The last phone call A father surnamed Choi, who lives in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, received a phone call at around 10:33 p.m. on Saturday from his daughter who had gone to Itaewon to celebrate Halloween. According to reports from Donga Ilbo, he heard noises through the phone that sounded like people fighting. When he asked his daughter what was going on, the line cut off, the father recounte...

South Korea's science ministry is considering to develop a system that could warn authorities of potential crowd crush accidents by using digital data and technology to predict risk elements and the route of crowd movements. The new system was proposed at an emergency safety inspection meeting held by the Ministry of Science and ICT on Monday following the death of 154 people in a crowd crush th...

Hyundai Oilbank has been cooperating across industries to improve its environmental impact, the company said in a statement Monday. The South Korean oil company said it has signed a business agreement with petrochemcial firm Lotte Chemical and retailer LG Household & Health Care on Oct. 17 to kick off its joint ecofriendly plastic project. According to the agreement, the three companies will jo...

US beer brand and official sponsor of the FIFA Qatar World Cup Budweiser is hosting a World Cup viewing event in Seongsu-dong, eastern Seoul, in November, Korea distributor Oriental Brewery said Friday. Attendees can watch South Korea’s national football team play its group matches against Uruguay, Ghana and Portugal on Nov. 24, Nov. 28 and Dec. 2, respectively. The game will be streamed on a l...

South Korean game developer Nexon's mobile game Dungeon & Fighter Mobile has been ranked within the top 10 for sales in the country’s two largest application markets -- Google Play and Apple’s Appstore -- for seven consecutive months since its launch in March. The game is a mobile adaptation of the company’s hit PC game released 17 years ago that recorded 850 million registered users worldwide a...

The Ministry of Science and ICT said Thursday that it is mulling writing a guideline on how tech giant Kakao should compensate its free-service users who suffered damages during its service outage earlier this month. The government hopes that the guideline, which would be the first of its kind, would help expedite the compensation process under a "first compensate" principle, a ministry official...

Blockchain company X-widget said Thursday it is developing a virtual asset information-providing solution called Artificial Intelligence Index (AIIN) by combining artificial intelligence and big data technologies. The service is set to launch in early 2023. The new service will use X-widget’s independent blockchain platform to provide virtual asset-related indexes, a prediction on virtual asset ...

The Korean Society of Ginseng kicked off its 13th International Ginseng Symposium on Tuesday in Seoul, bringing together experts from around the world who study the health effects of ginseng. This year’s event was held under the theme “Ginseng, a phytoceutical for health.” It runs through Friday. The event comprised 13 themed sessions, during which hundreds of scholars gave both oral and poster ...

The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) kicked off its 26th Economic Development Cooperation Fund Annual Workshop on Tuesday, in which 14 government officials from 14 different developing countries are participating. The EDCF Annual Workshop is hosted by Eximbank to introduce development officers from developing countries to Korea’s Economic Development Cooperation Fund. The fund was created ...

Renault Korea said Tuesday it has supplied 67 of its popular sport utility vehicle QM6 to law enforcement, to be used by local detectives and riot police officers. Renault Korea’s QM6 model was recognized by police officials as being fit for police operations for its low noise levels and spacious interior, the automaker explained. QM6 boasts the most spacious back seat among SUVs in the similar...

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Monday they succeeded in developing a brain-machine interface system which interprets brain signals to allow patients to control robot hand movements only by thought. By studying the electrocorticograms of epilepsy patients when they imagine hand movements, research teams led by KAIST’s brain and cognitive engineering pro...

Nearly 7 out of 10 four-year college graduates have practically given up searching for jobs, showed a survey result published Sunday by the Federation of Korean Industries. According to the survey of 2,469 job-seeking graduates and undergraduates by the lobby group, 65.8 percent of respondents had just about stopped job searching, with 31.8 percent only habitually looking for employment, 26.7 pe...

South Korean accommodation sales in the third quarter rose 142.5 percent compared to the same period in 2020 when COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, according data provided Sunday by hospitality tech firm Onda. The results revealed lodging firms' sales have been on a constant rise since the pandemic, with third-quarter sales this year increasing by 75 percent on-year, and 54.4 percent on-quarter...

GS Engineering and Construction subsidiary GS Inima said Thursday it received the Best Private Company Global award on Sunday at the 2022 International Desalination Association World Congress, held in Sydney, Australia. The IDA is a nongovernmental organization that promotes desalination and water recycling. It hosts the IDA World Congress biannually to recognize outstanding companies in the wat...

Local drug developer GI Innovation said Thursday its Merkel cell cancer drug GI-101, used to treat a rare type of skin cancer, has received orphan drug designation from the United States Food and Drug Administration. The designation is given to drugs that treat rare diseases that affect less than 100,000 people. The status gives tax cuts during clinical trials, and waives certain restrictions an...