Stingy pitching staff to face best slugging team for KBO's wild card

The 2019 postseason in South Korean baseball will begin this week with a wild-card game between one of the league's top pitching staffs and its best slugging club. The LG Twins, which finished at 79-64-1 (wins-losses-ties), will host the NC Dinos (73-69-2) at 2 p.m. Thursday at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul. As the higher seed, the Twins will have two cracks at trying to win or tie one game to advance to the next stage.  If the Twins claim Thursday's game or end up in a tie after 15 innings,

BaseballOct. 2, 2019

Serial murder suspect confesses to 14 murders, 30 rapes

SUWON, Gyeonggi Province -- The police announced Wednesday that Lee Chun-jae, 56, has admitted he was a serial killer 30 years ago and responsible for more unsolved crimes.He has confessed to nine rape-murders that took place between 1986 and 1991 in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, as well as five additional murders and about 30 rapes and attempted rapes, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said in a press briefing Wednesday.Three of the five additional murders appear to have occurred aroun

Social AffairsOct. 2, 2019

Super Junior, Kang Daniel join lineup of Busan's annual K-pop concert

The organizer of the Busan One Asia Festival, a major annual K-pop concert in the city of Busan, on Wednesday announced the final lineup of its 2019 event, which includes Super Junior, NU'EST and Kang Daniel.BOF 2019 is scheduled to run from Oct. 19-25 at Busan's Hwamyeong Ecological Park, Haeundae Beach and the Busan Cinema Center, as well as other public areas in South Korea's biggest port city, 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul.  The festival's three main events -- the K-pop Concert, Hip

PerformanceOct. 2, 2019

Asia's top film festival opens in shadow of 'Parasite'

BUSAN (AFP) -- Organisers of Asia's top film festival, which opens in Busan this week, warn that a surge of global interest in the critically acclaimed South Korean movie "Parasite" masks a damaging underinvestment in local independent cinema.Bong Joon-ho's darkly comic tale of class war in the Seoul suburbs won the Palme D'or for best film at Cannes and is firming as an Oscar favourite next year, in what would be the first ever win for a Korean film.It has been sold to 192 internation

FilmOct. 2, 2019

Cheong Wa Dae says N. Korea seems to have fired SLBM

South Korea's National Security Council expressed strong concern Wednesday about North Korea's test of what is believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile.In connection with North Korea's firing of a projectile earlier in the day, the NSC is placing "weight on the possibility" that it was a SLBM test, Cheong Wa Dae said.It was giving a briefing on the results of an emergency NSC standing committee session, presided over by Chung Eui-yong, head of the national security office.

DefenseOct. 2, 2019

Tomorrow X Together to release 1st full album this month

K-pop rookie band Tomorrow X Together, also known as TXT, will release its first full-length album this month, its management agency said Wednesday.The upcoming record, "The Dream Chapter: Magic," set for release on Oct. 21, is TXT's second music release since the five-piece band debuted with "The Dream Chapter: Star" in March. The new album is also the second edition in the band's first "The Dream Chapter" album series that follows "the story of boys pursuing

PerformanceOct. 2, 2019

N. Korea's official paper blames Seoul's 'betrayal' for stalemate in inter-Korean ties

North Korea's official newspaper blamed South Korea's "betrayal behaviors" for the current stalemate in inter-Korean relations, urging Seoul to "return to basics" and respect the spirit of last year's summit agreements.The criticism came a day after North Korea said that Pyongyang and Washington agreed to resume working-level talks after months of impasse following their February summit, raising cautious hopes that progress in the upcoming talks could help the stalled inter-K

North KoreaOct. 2, 2019

Former YG chief undergoes second questioning about gambling charges

Yang Hyun-suk, the scandal-ridden former CEO of YG Entertainment, was summoned by police for a second time Tuesday and underwent questioning until shortly after midnight about suspicions he had habitually gambled while abroad and committed foreign exchange law violations.Yang Hyun-suk, an idol-turned-K-pop guru who once led one of the biggest K-pop management firms, left the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Intellectual Crime Investigation Team in northern Seoul around 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, 14

Social AffairsOct. 2, 2019

S. Korea confirms 2 more African swine fever cases

South Korea confirmed two more cases of African swine fever on Wednesday, raising the number of disease outbreaks to 11 in just two weeks amid strenuous disinfection efforts across the country.After a lull for the past four days, the new ASF cases were reported in Paju, north Gyeonggi Province, bordering North Korea, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.The ministry said it is testing another suspected ASF case reported in the same county. Of the confirmed cases, five

Social AffairsOct. 2, 2019

Trump denounces impeachment inquiry as a 'coup'

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced the impeachment inquiry threatening his presidency as a "coup," as his administration pushed back hard against the investigation.Trump's comments came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed to prevent or delay five former or current State Department staffers from testifying in the investigation probing accusations that Trump abused his office by seeking dirt from Ukraine on a 2020 election rival."As I learn more and more

World NewsOct. 2, 2019

Hong Kong: nearly four months of rallies, clashes

HONG KONG, Oct  1, 2019 (AFP) - Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests erupted into violence in June, plunging the former British colony into its most severe crisis since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.After more intense protests on Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of communist China's founding, here is a recap.- First clashes -In the semi-autonomous territory's biggest demonstration since 1997, more than a million people, according to organisers, march on June 9 to protest a draft government

World NewsOct. 2, 2019

N. Korean projectile may have breached Japan's EEZ: Tokyo

TOKYO (AFP) -- One of the projectiles fired by North Korea early Wednesday appears to have fallen into Japan's exclusive economic zone, the top government spokesman said."At around 7:10 am (1010 GMT), two projectiles were launched from the eastern coast of North Korea," Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "One of them appears to have fallen into waters... inside Japan's exclusive economic zone," the chief cabinet secretary said.The comments came after South Korea's military said t

North KoreaOct. 2, 2019

Pentagon: OPCON transfer plans show strength of S. Korea-US alliance

 The planned transfer of wartime operational control from the United States to South Korea is a testament to the strength of the bilateral alliance, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, made the remark at a forum in Washington as he sought to dispel concerns about a rift in the alliance caused in part by South Korea's decision to end a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan.The General Security of

Foreign AffairsOct. 2, 2019

N. Korea presumed to have fired 1 SLBM-type missile: JCS

North Korea fired what was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile from waters off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea's military said, demonstrating its nuclear delivery capabilities just days before resuming denuclearization talks with the United States.  The missile, believed to be a type of Pukguksong, a North Korean SLBM, was fired from off the east coast near Wonsan in an easterly direction at 7:11 a.m., and flew around 450 kilometers at a maximum altitude of a

North KoreaOct. 2, 2019

S. Korea reports another suspected case of African swine fever

Another suspected case of African swine fever was reported Tuesday in the border town of Paju, where South Korea's first outbreak of the deadly animal disease had been confirmed, the agricultural ministry said.The suspected case was reported from a pig farm in the city located just south of the inter-Korean border. If confirmed, it will mark the 10th African swine fever case in the country. The first-ever outbreak of the viral disease in South Korea was confirmed at a farm in Paju on Sept. 17, p

Social AffairsOct. 1, 2019

Suspect in Hwaseong serial murder case confesses to killings: police

The suspect in decades-old serial murders committed south of Seoul has admitted to killing the victims, police said Tuesday. The 56-year-old man, who has been in prison for raping and killing his sister-in-law in 1994, was identified in mid-September as the suspect in the murders of nine women in Hwaseong, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, between 1986-91.Police said he admitted to responsibility for the cases and three more crimes in the city at that time and two others before the murder of his sis

Social AffairsOct. 1, 2019

S&P cuts S. Korea's growth outlook to 1.8% this year

Global rating agency Standard & Poor's said Tuesday that it slashed its growth forecast for South Korea's economy this year to 1.8 percent amid the global economic slowdown.The latest estimate represented a downward revision from its previous 2 percent forecast in July.  S&P said that the South Korean economy could grow 2.1 percent in 2020, also down from its previous forecast of 2.6 percent. The rating agency said eroding confidence in the outlook is intensifying the investment-led

EconomyOct. 1, 2019

S. Korea strongly protests Japan's claim over Dokdo, vows stern response

South Korea's defense ministry on Tuesday rejected Japan's renewed territorial claim to the South's easternmost islets of Dokdo and vowed to respond sternly to any attempts to infringe on its rights.Earlier in the day, Japan called in a South Korean military attache stationed in the country and lodged a complaint over South Korean F-15K fighter jet's patrol flight over Dokdo as part of the ceremony to mark the 71st Armed Forces Day. "As Dokdo is our inherent territory historically, geograph

DefenseOct. 1, 2019

Prosecution to abolish special investigation divisions

The prosecution said Tuesday that it will abolish special investigation divisions under prosecutors’ offices across the country and improve investigation practices in line with the Moon Jae-in administration’s drive to reform the country’s powerful law enforcement body.  Prosecutor-General Yoon Seok-youl ordered the abolition of special investigation divisions -- elite squads of experienced prosecutors charged with investigating high-profile corruption cases -- around the

Social AffairsOct. 1, 2019

North Korea, US to hold working-level talks on Saturday

North Korea on Tuesday issued a statement in Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui’s name, announcing plans to resume working-level negotiations with the US. The US and North Korea agreed to get together for a preparatory meeting Oct. 4, ahead of working-level talks the following day, according to the statement.“Our representatives are ready to engage in North Korea-US working level talks,” Choe said in the statement.“I hope that improvements in North Korea-US relations will

North KoreaOct. 1, 2019