Most Popular
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Qoo10 liquidity crisis sparks massive complaints, fears of wider damage
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Yoon urges municipalities to embrace foreigners
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What is happening at Hybe?
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S. Korea to consent to Japan's Sado mines gaining World Heritage status: official
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Korea unveils tax reform bill to spur economy
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Actor’s excessive airport security sparks probe into human rights violations
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Actor Yoo Ah-in accused of sexual attack
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Man who let his father die due to financial difficulties to be released on parole
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S. Korea, China shifting from tensions to cooperation: Seoul
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LG Electronics achieves record earnings in Q2
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Trump bars new immigration green cards
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump announced what he described as a "temporary suspension of immigration into the United States." But the executive order would bar only those seeking permanent residency, not temporary workers. Trump said Tuesday he would be placing a 60-day pause on the issuance of green cards in an effort to limit competition for jobs in a US economy wrecked by the coronavirus. The order would include "certain exemptions," he said, but he declined t
April 22, 2020
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Maryland governor rebuts Trump over buying S. Korean coronavirus test kits
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday he has "no idea" why President Donald Trump got upset that he purchased coronavirus test kits from South Korea. Hogan, a Republican, said he thinks Trump "got confused" when he expressed his displeasure with the governor's decision to buy kits for 500,000 tests from a South Korean company. "I'm really not sure what he was upset about," the governor said on Fox News. "We did what he told us to do, which was go out and ge
April 22, 2020
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Trump vows immigration ban as virus roils world economy
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Donald Trump vowed to temporarily ban immigration to the United States to combat the "invisible enemy" of coronavirus, claiming it would save American jobs as the world economy plunges into meltdown. The announcement, a drastic new step in the US President's anti-immigration crusade, comes as the globe tries to chart its way out of an unprecedented health and economic crisis. In just four months, the novel coronavirus has touched almost every nation on the planet
April 21, 2020
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Coronavirus could double number facing acute hunger: UN
PARIS (AFP) -- The coronavirus pandemic could nearly double the number of people around the world facing acute hunger, the UN's World Food Programme warned Tuesday. "The number of people facing acute food insecurity stands to rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19," the WFP said its projections had shown. The warning came as the WFP and other partners released a new report on food crises around the
April 21, 2020
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Swiss watchmakers see exports plunge amid pandemic
ZURICH (AFP) -- Swiss watch exports plunged by more than a fifth in March, the Swiss watch industry federation, FH, said Tuesday, warning it expected the situation to deteriorate further in April. Overall, Swiss watch exports fell 21.9 percent in March compared to a year earlier, to 1.4 billion Swiss francs ($1.4 billion, 1.3 billion euros) -- with a range of markets seeing devastating declines, as economies worldwide have basically ground to a halt in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Expor
April 21, 2020
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Singapore extends coronavirus curbs as cases surge
SINGAPORE (AFP) -- Singapore on Tuesday extended restrictions to fight the coronavirus until early June, the city-state's leader said, as cases surged past 9,000 due to a growing number of infections among migrant workers. The city-state managed to keep its outbreak in check in the early stages due to widespread testing and contact-tracing, but is facing a fast-moving second wave of infections. Health authorities reported 1,111 cases Tuesday taking the total to 9,125, with the vast majority
April 21, 2020
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Coronavirus pandemic 'amplifies press freedom threats'
PARIS (AFP) -- The coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating threats to press freedom around the world, with authoritarian states including China and Iran suppressing details of the outbreak, activists said on Tuesday. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its annual press freedom rankings that the pandemic was "highlighting and amplifying the many crises" already casting a shadow on press freedom. The outbreak had encouraged some regimes to "take advantage of the fact
April 21, 2020
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Trump to ban immigration over pandemic threat
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Donald Trump said he would temporarily ban immigration to the United States because of the "Invisible Enemy" of the coronavirus, as angry Americans took to the streets to demand an end to crippling lockdowns. In just four months, the virus has turned the world upside down, confining half the planet indoors and killing nearly 170,000 on its march through virtually every country. Drastic measures never before seen in peacetime have shredded the global economy, resu
April 21, 2020
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UN experts want to blacklist 14 ships over N. Korea sanctions
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — UN experts have recommended blacklisting 14 vessels for violating sanctions against North Korea in a report that accuses the country of increasing illegal coal exports, imports of petroleum products and continuing with cyber attacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to gain illicit revenue. The 267-page report, obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, also accused North Korea of importing luxury vehicles, watches and liquor and other sanctione
April 19, 2020
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Coronavirus could erode global fight against other diseases
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Lavina D’Souza hasn’t been able to collect her government-supplied anti-HIV medication since the abrupt lockdown of India’s 1.3 billion people last month during the coronavirus outbreak. Marooned in a small city away from her home in Mumbai, the medicine she needs to manage her disease has run out. The 43-year-old is afraid that her immune system will crash: "Any disease, the coronavirus or something else, I’ll fall sick faster." D’Sou
April 16, 2020
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Trump directs halt to payments to WHO during virus pandemic
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was cutting off US payments to the World Health Organization during the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the organization of failing to do enough to stop the virus from spreading when it first surfaced in China. Trump, who had telegraphed his intentions last week, claimed the outbreak could have been contained at its source and that lives could have been saved had the UN health agency done a better job investigating the early reports
April 15, 2020
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Health officials warn NYC could run out of virus test swabs
NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City is in danger of running out of swabs for COVID-19 tests and should only test hospitalized patients, the city health department said in a memo to health care providers over the weekend. "As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out," the April 11 health alert said. "At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagn
April 13, 2020
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Health or wealth? Nations pressured to loosen virus rules
MADRID (AP) -- As the coronavirus pandemic throws millions out of work and devastates economies worldwide, governments are struggling with the delicate balance between keeping people safe from a highly contagious virus and making sure they can still make a living or even have enough to eat. Workers in some nonessential industries were returning to their jobs Monday in Spain, one of the hardest hit countries in the coronavirus pandemic, while in South Korea, officials were warning that hard-ea
April 13, 2020
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[Newsmaker] Bill Gates calls for funding from G-20 members to develop vaccine against coronavirus
In order for the world to better contain the spread of the coronavirus, leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) major economies should provide more funding to develop a vaccine, Bill Gates said. In an opinion piece provided in South Korea exclusively to Yonhap News Agency on Sunday, Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, noted that COVID-19 has not yet affected many low- and middle-income countries, and said world leaders, particularly G-20 members, must step up to keep it that way because it is "like
April 12, 2020
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Why African Americans are dying at higher rates from COVID-19
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The new coronavirus isn’t biased about whom it infects -- so why does data emerging from some states suggest that African Americans are bearing the brunt of the pandemic in the US? Experts say blacks are disproportionately impacted by underlying health conditions linked to poverty, face discrimination in medical care, and are more likely to work jobs that require them to leave their homes. “We know that blacks are more likely to have diabetes, heart disease, lu
April 8, 2020
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UK’s Johnson spends night in ICU; not on ventilator
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent the night in the intensive care unit of a London hospital with the new coronavirus, but is not on a ventilator, a senior government minister said Tuesday, as pressure grew on the government to release more details of Johnson’s condition. Johnson was admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital late Sunday, 10 days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, the first major world leader to be confirmed to have the virus. He was moved to t
April 7, 2020
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Virus puts UK PM in intensive care; Japan declares emergency
London (AP) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in intensive care Tuesday fighting the coronavirus, while across the world, Japan’s leader declared a monthlong state of emergency for Tokyo and six other regions to keep the virus from ravaging the world’s oldest population. The 55-year-old Johnson, the world’s first known head of government to fall ill with the virus, was conscious in a London hospital and needed oxygen but was not on a ventilator, Cabinet minister Mic
April 7, 2020
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Global coronavirus death toll tops 70,000
PARIS (AFP) -- The new coronavirus has killed more than 70,000 people across the globe, the majority in Europe, according to an AFP tally Monday at 1100 GMT. Out of a total of 70,009 killed in the pandemic, 50,215 are in Europe, according to figures compiled from official government data and the World Health Organization. Italy is leading the global death toll with 15,877 fatalities, followed by Spain with 13,055, the United States with 9,648 and France with 8,078. (AFP)
April 6, 2020
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France asks South Korea to share knowhow from fight against coronavirus
France asked South Korea on Monday to share its knowhow related to containing the novel coronavirus, Seoul's transport ministry said, as both countries are striving to stop the spread of the highly contagious disease. French Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari made the request during a phone conversation with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Hyun-mee, and the two sides agreed to maintain active communication in their fight against COVID-19, according to Kim's office. The French minis
April 6, 2020
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WHO chief requests Moon's role in global fight against coronavirus
The head of the United Nations health agency on Monday asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in to come to the fore in the global war against the coronavirus so that other countries can follow in his country's footsteps, Cheong Wa Dae said. Speaking on the phone with Moon, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said South Korea's "comprehensive strategy," involving aggressive testing, diagnosis and tracing, is working effectively. He req
April 6, 2020