South Korea and China agreed Sunday to hold a ceremony returning remains of Chinese troops killed during the 1950-53 Korean War in September, in what would be the ninth such repatriation, Seoul's defense ministry said. Kim Sang-jin, the ministry's director-general of international policy, and Li Jingxian, a Chinese veterans affairs official, met in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen, and ag...

With more people returning to the office amid easing of social distancing restrictions, instances of workplace harassment have also been on the rise, a survey showed Sunday. According to a poll by Embrain Public, conducted between June 10 and 16 on 1,000 office workers aged 19 or older, 29.6 percent said they had experienced some form of workplace harassment within the past year. In the same su...

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Sunday it has decided to impose a combined fine of 2.14 billion won ($1.64 million) on five producers of manhole covers for colluding to fix prices of industrial products. Segye Cast Iron Co. and four other companies colluded to fix their quotations between September 2011 and January 2020 for more than 1,000 rounds of purchasing bidding for manhole covers, ...

Ulsan Hyundai FC's lead atop the K League 1 tables shrank to five points on Saturday, with Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, five-time defending champions, breathing hard down Ulsan's neck. Ulsan suffered a 2-0 loss to Pohang Steelers in their "East Coast Derby" on Saturday, while Jeonbuk rallied past Gimcheon Sangmu FC 2-1 the same day. Ulsan still lead the competition with 40 points but Jeonbuk have cl...

South Korea's new coronavirus cases stayed above 10,000 for the second consecutive day Sunday as the daily cases seemed to be rising again after months of subsiding. The country added 10,059 COVID-19 infections, including 191 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,389,611, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The country reported eight COVID-19 deaths, ra...

North Korea lambasted South Korea, the United States and Japan on Sunday for their move to strengthen trilateral security cooperation highlighted in a rare group summit of their leaders last week. Pyongyang's foreign ministry strongly condemned discussions on three-way military drills that President Yoon Suk-yeol held with his American and Japanese counterparts -- Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida -- ...

The third-highest alert against a scorching heat wave was issued nationwide on Saturday, 18 days earlier compared to last year. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety issues the alert when the daily temperature ceiling in over 40 percent of the country reaches 33 C or higher for at least three straight days. Under the heat alert, the safety ministry is looking at measures to support wo...

South Korean girl group aespa will attend the U.N. High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development next week, its agency said Friday. The band will attend the opening session of the forum, to be held at the U.N. headquarters in New York at 9 a.m. on Tuesday (U.S. time), SM Entertainment said. During the meeting, the quartet will deliver a speech on the subject of “Next generation...

J-Hope, a rapper and dancer of K-pop supergroup BTS, topped the iTunes music charts in 84 countries with his first official solo single “More” on Saturday. Released on Friday, J-Hope‘s new EP ranked No. 1 on iTunes Top Songs charts in the United States, Canada, Spain, France and other countries. The music video of “More” topped 10 million views on video streaming platform YouTube in about...

South Korea‘s new coronavirus cases bounced back to over 10,000 Saturday as the daily cases seemed poised to take an upturn again after months of decline. The country added 10,715 COVID-19 infections, including 173 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,379,552, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The tally increased from 9,528 the previous day ...

Tropical storm Aere is likely to affect Jeju Island and other southern parts of South Korea early next week after having formed off Japan's Okinawa, the weather agency said Friday. Aere was moving north-northeast at a speed of 13 kilometers per hour, packing winds of up to 65 km per hour and with a central pressure of 1,002 hectopascals upon its formation in the sea 760 km off south-southeast of...

Financial authorities said Friday they will take a series of measures from next week to ease volatility in stock markets, as the nation's benchmark stock index sank to a 20-month low due to fears of an economic recession. From next Monday, brokerage firms will be exempted from an obligation to hold at least 140 percent of the value of each stock purchase, to provide credit to their customers, th...

FIFA announced Friday it will implement a new offside technology at this year's World Cup to help video match officials and on-field referees make faster and more accurate decisions. Following a series of successful tests, FIFA's semiautomated offside technology (SAOT) will make its World Cup debut in Qatar in November. The SAOT, which was tested at the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup and 2021 FIFA Ar...

Online shopping in South Korea continued to increase in May as the lifting of virus curbs bolstered demand for travel and cultural services and foodstuffs, data showed Friday. The value of online shopping transactions stood at 17.3 trillion won ($13.4 billion) in May, up 10.5 percent from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. Purchases made through smartphones, tablets...

A total of 37 South Korean nationals have won prizes at 25 international classical music competitions held in the first half of this year, a local cultural foundation said Friday. Twelve Korean pianists were awarded at 13 contests, and seven violinists won medals at nine competitions during the January-June period, according to Kumho Cultural Foundation. In competitions for viola and cello, fou...