CHUNCHEON -- Hundreds of cars were trapped on some parts of a highway along the east coast Monday as heavy snowfall caused a traffic gridlock, the road authority said.    Gangwon Province received about 10 centimeters of snowfall earlier in the day, which caused many cars returning from a three-day holiday to be stuck on the snow-covered Donghae Expressway, according to Korea Expressway Corp. (KEC)'s regional office.    Monday is Independence Movement Day, a South Korean n

　Former Startups Minister Park Young-sun on Monday won the ruling Democratic Party‘s ticket to run in the Seoul mayoral by-election next month. 　 　Park, also a former four-term lawmaker, was declared the winner of the party primary against sitting four-term lawmaker Woo Sang-ho for the April 7 mayoral election, according to the voting results. 　 　Park won an overwhelming 69.56 percent of the ballots cast by voters in and outside of the party over the phone and the internet for four days t

South Korea‘s leading internet portal Naver Corp. and Japanese telecom giant Softbank Corp. have completed a merger of their subsidiaries to tap deeper into the Japanese market with a wide range of services, their joint venture said Monday. 　 　Japanese chat app operator LINE, affiliated with Naver, and Softbank’s internet business Yahoo Japan launched a new entity called Z Holdings. 　 　The merger creates a $30 billion tech giant with more than 100 million users on a monthly basis a

American Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was an icon of American society, challenging the world with his bold and proactive works that featured the bodies of women, Black men and the LGBT community in the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition “Robert Mapplethorpe: More Life,” held at Kukje Gallery’s Seoul and Busan venues, is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Korea. The show runs through March 28. Born in 1946, Mapplethorpe has left more than 2,000 photog

Global health care company pursues energy efficiency, sustainability as key business goals

South Korea saw the volume of exports continue growing for a fourth consecutive month in February, showing signs of recovery from the coronavirus crisis, on the back of strong chip and automobile demand. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy on Monday, outbound shipments came to $44.81 billion last month, up 9.5 percent from the previous year. The average daily export volume increased 26.4 percent to reach $2.3 billion -- the largest for the month. The on-year export growth

This year’s March proxy season is to herald unprecedented scenes, including virtual meetings, e-voting systems and the rising presence of environmentally friendly corporate policy frames -- reflecting the COVID-19 pandemic situation. While top-tier conglomerates swiftly moved to adjust the date and format of their upcoming shareholders meetings, smaller businesses were observed struggling with epidemic-caused new market norms. Of the 2,350 listed companies on South Korea’s benc

Homeplus will sell cars and install electric vehicle charging stations, as part of its efforts to provide more reasons for customers to visit its physical stores other than grocery shopping, the hypermarket chain said Monday. Homeplus’ plans for the new mobility service platform cover a wide range of services, and it is currently taking preorders for two electric motorcycles from DNA Motors -- EM-1 and Zappy 1 -- and preparing to launch a rental service, the company said. “By of

Oriental art collector, TV celebrity, motivational speaker and investment adviser -- those are just a few of the titles Mark Tetto, 40, has under his belt. After about 10 years of living in Seoul, the Italian American multihyphenate is taking on a new challenge in leading Topor & Co. Korea, one of the first investment advisers in South Korea that handles private wealth management for wealthy families. In the past five years as a partner at TCK, his primary focus was to manage a globally di

Samsung Electro-Mechanics officials present its folded, 10x optical zoom camera module for smartphones. The company on Monday announced it will begin mass production of the technology, claiming to be the first South Korean maker to do so. Folded zoom technology allows phone makers to minimize the camera’s protrusion in smartphones.  By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)

Some conservative groups went ahead with small street rallies in Seoul on Monday to denounce the Moon Jae-in administration amid concerns about the spread of COVID-19. On the rainy day, the 102nd anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement against Japan's colonization of Korea, more than 10 members of a group staged a rally at around 11 a.m. in front of Gwanghwamun in the city center. The group, which calls itself Freedom Korea National Defense Corps, had applied for approval of the gathe

Statistics Korea’s data on Monday showed the male ratio at birth in South Korea fell to the lowest level last year, implicating the end of the country’s long-held tradition of boy preference. The gender ratio at birth, or the number of baby boys per every 100 baby girls born, stood at 104.9 in 2020 -- the lowest since the institution started to collect related data in 1990. The figure is close to a natural level observed worldwide of about 105 boys to every 100 girls. This repres

Netflix Korea will disclose its audit reports in March, which would be its first regulatory filing since entering the country in 2016. The local unit of the US media platform giant is incorporated as a limited liability company here, but has become newly subject to disclosure rules applied for publicly traded firms. The change is due to the effectuation last year of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on External Audit of Stock Companies, amended in 2017 to enhance business transparency and p

Tokyo has not responded to Seoul’s conciliatory overtures for months

South Korea’s Navy saw a 15-year journey take off on Feb. 22, when the Ministry of National Defense approved a plan to build the nation’s first light aircraft carrier by 2033. But experts say that the Navy has yet to convince taxpayers and military watchers about the 2 trillion-won ($1.8 billion) project. The National Assembly will approve the budget for the vessel, which was first discussed in 1996, after looking through an independent cost-benefit analysis. “A light aircra