French Ambassador to South Korea Philippe Lefort will present Etoile du Cinema awards to Korean actress Bae Doona and Kwak Sin-ae, producer of the award-winning film “Parasite,” in Busan this week, the embassy said. From Saturday to Sunday, Lefort will be attending the 2019 Busan International Film Festival, set to kick off Thursday. The trip marks Lefort’s first visit to Busan since he took th...

The Oman Embassy in South Korea held an open-house program to showcase its rich culture and history to students as part of its public diplomacy. Over 50 students from Sangam Middle School in Seoul participated in the event, “Welcome to Oman,” which was held Aug. 27 in cooperation with the education department of the Seoul Metropolitan Office. Omani Ambassador Mohamed Al-Harthy welcomed the gues...

The Korea Herald Young Diplomats Academy and the Young Opinion Leaders’ Knowledge Forum -- youth camps tailored for interaction with foreign diplomats, business leaders and renowned scholars -- have inspired future generations of leaders. The event at Yonsei International Campus in Songdo, Incheon, from Aug. 2 to 4 attracted over 200 elementary, middle and high school students, providing a platf...

South Korea will provide about $200,000 worth of humanitarian aid to Namibia, which has declared a state of emergency over drought, the government said Monday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the African country has suffered from drought since October 2018, which has left up to 500,000 people or about 20 percent of the country's entire population short of food and water. "The country will ...

Minister-level delegate discusses need for a trade pact

Sharing borders with five member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Laos is seeking to facilitate the connectivity of infrastructure across the region by strengthening cooperation with South Korea. “There have been already a number of projects supported by the Korean government and implemented by Korean private companies in the past that contributed to the ASEAN connectivity i...

Top nuclear negotiators from South Korea and the United States held talks in Germany on Thursday to discuss cooperation toward progress in working-level talks with North Korea, which are expected to resume this month, Seoul's foreign ministry said. South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Lee Do-hoon, met with his US counterpart, Stephen Biegun, in Berlin as Washington and Pyongyang are seeking to re-...

Former Samsung Executive Yang In-mo was elected as the new dean of the Honorary Consular Corps of Korea, an organization of diplomats promoting friendship and cooperation among countries. Yang, the honorary consul general of Croatia to Korea, started his two-year term as the sixth dean of the corps on July 1, after a unanimous vote at a regular annual meeting on June 26. The corps of honorary c...

Experts and government officials from South Korea, Japan and China will gather in Seoul next week to discuss ways to improve the environment for the crested ibis, an endangered species, an international organization said Monday. The crested ibis, a species that had mainly nested in Northeast Asia and parts of Russia, is at the brink of extinction. It is listed as Korea’s National Monument No. 19...

The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra, kicked off an event to promote Saudi Arabia’s culture in Seoul this week. The event has been held across the world to promote Saudi culture and history and expand cultural exchanges with other countries. In Asia, South Korea is the first to hold the event, titled “Bridges to Seoul,” which will run until Wednesday at Grand Hilton Seoul. “I ...

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Seoul-based foreign diplomats visited a new hiking trail on the eastern coast portion of the Demilitarized Zone on Saturday. Kang, ambassadors and representatives from 52 countries traveled to the DMZ Peace Trails in Goseong, Gangwon Province, which the government opened to the public on April 27 to mark the first anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration signe...

The Korea International Cooperation Agency on Friday held a ceremony marking the completion of a national museum in Congo, a project that was begun in 2012. The construction of the Congo National Museum in the capital city Kinshasa was funded by KOICA, a state-run aid organization. The museum will be the biggest museum in the country when it opens, KOICA said. The South Korean aid group said it...

The leaders of South Korea and Sweden agreed Saturday that their tech-savvy, like-minded countries have great potential for closer partnerships in various sectors, including in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Seoul's pursuit of inclusive growth. Speaking after a summit with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, President Moon Jae-in noted that the two-way trade volume reached an...

South Korea and Sweden have signed six memorandums of understandings (MOUs) to expand trade and cooperation in emerging industries, the government said Saturday. The MOUs were signed in line with President Moon Jae-in's visit to Sweden on the last leg of his eight-day Northern Europe trip that also took him to Finland and Norway. The agreements include those signed by the Korea International Tr...

South Korea has been reelected as a member of a UN council in charge of economic and social issues, a position it has held since 2008, the foreign ministry said Saturday. South Korea received membership on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from 2020 to 2022 in a vote at a UN general meeting Friday, the ministry said. It marks the country's eighth successive entry on the 54-member council....