South Korea's Navy said Thursday it will unveil a bust of a late US commander in memory of his contributions to the growth of the country's naval forces during his wartime service here six decades ago. The sculpture of Capt. Michael J. Luosey will be formally made public at a ceremony to be held at the Naval Academy in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province, later in the day. Luosey served as the he...

South Korea will step up economic cooperation with Russia and northern states in various areas, including energy, shipbuilding, fishery and transportation, to foster future growth drivers and stabilize regional security, a presidential committee said Thursday. The Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation unveiled its plan in its inaugural meeting hosted by chairman Song Young-gil,...

South Korea on Thursday encouraged Russian athletes to compete in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics as neutral individuals, amid a ban on Russia competing over its state-sponsored doping. The International Olympic Committee's Executive Board announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, this week that it would suspend the Russian Olympic Committee with "immediate effect." The board acted on recommendat...

South Korea's state-run overseas aid agency said Thursday that it launched an "innovation committee" to enhance transparency of the organization and improve its image tarnished by multiple scandals. The Korea International Cooperation Agency was suspected of having some of its assistance projects be influenced by Choi Soon-sil, a close confidante of the ousted former President Park Geun-hye, an ...

CJ CGV has vowed to continue to focus on the global movie market next year as the domestic market has reached a plateau in the past five years with the rising popularity of streaming and social media services and declining population. The country's top cinema chain unveiled the plan during a media forum on the movie industry at its Yongsan location in central Seoul on Wednesday. South Korean ci...

President Moon Jae-in designated a judge as the new head of a state watchdog Thursday. Choe Jae-hyeong was tapped as the head of the Board of Audit and Inspection, according to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. The 61-year-old served as a judge at the Seoul High Court before he was appointed the head of the Judicial Research and Training Institute earlier this year. (Yonhap) Choe, if app...

President Cho Hwan-eik of the Korea Electric Power Corp. will resign later this week, more than three months ahead of his term which expires in March next year, the state-run utility firm said Thursday. Cho's intention to resign comes just one day after KEPCO was selected as the preferred bidder in a project to build three nuclear power plants in Britain. Toshiba Corp., which has a 60 percent s...

South Korea ranks eighth in terms of gross domestic product among the 32 countries which qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, government data showed Thursday. South Korea, whose FIFA ranking is 59th, had a GDP of $1.41 trillion last year, according to the data by Statistics Korea. Japan topped the GDP list among the 32 participants in the 2018 FIFA World Cup with $4.93 trillion. Th...

South Korean retail giant Lotte faces a bumpy road as it moves to adopt a holding company system even though it has sharply cut the number of units that own one another, industry sources said Thursday. In early October, Lotte established the holding firm, Lotte Corp., in a bid to help Chairman Shin Dong-bin solidify his leadership and boost the group's managerial transparency. According to the ...

More than 3,000 have signed up for the die with dignity program since hospitals in South Korea started carrying out end-of-life care trials, government data showed Thursday. On Oct. 20, 13 hospitals launched a program to allow terminally ill patients with no possibility of recovery to forgo treatment before the relevant law comes into force next year. The law, which will take effect in February,...

WASHINGTON -- The two mascots for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics will walk across central Washington this week to promote the upcoming games, the organizer said Wednesday. Soohorang, a white tiger, and Bandabi, an Asiatic black bear, plan to meet with locals near the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the National Mall starting at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, according to the Korean Cultural ...

South Korean pro football champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors have been drawn with Hong Kong league winners at the 2018 Asian Football Confederation Champions League. In a drawing held at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday, Jeonbuk, the 2017 K League Classic winners, were paired with Kitchee SC, which will make their AFC Champions League group stage debut. They will be joined by two teams that com...

Doosan Infracore Co. and three imported carmakers will recall nearly 28,000 vehicles and construction machines in South Korea due to faulty parts, the transport ministry said Thursday. This is the latest in a series of recall orders issued by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to both domestic and foreign carmakers and other manufacturers. Honda Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobi...

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to post a record profit in the fourth quarter of the year on its strong chip business, a market tracker said Thursday. FnGuide said a consensus market forecast of Samsung's operating income amounts to 16.3 trillion won ($14.9 billion) for the October-December period, up 77.2 percent from a year earlier. The figure also hovers far above...

WASHINGTON -- South Korea pushed Wednesday to stop the United States from restricting imports of its solar cells, saying such a move would only harm US interests. A government delegation, including officials from the foreign and commerce industries, made the case at a public hearing at the office of the US trade representative, the foreign ministry said in a statement. "An increase in solar cel...