Members of two South Korean baseball clubs have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, industry sources said Tuesday, though the season will proceed as usual after the rest of their teams all tested negative. According to the sources, one scout from a Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) team in the greater Seoul region tested positive for COVID-19 early Monday. Later Monday, a coach for another team in greater Seoul also got infected with COVID-19, forcing the rest of his team to be tested.

Baseball June 29, 2021

Businesses with five or more permanent employees plan to hire 24 percent more workers in the six-month period ending in September than they did in the same period last year, the labor ministry said Tuesday. The companies planned to hire 296,000 people in the second and third quarters, up 58,000, or 24.2 percent, from the corresponding period last year, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said, citing a survey of around 32,000 businesses with five or more permanent employees. The increase is l

Social Affairs June 29, 2021

South Korean banks' lending rates edged down in May amid a slight decline in deposit rates, central bank data showed Tuesday. The average interest rate charged on new bank loans came to 2.72 percent in May, down 0.02 percentage point from the previous month, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The BOK cut the key interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent in May last year after delivering an emergency rate cut of half a percentage point in March to cushion the impact

Economy June 29, 2021

The self-employed's debts grew 3.1 percent in 2019 from a year earlier as their income declined amid an economic slowdown, data showed Tuesday. Financial institutions' loans extended to the self-employed averaged 172 million won (US$151,800) as of end-2019, compared with 167 million won the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. Self-employed people took out more loans to cover rising costs as they tackled a fall in sales amid an extended economic slowdown. Since last yea

Economy June 29, 2021

South Korea's health authorities said Tuesday arrivals from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and 17 other countries will not be allowed to skip a mandatory 14-day quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated amid the growing concerns over the global spread of the Delta variant. The country earlier announced its plan to allow arrivals who have been vaccinated abroad to enter South Korea without going through self-isolation starting next month. They are still required to visit South Ko

Social Affairs June 29, 2021

A South Korean parliamentary committee on Tuesday approved a resolution condemning Japan's plan to dump contaminated water from its destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. The National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee unanimously passed the resolution, which also calls on Tokyo to take sufficient measures to ensure the safety of radioactive water at the Fukushima plant. The resolution was prepared by ruling and opposition parties after the Japanese government announce

Politics June 29, 2021

Samsung Heavy Industries Co. has signed a deal to lease its drill ship to Italian oilfield services company Saipem for two years, the shipbuilder said Tuesday. The deal to be effective from November 2021 to August 2023 has an option for Saipem to purchase the leased drill ship, it added. But the company did not reveal the value of the deal. The drill ship is one of two drill ships that Swiss-based offshore driller Transocean Ltd. relinquished without specifying the reason in September 2019.

Industry June 29, 2021

BUSAN -- A court sentenced former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don to three years in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting female employees at work, broadening the interpretation of injury to include psychological trauma. The Busan District Court convicted him of sexually assaulting two female employees using his power and injuring one of them. He was arrested in court. "This is a workplace sexual assault case in which the accused used his superior position" for his crime, Judge Ryu Seung-woo

Social Affairs June 29, 2021

LG Electronics Inc. said Tuesday its OLED TVs now support an advanced video processing technology for gamers at 4K resolution with 120Hz refresh rate as the South Korean tech giant tries to beef up its presence in the gaming community. Through a software update, LG said its 2021 OLED TV models, including the G1 and C1, are compatible with Dolby Vision Gaming at 4K, 120Hz, becoming the industry's first TV products to support the solution in such picture settings. Previously, LG's TV supported

Technology June 29, 2021

South Korea is currently facing 216 trade barriers from 28 countries, data showed Tuesday, amid the looming protectionism around the globe. The figure includes 11 additional trade barriers imposed against South Korea in the first half of 2021, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Of the additional regulations, anti-dumping tariffs accounted for eight and safeguard measures took up three. The steel and metal sectors were among major victims, taking up 1

Economy June 29, 2021

Samsung SDS Co., an IT service unit of Samsung Group, on Tuesday said it has signed a partnership with US-based software firm ServiceNow Inc. to expand cloud-based businesses. Under the deal with ServiceNow, Samsung SDS will utilize its IT service management solutions to help enterprise customers' digital transformation efforts. The two also agreed to join forces to develop technologies in the field of artificial intelligence and natural language understanding to seek growth opportunities.

Technology June 29, 2021

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong has entered self-isolation after one of the passengers of a flight he took to return home from a Southeast Asian trip tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday. Chung arrived home Saturday from Indonesia, the last leg of his weeklong visit to three Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Singapore. On Monday, he was informed by the health authorities that one of the flight's passengers tested positive and that he was required to self-

Foreign Affairs June 29, 2021

South Korea's daily new virus cases remained in the 500s for the second day in a row Tuesday on fewer tests, but the loosened vigilance against the pandemic may trigger a further rise in new infections amid a steady increase in cases of COVID-19 variants. The country reported 595 more COVID-19 cases, including 560 local infections, raising the total caseload to 156,167, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The latest figure was up 94 from the previous day. The country a

Social Affairs June 29, 2021

Kia Corp., South Korea's No. 2 automaker, will begin an in-house COVID-19 vaccination program for its workers next month as part of antivirus measures for its factories, company officials said Tuesday. Kia plans to start inoculating employees with Moderna shots at in-house clinics of its plants in Gwangmyeong, Hwaseong and Jeonju on July 30, a company spokesperson said. The automaker will accept reservations from its 23,000 employees working at production lines, the spokesperson said. Kia

Industry June 29, 2021

SK Telecom Co., South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said Tuesday it has teamed up with US call center technology company Genesys to launch a contact center service powered by artificial intelligence (AI). AI call centers have recently risen in popularity as they can reduce tasks handled by traditional call center agents by using speech recognition and natural language processing technology to respond to simple and repetitive user queries. SK Telecom said it has partnered with Genesys, which

Technology June 29, 2021