With an attempt to tame the spread of COVID-19 and the newly confirmed omicron variant, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and local governments have decided to cancel their annual year-end and New Year’s ceremonies. The traditional bell-ringing ceremony at Bosingak in Jongno, central Seoul, at midnight on New Year’s Eve will be held online for a second year in a row, according to the city. Ring...

Meanwhile, many viewers were disappointed after Kim Byung-ji, a Korean soccer legend and one of the soccer managers in “Kick a Goal,” offered an explanation about the controversy live on his YouTube channel Sunday. Kim said that he was aware that the program’s footage was tampered with and believed that the editing was acceptable as long as the program was a sports “variety show.” Though Kim co...

State pension operators, including the National Pension Service, have offloaded more than 10 trillion won ($8.4 billion) worth of top-cap Samsung Electronics shares so far this year, and instead bought stakes in Kakao Pay, Krafton and Samsung Biologics, data from the Korea Exchange showed Tuesday. They dumped a combined 24.5 trillion won of local shares from the beginning of the year to Monday. ...

South Korea opened its first-ever hyper-regional light rail network outside the capital region, celebrating the opening of 142.2 kilometers of new subway lines in southeastern parts of the country. President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday visited Taehwagang Station in Ulsan to attend the opening ceremony of four new light rail lines spanning across the North and South Gyeongsang provinces, as well as Ul...

An increasing number of South Korean companies are moving their 2022 kickoff meetings online or replacing them by releasing the CEO‘s message virtually, adapting to the continued coronavirus pandemic. Before the pandemic, local conglomerates typically held year-end or kickoff meetings by gathering executive members at a large auditorium, with the CEO addressing the company’s new vision for the n...

Apple could submit its compliance plans for a new South Korean law that bans app store operators from forcing in-app payment systems on developers, industry sources said Tuesday. The new law went into effect in September, making South Korea the first country in the world to introduce such curbs on in-app billing policies of Apple and Google. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) requested A...

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it will showcase 13 startup projects at the CES trade show next month to introduce their innovations to a global audience and gauge marketability. The Korean tech giant has nurtured in-house ventures under the C Lab Inside program since 2012. In 2018, the firm launched the C Lab Outside program to support outside startups as well. A total of 406 startups have bee...

People Power Party election committee chief Kim Chong-in stepped in Tuesday to calm the conflict between the party’s presidential candidate and its chairman. Discord in the conservative main opposition party has continued since it chose Yoon Suk-yeol, a former prosecutor general, as its flagbearer in November. Acknowledging internal disputes made public by remarks of the party members, Kim said...

North Korea on Monday kicked off a key party meeting to discuss and decide major “strategic and tactical policies” for the next year, with the attendance of the country’s leader Kim Jong-un. The North Korean leader presided over the fourth plenary meeting of the eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea upon the authorization of the politburo, North Korean media reported Tuesday. ...

The global TV sensation "Squid Game" will likely return not only with season 2 but also with season 3, its creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said Tuesday. "I'm in talks with Netflix over season 2 as well as season 3," Hwang said in an online interview with Korean broadcaster KBS. "We will come to a conclusion any time soon." It is the first time that the director-writer has hinted at the possibility of a...

South Korea plans to embark on a civilian-military project next year to design a solid-fuel space launch vehicle under a broad initiative to develop the country's space defense industry, the state arms procurement agency said Tuesday. At a policy forum, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) unveiled the initiative consisting of 24 key tasks aimed at locally developing cutting-edg...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday he feels sorry for former President Park Geun-hye over a corruption probe he conducted as a senior prosecutor a few years ago that eventually led to her impeachment. "Even though the investigation of former President Park was my job as a public official, I feel truly sorry politically and emotionally as a human being," Yoon of the...

Eight leading players of the Digital New Deal have spurred innovation across data, artificial intelligence, and contact-free industries. SEOUL, South Korea , Dec. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Born2Global Centre released an article that highlights the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) 's Korean Digital New Deal. As part of the Korean government MSIT, Born2Global Centre has played a...

About 78 percent of salaried workers support the 52-hour workweek that was introduced in 2018 to reduce long working hours, a labor ministry survey showed Tuesday. According to the survey of 1,300 people, 71 percent said the reduction of the maximum weekly working hours to 52 from 68 was a good decision. Of the wage earning respondents, in particular, 77.8 percent were in support of the shorter ...

SEJONG -- The number of small companies in South Korea expanded nearly 5 percent in 2020 from a year earlier despite the pandemic, but their profit fell sharply, government data showed Tuesday. The country had 2,902,000 companies with fewer than five workers as of the end of 2020, up 4.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Small and Medium...