Between various scandals, the leaking of private conversations and talks of possible unified candidacies, support for the three major candidates in Korea’s ongoing presidential race has fluctuated unpredictably throughout. But there are those who believe that hints lie in the faces of the three – the ruling party’s Lee Jae-myung, and opposition parties’ Yoon Suk-yeol and Ahn Cheol-soo -- and one...

Lee made apology over Kim’s remarks, causing a stir in the party

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug will visit Sri Lanka this week for talks on expanding cooperation in mineral resources, his office said Wednesday. Park will depart Wednesday and meet with his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Abeywardena, as well as the country's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa during the four-day trip. The two sides are expected to dis...

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung said Wednesday he will institutionally recognize the virtual asset industry and guarantee various business opportunities. Lee of the Democratic Party made the remarks in a meeting with heads of the nation's four major cryptocurrency exchanges and industry experts in Seoul, apparently targeting voters in their 20s and 30s who have a relatively str...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol pledged Wednesday to ease the tax burden on profits from cryptocurrency investments by raising the threshold from the current 2.5 million won ($2,097) to 50 million won. Yoon of the conservative People Power Party announced the pledge at the party's headquarters, saying he will raise the bottom limit to the same level as stocks and give tax ex...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in held talks with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday and agreed to work together in areas related to the hydrogen economy. After holding the talks at the Al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh, the two nations signed preliminary deals to jointly develop green hydrogen, which is produced from renewable energy sources, especially solar a...

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday argued for a shift to a four-year presidential term, renewable once, from the current single five-year term, saying he is willing to opt for a shorter term if elected. "For responsible politics, (South Korea) needs a double, four-year term under which power is decentralized," Lee of the Democratic Party said during an interview with ca...

The government will convene an extra Cabinet meeting this week to finalize a supplementary budget plan aimed at helping small businesses hit by the pandemic, the prime minister's secretariat said Tuesday. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum will preside over the meeting Friday, a week after he announced the government's plan to draw up an extra budget to assist small businesses and self-employed people....

DUBAI -- President Moon Jae-in has held telephone talks with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and expressed condolences to victims of a suspected drone attack claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, Moon's office said. The 25-minute telephone talks Monday evening came after the scheduled summit between Moon, who is on a weeklong trip to the Middle East, and the UAE's de facto ruler ...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday vowed to secure a preemptive strike capability after North Korea conducted its fourth missile test this year. Yoon of the conservative People Power Party previously mentioned the need to carry out a preemptive strike in the event North Korea appears ready to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at the South. In a Facebook post Monday, hour...

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung has called for simultaneously pursuing North Korea's denuclearization and sanctions relief, while his main opposition rival Yoon Suk-yeol has vowed to strengthen the extended deterrence provided by the United States. Lee of the liberal ruling Democratic Party and Yoon of the conservative People Power Party detailed their plans for dealing with No...

Jailed former President Lee Myung-bak was admitted to a hospital on Monday for an unspecified chronic illness, the justice ministry said. The 81-year-old was transferred to the Seoul National University Hospital in central Seoul from the Anyang Correctional Institution where he is serving a 17-year sentence for embezzlement and bribery convictions, according to the ministry. Lee will undergo me...

President Moon Jae-in on Monday named a new senior secretary for civil affairs after the previous secretary resigned over ethical issues related to his son. Kim Young-sik, a former secretary for legal affairs under the Moon administration, was appointed to succeed Kim Jin-kook, who stepped down last month after his son was found to have leveraged the father's position on job applications. "(Kim...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol is leading his ruling party rival Lee Jae-myung with 40.6 percent public support against Lee's 36.7 percent, a survey showed Monday. Yoon of the People Power Party (PPP) gained 6.5 percentage points from the previous week, while Lee of the Democratic Party lost 3.4 points, according to the Realmeter survey conducted on 3,031 adults from Jan. 9...

The scheduled talks between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan were canceled due to an "unforeseen matter of state" of the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a senior Seoul official has said. Moon, who is in Dubai for a three-day visit as part of his weeklong trip to the Middle East, had been scheduled to hold talks with the ...