Lee Heon-uk, the newly appointed CEO of the Gyeonggi Urban Innovation Corporation, has mapped out three management strategies: expanding the housing supply, creating better conditions for job creation, and governing GICO as an innovative and responsible body. “Speculative real estate investment is not a new problem,” Lee said. “With the skyrocketing prices, apartments are especially a problem, t...

Hollywood actress Emma Stone acted a BTS fangirl in a Saturday Night Live promo video for the episode she will be hosting. SNL released on Thursday on its YouTube channel a teaser clip featuring the actress and cast member Cecily Strong surrounded by the seven bandmates, welcoming the members, and at the same time, going crazy over them. (SNL YouTube) In another clip released the day before, t...

A motel employee in his 40s has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for illicitly recording sounds made by guests inside the rooms over three years. The Seoul District Court said Tuesday it ordered imprisonment for the 46-year-old man for intrusion and infringement of the Protection of Communications Secrets Act. Between December 2015 and October last year, the man made 21 audio recordings of...

Local authorities in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, said Tuesday that they had opened an investigation into the activities of a South Asian woman who died last Wednesday after receiving an AIDS diagnosis April 1. The woman, who was in her 40s and worked as a masseuse, had been hospitalized in March with signs of pneumonia. The police are attempting to determine where the deceased woman had t...

An appeals court in Busan has upheld a fine of 1.5 million won ($1,318) for a man in his 20s on the charge of illicitly filming a couple kissing in a club. The Busan District Court said Sunday it found the 21-year-old man guilty of intentionally taking the video, upholding the lower court’s decision that he should be fined and undergo 24 hours of a sexual violence treatment program. The man was...

The retro fever can be best felt at the Dongmyo market, one of the biggest flea markets in Korea where fashionista visitors have sharply increased since last year. “Visitors surged suddenly after September last year, after the market was featured on several popular TV shows,” said Park Choon-ha, a vintage clothes shop owner at the market. For Fila, the sportswear brand which last year led the u...

South Korea’s overall industrial output dropped 0.7 percent in November, with production in mining, manufacturing and service output declining, data showed Friday. Mining and manufacturing output fell 1.7 percent, with production in chips and communications equipment decreasing 5.2 percent and 14.4 percent, respectively. Output in the service sector also dropped 0.2 percent from the previous mo...

South Korea’s leading automaker Hyundai Motor will start global sales of its limited-edition Kona Iron Man, inspired by the Marvel character, next month, the company said Thursday. A total of 7,000 units of the special-edition model will go on sale in countries including the United States, China and those in Europe, with 1,700 allotted solely for Korea. This is the world’s first vehicle incorpor...

Construction of the northern section of Great Train Express Line A was set to break ground Thursday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Tuesday. GTX, linking southern and northern Gyeonggi Province with Seoul, is a high-speed train service designed to shorten the time for residents commuting from the outskirts of the capital area to central Seoul. The express tra...

Stroking down the plush set of colorful fibers, it is hard to tell they could be anything but fur. Hanging in the corner of an ethical fashion store in Dongdaemun, the fur-free fur coats and silk-free silk robes are soft and luxurious, but without the cost of brutality against animals. Striving to spare harm inflicted on animals for the sake of style, vegan fashion has been spreading in South Ko...

Residents of the South Korean capital earned the highest average incomes last year, data showed Friday. According to Statistics Korea, Seoul topped the list of 16 cities and provinces in per capita disposable income for a second consecutive year. Disposable income, also called disposable personal income, is the total earnings a household makes that are available to save or spend after taxes and...

South Korea aims to have 430,000 electric cars and 65,000 hydrogen-fueled cars on local roads by 2022, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Tuesday. This is a big jump from previous targets, which were 350,000 electric cars and 15,000 hydrogen-fueled cars in four years. For the same period, the ministry also raised the target for exports of electric cars sevenfold to 250,0...

Hyundai Glovis has sold a record-breaking 1 million second-hand vehicles via auctions as of the end of November, according to the company on Tuesday. The logistics unit of Hyundai Motor Group has auctioned 1,000,382 used cars since it first started its automobile auction service in 2001. In the past six years, the company has seen an average 4.8 percent rise in the number of used cars sold via ...

South Korean defense companies’ operating profits nose-dived last year due to a significant drop in exports and an increase in R&D costs, data showed. According to the Korea Defense Industry Association, the combined operating profits of its 93 member companies amounted to 60.2 billion won ($53.06 million) in 2017, an 88 percent decrease from 503.3 billion won in 2016. Revenue also dropped 13.9...

Leading South Korean cosmetics company Amorepacific said Wednesday that its Sulwhasoo brand’s Essential Lip-serum Stick recently saw a surge in popularity after Song Hye-kyo used the product on hit TV show "Boyfriend." Sulwhasoo also in September released its Essential Lip Mask, which comes in two varieties: for moisture and recovery. The product container was made to resemble Korea’s traditiona...