[Photo News] SpaceX preparing for Halloween launch of Crew-3

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission is set to lift off this weekend, carrying an international crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station. According to NASA, it will send SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance to space from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday. The mission will be the third operational NASA commercial crew flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The team members consists of three astronauts from the US and one astronaut from Germany. The commander

World BusinessOct. 30, 2021

World leaders to talk climate, economy, vaccines at G20

ROME -- Climate change and the relaunch of the global economy will top the G20 agenda as leaders of the world's most advanced nations meet Saturday, the first in-person gathering since the pandemic. Looming over the two-day talks in Rome is pressure to make headway on tackling global warming, ahead of the key COP26 summit kicking off in Glasgow Monday. The stakes are high, with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warning G20 leaders Friday to show "more ambition and more ac

World NewsOct. 30, 2021

[Graphic News] Samsung ranks No. 1 on Forbes World’s Best Employers list

　Samsung Electronics topped the World’s Best Employers list for the second straight year, according to US business magazine Forbes. 　American tech giant IBM ranked second, followed by Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. 　South Korean cosmetics giant Amorepacific and LG came in 31st and 43rd, respectively. 　Forbes announced the rankings after surveying 150,000 full-time and part-time workers from 58 countries working for multinational companies and institutions.

World BusinessOct. 28, 2021

African effort to replicate mRNA vaccine targets disparities

CAPE TOWN (AP) -- In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world's poorest people. The energy in the gleaming labs matches the urgency of their mission to narrow vaccine disparities. By working to replicate Moderna's COVID-19 shot, the scientists are effectively making an end run around an ind

World NewsOct. 24, 2021

Pope urges intervention on Libyan migrant crisis

VATICAN (AFP) -- Pope Francis on Sunday called on the global community to resolve the Libyan migrant crisis, even as EU leaders disagree on how to best manage flows of migrants crossing to Europe. "I express my closeness to the thousands of migrants, refugees and also others in need of protection in Libya. I don't forget you ever. I hear your cry and pray for you," Francis said following his traditional Sunday Angelus prayer on Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican. "So many of t

World NewsOct. 24, 2021

Germany says border protection is 'legitimate'

BERLIN (AFP) -- Germany's interior minister said Sunday it was "legitimate" to protect borders, after several EU states asked Brussels to pay for barriers to prevent illegal migrants from entering the bloc. The call came earlier this month, as Poland proposed building a 350 million-euro ($410 million) wall on its border with Belarus to keep migrants out. The EU accuses the Belarusian authorities of flying migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Minsk and then sending them into

World NewsOct. 24, 2021

[Graphic News] US says ivory-billed woodpecker, 22 other species extinct

　Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The US government declared them extinct. 　It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they’ve exhausted to find these 23. And they warn climate change, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlif

WorldOct. 22, 2021

[Graphic News] S. Korea accounts for one-third of global EV battery market in Jan.-Aug. period

Three South Korean electric vehicle battery makers accounted for about a third of the global market in the first eight months of the year, but they are facing toughening competition with Chinese rivals, a market research firm said. The trio - LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and SK Innovation - accounted for 34.8 percent of the global EV battery market in the January-August period, inching down from 35 percent a year ago, according to the data from SNE Research. LG Energy Solution, which supp

World BusinessOct. 21, 2021

Japan's PM interrupts campaign as N.K. test fires missile

Japan's new prime minister interrupted his first day of election campaigning on Tuesday, as he returned to the capital of Tokyo to deal with rising regional tensions following North Korea's test-firing of a missile earlier in the day. Fumio Kishida's campaign was already off to a rocky start, with media polls showing his support rating sliding. Tuesday was the first official day of campaigning for nationwide legislative elections scheduled for Oct. 31. “I will drastically strengthen ou

World NewsOct. 19, 2021

[Interactive] Hyundai ranks 6th place in global EV market in H1: data

South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor’s electric vehicle sales increased in the first half of the year compared with a year ago, but its global market share fell in the face of toughening competitions with Chinese rivals, industry data showed. Hyundai Motor was in sixth place in terms of global EV sales in the January-June period, one notch down from the fifth position a year ago, according to the data by industry tracker SNE Research. The automaker’s global EV sales jumped 75.6 pe

World BusinessOct. 18, 2021

[Graphic News] Seoul ranks No. 16 in 2021 global startup ecosystem report

Seoul has the 16th-best startup ecosystem among cities around the world, an annual report by a San Francisco-based research firm showed. According to Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2021, South Korea’s capital ranked No. 16 on the list of 280 cities across 100 countries in terms of the competitiveness of its startup ecosystem, up four spots from last year. Seoul first appeared on the list in 2017 and entered the top 20 last year. San Francisco’s Silicon Val

World BusinessOct. 18, 2021

Fears of ‘chaos’ as Italy adopts tough Covid pass regime

ROME (AFP) - Italy will require all workers to show a coronavirus health pass from Friday, one of the world‘s toughest anti-Covid regimes that has already sparked riots and which many fear will cause “chaos”. 　More than 85 percent of Italians over the age of 12 have received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, making them eligible for the so-called Green Pass certificate. 　But according to various estimates, about 2.5 million of the country’s 23 million workers

World NewsOct. 13, 2021

Facing high debt, countries must ‘calibrate’ spending: IMF

WASHINGTON (AFP) - After debt loads surged last year amid the pandemic, governments now must take care to “calibrate” spending, the IMF said Wednesday. 　Global debt in 2020, including public and private borrowing, “jumped by 14 percent to a record high $226 trillion,” according to the International Monetary Fund‘s Fiscal Monitor report. 　Public debt amounts to $88 trillion, close to 100 percent of GDP, and is expected to decline only gradually, said Vitor Gaspar

World NewsOct. 13, 2021

[Interactive] Child labor swells for first time in two decades: UN

  The world has marked the first rise in child labor in two decades and the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more youngsters toward the same fate, the United Nations said. In a joint report, the International Labor Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said the number in child labor stood at 160 million at the start of 2020 - an increase of 8.4 million in four years. The hike began before the pandemic hit and marks a dramatic reversal of a downward trend that h

World NewsOct. 13, 2021

How India marshalled its resources to contain deadly COVID wave

NEW DELHI -- Strong political leadership and earnest implementation of policies by a committed bureaucracy have been two key factors in India’s relative success in containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior health official said. The two key factors, along with the strategy of regular testing for COVID-19 and vaccination, are the weapons that India and other countries can use to stave off a possible third wave, said Pratyaya Amrit, additional chief secretary at the Health Dep

World NewsOct. 12, 2021

[Graphic News] S. Korea top Asian country in global innovation rankings

　South Korea has clinched the top spot in Asia in a United Nations agency’s global innovation rankings, coming in fifth globally. 　In the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2021, Korea was ahead of Singapore, Japan and China. It was behind Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom. 　Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, was in 10th place last year. (Yonhap)

WorldOct. 12, 2021

Journalists from Philippines, Russia given Nobel Peace Prize

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited their fight for freedom of expression, stressing that it is vital in promoting peace. “Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the committee. “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be d

WorldOct. 8, 2021

Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah awarded Nobel literature prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) — UK-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work explores the profound impact of migration on uprooted people and the places they make their new homes, won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of Gurnah’s “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” Gurnah, who recently retired as a

WorldOct. 7, 2021

[Graphic News] S. Korea spends second-most on chip equipment in Q2: report

　South Korea was the world‘s second-largest spender on chip equipment in the second quarter of the year, a report showed, amid a global semiconductor shortage. 　South Korea, home to major memory chip producers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, invested $6.62 billion in chipmaking equipment in the April-June period, up 48 percent from a year ago, according to quarterly billings data from SEMI, a global industry association representing companies in the electronics design and manufactu

World BusinessOct. 6, 2021

Nobel Physics Prize to two climate experts and Italian theorist

STOCKHOLM (AFP) -- US-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems, the jury said. The announcement came a month ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where global warming will top the world agenda. Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, share one half of the 10-million-kronor ($1.1-million, one-million-euro) prize for their research on climate mode

WorldOct. 5, 2021