North Korea warned Friday it will have to take a "stronger and certain reaction" after the United States implemented new sanctions over the North's recent missile launches. In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a spokesperson for the North's foreign ministry said the recent launch of what it claims to be a hypersonic missile was an "exercise of right to self-defense....

The first batch of Pfizer Inc.'s antiviral COVID-19 treatment pills arrived in South Korea on Thursday as the country is working to stem the spread of coronavirus infections, health officials said. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant's oral pills for 21,000 people landed at Incheon airport, west of Seoul, at around 2 p.m. and were delivered to a logistics center in Ochang, 120 kilometers south of the ...

A South Korean passenger jet carrying dozens of citizens departed Thursday from a Kazakh airport to return home, eight days after it got grounded in the Central Asian nation gripped by political turmoil. The Asiana Airlines Inc. flight took off from Almaty International Airport at 1:13 p.m. (local time), carrying 43 South Koreans and four Kazakh nationals, an official at Seoul's foreign ministry...

South Korea said Thursday the US push for additional UN sanctions on North Korea appears intended to drum up a unified response from the international community to Pyongyang's recent provocations. Washington appears to want to expand sanctions under existing UN Security Council resolutions rather than to adopt new resolutions, according to Choi Young-sam, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Af...

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol pledged Thursday to scrap the government's planned electricity rate hike if elected in March. Electricity prices are set to increase in April and October under a government scheme announced last month, leading to a 5.6 percent annual average increase in households' electricity bills. Yoon said the decision to raise the rate after the March 9 ...

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 Thursday, 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 m...

South Korean stocks retreated after a two-day increase Thursday, as investors worry rising inflation in the United States could hasten the Federal Reserve's tapering move. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 10.39 points, or 0.35 percent, to close at 2,962.09 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 597 million shares worth...

South Korea's military is capable of both detecting and intercepting what North Korea claims to be a hypersonic missile, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday. Boo Seung-chan, the ministry's spokesperson, highlighted the military's readiness posture amid concerns the North's latest missile could dodge the combined missile defense system of South Korea and the United States. The North has claim...

Kim Sei-young had collected at least one LPGA victory in every season since bursting on to the scene in 2015, but that streak came to an end in 2021. Looking back on last season, Kim said Thursday she might have overexerted herself in the early months, and she had hit a wall before she could get anything going. Still hoping to reach the top of the rankings, the world No. 5 said she will try to ...

Ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung is leading his main opposition rival Yoon Suk-yeol with 37 percent public support against Yoon's 28 percent, a survey showed Thursday. Lee of the liberal Democratic Party gained 1 percentage point from last week, while Yoon of the conservative People Power Party stayed put, according to the poll conducted on 1,000 adults from Monday to Wednesday ...

The South Korean professional football will have its earliest start to a season in 2022 to accommodate participation in the FIFA World Cup in November, the league office announced Thursday. The 2022 K League 1 season will kick off Feb. 19, the fastest opening to a season by eight days. The 2010 and 2021 campaigns both began Feb. 27. The dozen teams in the top flight will play 38 matches. They w...

Foreign investors' net purchase of South Korean securities was the biggest in 12 years last year due largely to their buying spree of local bonds, central bank data showed Thursday. Foreigners bought a net $38.71 billion worth of Korean securities last year, sharply up from $3.47 billion the previous year, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the largest figure since 20...

The delinquency ratio on loans extended by banks in South Korea inched up in November from a month earlier, the financial watchdog said Thursday. The rate for banks' won-denominated loans more than 30 days overdue stood at 0.25 percent as of end-November, up 0.01 percentage point from a month earlier, according to preliminary data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Compared with a ye...

South Korean banks' household loans declined in December due to the central bank's rate hike and tight lending rules, data from the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed Thursday. Outstanding bank loans to local households had come to 1,060.7 trillion won ($982 billion) as of the end of last year, down 200 billion won from the previous month, according to the BOK. The December reading compared with a 2.9 ...

The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) on Thursday sought an injunction to stop a TV station from broadcasting the recordings of alleged phone calls between the wife of its presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol and a reporter. According to news reports, Yoon's wife Kim Keon-hee spoke by phone with the person who works for the YouTube channel Voice of Seoul for a total of seven hours last ye...