Hyundai Oilbank takes full responsibility for medical bills of ‘stench’ incident victims

South Korean refiner Hyundai Oilbank apologized Thursday to the victims of “stench” incident at its refinery located in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, promising full medical support for their recovery. The company said it would pay the medical bills of local residents affected by the stench that originated from its refinery around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, while the facility was burning remaining LPG inside the pipes to prepare for the upcoming regular turnaround. “Hyunda

IndustryApril 9, 2020

GS Caltex pledges ESG to reduce carbon footprint

GS Caltex CEO Hur Sae-hong said Thursday the company will strengthen its environmental, social and governance strategy by reducing greenhouse emissions and air pollutants, speeding up its green management policy based on energy-efficient production facilities. The company said its facility in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, has replaced its fuel to liquefied natural gas from low-sulfur fuel oil after improvements on its production line. The move is expected to reduce carbon emissions significa

IndustryApril 9, 2020

'Time to Hunt’ release postponed again

  Netflix announced Thursday that it would tentatively push back the release of “Time to Hunt” after a local court prohibited the film’s distribution by Netflix outside South Korea. “Due to the court ruling yesterday, we’ve been forced to postpone the global premiere of ‘Time to Hunt,’” Netflix said in an official statement. The global release had been scheduled for April 10. The dystopian action film from Yoon Sung-hyun, which was origin

FilmApril 9, 2020

Fila Korea collaborates with BTS to launch Love Yourself Collection

Fila Korea said Thursday that it had collaborated with BTS to launch the Love Yourself Collection -- 12 new items of clothing and shoes celebrating the K-pop boy group’s hit album. The FILA X BTS Love Yourself Collection is inspired by the artwork and graphic elements in the music videos for BTS hits “DNA” and “Idol,” released respectively in 2017 and 2018, the company said. According to the South Korean sportswear brand, the FILA X BTS Love Yourself Collection

ConsumerApril 9, 2020

Over 10m use McDonald’s drive-thru platform in Q1

McDonald’s Korea said Thursday more than 10 million cars made orders from McDrive, its drive-thru platform, in the first quarter of this year, surging sharply amid the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the burger chain, March saw the highest number of users for the drive-thru service, and sales went up by 30 percent on-year. The average value per order also rose by 15 percent. As people avoid face-to-face transactions with the social distancing trend, the burger chain said about 60 percen

ConsumerApril 9, 2020

Foreign banks report 11.8% rise in assets

The South Korean branches of foreign banks held a combined 305.2 trillion won ($250.9 billion) in assets last year, 11.8 percent increase from the previous year, mainly due to derivative products and securities, latest data showed Thursday. The increase was mainly attributable to their derivative product assets which rose by 14.3 trillion won, according to the Financial Supervisory Service in its report on 36 foreign banks here. Their securities and cash and deposits also increased by 7.7 tril

MarketApril 9, 2020

Businesses brace for liquidity crisis by selling assets

Facing a looming liquidity crunch due to the coronavirus crisis, South Korean companies have sold off their assets, including real estate and equities, to keep enough cash in their vaults, according to the Korea Exchange on Thursday. From January to April 7, 29 companies sold a combined 1.5 trillion won ($1.23 billion) worth of tangible assets, compared to 481.6 billion won worth assets sold by 18 companies during the same period last year, the bourse operator said. Most of the asset sales we

MarketApril 9, 2020

Kia’s midsized SUV Telluride named 2020 World Car of Year

Kia Motors’ midsized, eight-seat sport utility vehicle the Telluride is the 2020 World Car of the Year. This is the first time the Korean auto brand has won the top award. The automaker also took home the World Urban Car award for its subcompact crossover the Soul EV, which beat the Volkswagen T-Cross and the Mini Cooper SE Electric.  The Toronto-based World Car Awards, launched in 2004, are one of three major global automotive award programs, the others being the North American Ca

MobilityApril 9, 2020

MMCA awarded Exhibition of the Year at Asia Art Pioneers Award

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) was co-awarded at the Asia Art Pioneers Award 2019 for the exhibition “Awakenings: Art in society in Asia 1960s-1990s” which was held last year at the museum’s Gwacheon venue. The exhibition, which was co-hosted by South Korea, Singapore and Japan, encompasses artworks from 100 representative artists from the late 18th century in 13 Asian countries. The tour of the exhibition started in Japan in October 2018 an

Arts & DesignApril 9, 2020

Ministry, universities discuss students' demand for refunds

South Korean officials and universities on Thursday began to discuss how to meet students' growing calls for refunds over disruptions in schools caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Most universities delayed the start of the new semester by two weeks last month and are running online classes to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Students have filed petitions and held rallies, saying their right to learn has been violated and demanding schools refund their tuition. On Tuesday, Vice Education Minis

Social AffairsApril 9, 2020

BOK freezes rates at record low, projects bleak economic outlook

South Korea’s central bank on Thursday decided to freeze its policy interest rate at 0.75 percent, hinting its willingness to review the effects of last month’s big rate cut coupled with quantitative easing efforts. Following a monetary policy board meeting earlier in the day, the Bank of Korea decided to keep its base rate steady after it slashed it by half a percentage point to a record low on March 16. It was the first emergency rate cut in more than a decade to combat the risk

EconomyApril 9, 2020

LTI Korea to start education program to foster webtoon, movie translators

Literature Translation Institute of Korea on Thursday announced that it will start a program to foster professional translators of Korean cultural content. The 12-week program will teach how to translate Korean movies and webtoons into English, Spanish and Vietnamese. The classes will begin on June 15 and around 10 students for each language will be selected. Anyone who has a bachelor’s degree with official language test scores can apply for the program. LTI Korea will accept applica

CultureApril 9, 2020

Five middle powers affirm 'full solidarity' in tackling COVID-19

The top diplomats of South Korea and its four middle-power partners affirmed their commitment Thursday to working in "full solidarity" and mobilizing "all available policy tools" to tackle the new coronavirus and minimize damage from it, the foreign ministry said. The foreign ministers from the group of South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and Australia, known as MIKTA, an acronym of the countries' initials, issued a joint statement to call for robust global cooperation i

Foreign AffairsApril 9, 2020

Seoul stocks hike 1.6% on eased coronavirus woes

South Korean stocks rose more than 1 percent on Thursday on hopes that coronavirus infections around the globe are nearing a peak. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 29.07 points, or 1.61 percent, to 1,836.21. The main index tracked overnight gains on Wall Street. US stocks soared amid the possibility that the coronavirus death toll and infections in the United States could peak this week, Huh Jae-hwan, a strategist at Eugen

MarketApril 9, 2020

[From the scene] Back to school – at home

A sense of excitement and anxiety was missing from the classroom on the first day of the new spring semester. Middle school English teacher Yoon Suk-joon, 58, was all alone as lessons began, with no students around. He greeted his students in a virtual classroom, with a laptop, headset and projector. As the semester’s first class began for ninth graders in Soongmoon Middle School at 11 a.m., some 45 students clicked on a link via Google Classroom, a service that offers online learning

Social AffairsApril 9, 2020

221 detained in police crackdown on digital sex crimes

Police said Thursday they have detained 221 digital sex criminals nationwide last and this year after opening an investigation into 274 sexual crime cases. According to the National Police Agency (NPA), 32 of the detainees have been put under arrest for various digital sex crimes, including production and distribution of sexual exploitation materials, nonconsenting sharing of sex videos of women and secret filming of women in public places. By crime type, police have detected three cases of p

Social AffairsApril 9, 2020

[News Focus] Compared with OECD average, South Korea has far fewer foreign residents

SEJONG -- The number of foreign residents in South Korea has risen dramatically over the past few decades, during which the nation hosted major international sports festivals including the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics and the 2002 FIFA World Cup, data showed. But the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that Korea has far fewer foreign residents in proportion to its population, compared with other member countries. The OECD defines a foreign national as som

Social AffairsApril 9, 2020

Shin Poong Pharm’s uterine myoma tablets cause ‘serious liver damage’

Shin Poong Pharm, the sudden and sole Korean beneficiary of the recent news of parasiticide ivermectin’s purported coronavirus-killing powers, is facing business uncertainties. The company’s uterine myoma treatment, a tablet of 5mg ulipristal acetate traded globally as Esmya, was found to have caused “serious liver injury” in a number of patients in Europe, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Esmya’s license is suspended in Europe until the Pharmac

IndustryApril 9, 2020

S. Korea to cancel short-term visas, halt visa waivers for 90 countries

South Korea on Thursday said it will invalidate short-term visas for all foreign nationals starting Monday. It will also temporarily halt visa waiver programs for 90 countries that bar entry to Koreans, amid concerns over a growing number of coronavirus infections coming from overseas. 　 The new restrictions are due to come into effect at midnight on April 13 at the port of departure, according to a joint press release from the foreign and justice ministries. 　 The officials said the number o

Foreign AffairsApril 9, 2020

N. Korea at risk of food shortage due to virus pandemic: WFP

North Korea is among the 49 countries that are at high risk of food shortage and poverty due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the United Nation’s World Food Program said Thursday. 　 In its report, titled “COVID-19: Potential Impact on the World’s Poorest People,” the WFP analyzed the economic and food security implications of the pandemic, stressing “for many poor countries, the economic consequences will be more devastating than the disease itself.” 　 Th

North KoreaApril 9, 2020