President Moon Jae-in on Friday extended his sympathy over the deaths of three firefighters killed in a warehouse blaze in Pyeongtaek this week. Presidential Chief of Staff You Young-min visited the funeral altar earlier in the day and conveyed Moon's message of condolences to the bereaved families. Moon said he "prays for the repose of the three firefighters who died while facing the flames wi...

South Korea‘s daily coronavirus cases continued to drop, falling below 4,000 for the first time in three days for Thursday. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency‘s data, the country added 3,717 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Thursday. South Korea has recently seen a modest downward trend in daily COVID-19 cases lately. The numbers of COVID-19 cases for Tuesday and Wedn...

A Seoul court on Friday ruled against a same sex couple demanding the same spousal health insurance coverage as heterosexual couples, saying matrimony in South Korea is still considered a union between a man and a woman. In February of last year, So Seong-wook filed the administrative lawsuit against the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) after the agency canceled So's coverage under the i...

Shinsegae Group Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin on Friday continued to express his discontent over Instagram’s removal of his post expressing his hostility toward communism. Chung criticized Instagram for its engagement in political activities by deliberately taking down posts that don’t match the preference of the platform, according to a story by local media outlet Maeil Business Newspaper, which...

Another goal for KOCIS is to expand the roles of the 33 existing Korea Culture Centers located in 28 nations worldwide to encourage greater cultural exchange with its global partners. “The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of how we communicate, but the importance of physical spaces dedicated to Korean culture - the Korea Culture Centers, for example - hasn‘t lessened,” he added. “Each...

JEONJU -- South Korea's southwestern city of Jeonju will host next year's annual conference of the Tourism Promotion Organization for Asia Pacific Cities (TPO), officials said Friday. TPO, the largest international organization related to tourism in the Asia-Pacific region, was established in 2002 with the goal of developing the tourism industry through the formation of a network among regional ...

South Korea-based SK Group is in talks with US chip maker Qualcomm to develop a new hyper speed memory chip tailored to data centers, its communication technology arm SK Square said Friday. The new chips would run applications or computers for data center operation in order to meet soaring corporate demand amid the global chip shortages that could cause server delays, according to SK Square, the...

President Moon Jae-in on Friday ordered aides to closely cooperate with US troops stationed in South Korea to curb the spread of COVID-19 at US military bases here. Moon also instructed aides to come up with enhanced antivirus measures for citizens and business facilities near US military bases, presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said in a statement. According to a recent report by the St...

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit said Friday that nonfungible tokens featuring images of main lead characters from TV drama series “Jirisan” had sold at record-low prices. NFTs are digital tokens of physical or digital assets, mostly of music or art, that guarantee ownership through blockchain technology. According to the digital asset trading platform, the pixel art NFTs of the chara...

SPC Group said Friday that it has acquired the operation rights of US burger chain Shake Shack in Malaysia and will open the first store there in 2023. The Korean confectionery conglomerate owns the operating right of Shake Shack in Korea and Singapore. It has opened 20 stores in Korea and eight in Singapore since 2016 and 2019, respectively. Michael Kark, chief global licensing officer of Shak...

North Korea officially notified China that the country would not attend the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics in a letter, citing “hostile forces’ maneuver” and the COVID-19 pandemic as hindrances, the North’s state media reported Friday. North Korea’s Olympic Committee and Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports sent the letter to the related Chinese authorities, including the General Administra...

SEJONG -- South Korea ranked second among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the ratio of property tax to gross domestic product in 2020, with its on-year growth posting No. 1 and ranking in terms of the ratio climbing by four notches from a year earlier. According to a recent analysis by the Paris-based organization, Korea recorded 3.97 percent in the ratio ...

LAS VEGAS -- Hyundai Motor has partnered up with Unity, the world’s leading platform for real-time 3D content, to connect an actual factory with its digital twin operating on metaverse space, the companies said Thursday. The Meta-Factory project will enhance plant management and innovate manufacturing, Hyundai Motor said, adding that it plans to first apply the concept to the Hyundai Motor Globa...

K-pop superstar BTS has grabbed the honor of having the most sold digital song of the year in the United States for the second time. "Butter" was the most sold digital song of the year in the country with 1.89 million downloads sold, according to an annual year-end report released jointly by MRC Data and Billboard on Thursday (US time). In 2020, the group's "Dynamite" was the top seller with 1.2...

Presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor opposition People’s Party said Thursday he “can meet” with Yoon Suk-yeol, the nominee from the main opposition if Yoon made the request, showing a slight change in stance on uniting candidacies to win at the March presidential polls. When asked if he would meet with Yoon of the People Power Party to talk about uniting forces in a televised interv...