South Korea's military reported 1,793 additional COVID-19 cases Saturday, raising the total caseload among its service members to 197,227, the defense ministry said. The new cases included 1,339 from the Army, 193 from the Air Force, 90 from the Navy, 80 from the Marine Corps and 86 from units under the direct control of the ministry. There were also five cases from the South Korea-US Combined ...

Asiana Airlines Inc., South Korea's second-biggest carrier, resumed its Incheon-Beijing route Saturday after suspending it for more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An Asiana plane carrying 141 passengers left Incheon International Airport in the morning and arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport, the company said. Before the pandemic, the Incheon-Beijing route was a key r...

A senior US State Department official will visit Seoul next week to discuss issues including Russia's war in Ukraine and North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, the department said. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland will visit Japan and South Korea from Monday to Thursday to meet with her counterparts from the foreign ministries and other government agencies of th...

The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States met in Indonesia and coordinated their responses to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, the foreign ministry said Saturday. The meeting between Kim Gunn, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim was held Friday in Jakarta, where the American dip...

South Korea reported 68,551 new coronavirus cases Saturday as the highly contagious omicron subvariant BA.5 continued to spread. The tally is 1.66 times the number of cases a week ago but similar to the 68,632 new infections reported the previous day. Saturday's cases, including 293 from overseas, raised the country's total caseload to 19,146,180, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency...

South Korean battery maker SK On Co. said Friday it has partnered with Ford Motor Co. and a domestic cathode firm to jointly invest in a cathode materials production facility in the United States. SK On said it has recently signed a letter of intent with Ford and ECOPRO BM Co. to start the construction of the plant in late 2023. The three companies have yet to decide on the ratio of their inves...

South Korea's defense ministry vowed Friday to push for an early deployment of a counter-rocket system to fend off threats from a possible North Korean salvo mixing missiles and long-range artillery that put the greater Seoul area within range. During a policy briefing to President Yoon Suk-yeol, Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup outlined the plan and other defense priorities, including resuming lar...

GEOJE -- The 51-day sit-in protest by subcontract workers at the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) shipyard on the southeastern coast entered a crucial phase Friday, as labor and management were struggling to strike a last-minute deal before the shipyard's two-week summer holiday begins this weekend. If both sides fail to reach an agreement during the day, the sit-in will likel...

The office of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Friday the government approved a plan for the creation of a new military unit to bolster its defenses against chemical, nuclear and biological incidents. The approval was made at a regular interagency anti-terrorism meeting presided over by Han earlier in the day, the office said in a statement. Under the approval, two battalions of the Chemical, B...

South Korea will host a tournament on the top men's tennis tour for the first time in more than a quarter century this fall. The ATP Tour announced Friday that Seoul will host the Korea Open from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 at Olympic Park Tennis Center. It will be the tour's first event in South Korea since 1996. The South Korean capital hosted an ATP-level event from 1987 to 1996. The city has since s...

Samsung Electronics Co. floated an idea of investing nearly $200 billion to build 11 more chip plants in the United States over the next two decades, documents filed with the state of Texas showed Friday. The proposed investment is described in South Korean tech giant's applications filed with the Taylor and Manor school districts, seeking tax breaks for the potential construction of 11 new chip...

After only one match each, the ongoing East Asian football competition has been a tale of two tournaments for the South Korean men's and women's teams. The women's team, coached by Colin Bell, suffered a 2-1 loss to Japan to open the East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) E-1 Football Championship in Japan on Tuesday. With that, hopes of ending a 17-year title drought at the EAFF event all but ev...

Shinhan Financial Group Co. on Friday reported its second-quarter net profit of 1.33 trillion won ($1 billion), up 4.8 percent from a year earlier. Operating income for the April-June period was 1.74 trillion won, up 3.3 percent from a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing. Sales rose 123.1 percent to 18.66 trillion won. The earnings beat market expectations. The average estimate of...

Hyundai Mobis Co., South Korea's leading auto parts maker, said Friday its second-quarter net profit rose 15 percent from a year earlier on shareholding gains from its affiliates. Net profit for the three months ended in June climbed to 769.7 billion won ($587 million) from 669.6 billion won in the same period of last year, the company said in a statement. "Equity gains from affiliate Hyundai M...

INCHEON -- Police referred a university freshman accused of raping a schoolmate and causing her to fall to her death to the prosecution Friday for potential indictment with an additional charge of filming the rape scene, officials said. "I am sincerely sorry," said the 20-year-old student of Inha University in Incheon, west of Seoul, as he was transferred to the prosecution, without responding t...