New Year holiday last week, ...

South Korea and the United States are not considering the deployment of an additional THAAD anti-missile system here, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday amid a heated debate on the issue rekindled ahead of the March 9 presidential election. Boo Seung-chan, the ministry spokesperson, made the remarks, following a media report that a government-commissioned research in 2015 noted the need for So...

Samsung Electronics said Monday it plans to reuse discarded fishing nets as a new material for its handset devices as part of its sustainability strategy announced earlier this year. According to the South Korean tech giant, the repurposed ocean-bound plastics, also known as “ghost nets,” will be incorporated in Samsung’s new product lineup under its Mobile Experience division, starting with the...

The amount of money South Korean firms raised through initial public offerings (IPOs) more than quadrupled to hit a record high last year thanks to ample liquidity and the overall bullish stock market sentiment, data showed Monday. A total of 89 companies went public in 2021 by listing stocks on the benchmark KOSPI and secondary tech-heavy KOSDAQ markets and raised a combined 19.7 trillion won (...

South Korea’s upcoming presidential election is just one month away. But overshadowed by other issues such as housing prices and family misbehavior, the two leading candidates Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party have tiptoed around the issue of an anti-discrimination law. One party’s stance on the issue, however, has been crystal clea...

BEIJING , Feb. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- China Media Group (CMG) held the 2022 Spring Festival Gala on Monday evening as Chinese people worldwide celebrated the start of the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival.   It is the most important Chinese festival centering on family reunions. And the five-hour-long television extravaganza has been a symbolic part of the c...

President Moon Jae-in and Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov exchanged letters celebrating the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Cheong Wa Dae said Monday. In the letters, the two leaders took note of cooperation between their countries in the fields of energy and transportation, and agreed to expand cooperation to new sectors, according to presidentia...

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum hinted Monday at the possibility of increasing a proposed extra budget designed to help support pandemic-hit small merchants following calls from ruling and opposition parties. "The government does empathize with views that direct support for these people needs to be increased," Kim told lawmakers during a parliamentary budget committee meeting. "Now is the time for t...

The combined global market share of three major South Korean battery makers declined last year from a year earlier, due largely to the growth of their Chinese rivals, data showed Monday. The cumulative market share of LG Energy Solution Ltd. (LGES), SK Innovation Co. and Samsung SDI Co. came to 30.4 percent in the January-December period, down 4.3 percentage points from the previous year, accord...