The following is a chronology of major events leading to the fifth launch of Korea's homegrown space rocket Nuri from Naro Space Center in the country's southern coastal village of Goheung on Wednesday. June 4, 1993 — Korea launches the homegrown one-stage solid propelled science observation rocket, called the Korea Space Rocket-I, after three years of development. July 9, 1997 — Korea launches the homegrown KSR-II two-stage solid propelled science observation rocket. It adopted such advanced technologies as guided control and stage separation compared with the previous version. March 26, 2001 — Korea joins the Missile Technology Control Regime, an informal international association that oversees the proliferation of unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. August 2002 — Korea and Russia confirm plans to develop the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-I (KSLV-I) rocket, with a launch planned for 2005. 2005 — Korea and Russia complete work on critical designs for the KSLV-I. The original launch date was postponed until October 2007. June 11, 2009 — Kor

LS Electric said Wednesday it will set up a joint venture with two affiliates of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group to win power infrastructure projects in Taiwan, expanding beyond its current business of supplying electrical equipment there. The Korean maker of power equipment and automation systems signed the agreement Tuesday with Nan Ya Plastics and KHI at LS Yongsan Tower in Seoul. LS Electric will hold 50 percent of the venture, Nan Ya 40 percent and KHI 10 percent. Nan Ya is a core Formosa affiliate that makes petrochemicals, electronic materials and electronics. It has been building a power solutions business, moving from distribution products into extra-high-voltage transmission equipment and grid stabilization, according to LS Electric. KHI was set up last year with Formosa investment to commercialize technologies developed at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, a state-run research university. The venture will first build local capacity to handle bidding, design and technical support for Taiwanese power projects. It will combine LS Electric's manufacturing and

Paris Baguette, Korea’s largest bakery chain, is expanding its health-focused Paran Label line across all 28 of its Singapore stores — marking the global debut for the brand, named after the Korean word for blue, as local demand rises for breads that balance nutrition and taste. The bakery chain first introduced Paran Label at its Paragon store in Singapore in February before expanding it across its network after testing consumer response. The lineup now includes seven products, five breads and two sandwiches, with Multigrain Rye Bread, Smoked Salmon Ricotta Sandwich and Roasted Chicken Ricotta Sandwich among its best-selling items. After the expansion, average 30-day sales in the sliced-bread category rose 57 percent from the May-to-July average recorded before Paran Label reached all stores, while sales of sandwiches and salads increased 10 percent. Paris Baguette said the brand has drawn customers with products emphasizing dietary fiber, lower sugar, protein and probiotics while retaining varied textures and flavors. The company has also paired breads with sandwiches and salads des

Boston Dynamics has named Rohit Prasad, an artificial intelligence (AI) veteran who helped build Alexa and lead Amazon’s foundation-model efforts, as its new chief executive officer as it moves to fuse AI with advanced robotics. Prasad, who joins the company Wednesday, will lead Boston Dynamics’ push to commercialize intelligent robots and expand physical AI applications across industries, the company said. Before joining Boston Dynamics, Prasad spent 12 years at Amazon, where he served as senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence. He joined Amazon in 2013 during Alexa’s early development and later led work on Amazon Nova, a family of foundation models developed for generative AI applications. Prasad previously spent nearly 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies, where he worked on machine-learning research and applications for government and commercial customers. Boston Dynamics said Prasad’s experience turning AI research into products, platforms and business ecosystems would help accelerate commercialization of intelligent robotic sys

Excess funds held by South Korean businesses hit an all-time high in the second quarter as strong semiconductor exports boosted corporate earnings, central bank data showed Wednesday. Net financial funds -- the value of financial assets minus financial liabilities -- held by non-financial corporations totaled 67.1 trillion won ($50.1 billion) at the end of June, sharply up from 20.8 trillion won three months earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the highest quarterly figure since the BOK began compiling the data in 2009. Households' net financial funds fell to 60.7 trillion won in the second quarter from 79.2 trillion won in the first quarter, partly due to a fall in incomes and more purchases of homes. Financial assets held by the country's households and nonprofit organizations totaled 6,930.2 trillion won at the end of June, up 513 trillion won from three months earlier. Their debts rose by 28.2 trillion won from three months earlier to 2,495.8 trillion won over the cited period. The ratio of financial assets to liabilities owned by households stood at 2

POSCO Holdings has completed the upstream process of its second brine lithium plant at the Hombre Muerto Salt Flat in Argentina, laying the groundwork for an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons of lithium hydroxide, eight years after acquiring mining rights to the site. POSCO Holdings held a completion ceremony for the upstream process on Tuesday (local time) near the salt flat, located at an altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level. The ceremony was attended by POSCO Group Chairman Chang In-hwa, POSCO Argentina President Park Hyun, Argentine presidential chief of staff Karina Milei and Korean Ambassador to Argentina Lee Chong-hwa, among others. "Since I became head of the new business division in 2014, I have personally visited sites to find salt flats suitable for lithium development. It is deeply moving to have overcome numerous challenges in the extreme environment at 4,000 meters above sea level and reach today's completion," Chang said. "We will continue to proactively secure competitive resources, turn them into production and profitability and stably supply the critical mi

LG Electronics reported solid earnings growth in the third quarter, driven largely by strong performance in its home appliance and vehicle component businesses, the company said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. The electronics maker posted an operating profit of 781.8 billion won ($583 million) for the July-September period, up 13.5 percent from a year earlier. Sales rose 8.9 percent to 23.82 trillion won. The company attributed the growth to robust sales of its core businesses and continued expansion of business-to-business (B2B) operations. Its home appliance and vehicle solutions businesses maintained solid profitability, while its TV business also improved profitability from a year earlier. For the first nine months, LG Electronics’ sales reached a record 71.38 trillion won, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit also hit a record 4.03 trillion won, up 55.9 percent. Despite unfavorable external business conditions, including conflicts in the Middle East, the company said it continued to grow sales by maintaining its strong market positions in its core businesses and

South Korea launched its homegrown Nuri rocket Wednesday on its fifth flight to place 15 satellites into orbit, including five that will form part of the country's first domestically launched microsatellite constellation. The 200-ton Nuri blasted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, about 400 kilometers southwest of Seoul, at 12:25 p.m. The payload consists of five New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety (NEONSAT) microsatellites and 10 CubeSats. Nuri's first and second stages will separate about 123 and 268 seconds after liftoff, respectively, with satellite deployment beginning between 810 and 960 seconds at an altitude of around 575 kilometers. The five NEONSATs, Nos. 2 through 6, will be deployed at intervals of 35 to 40 seconds, with Nuri's upper stage rotating by about 45 degrees between each separation to prevent collisions. The 10 CubeSats will then be deployed two at a time at 10-second intervals. After releasing all 15 satellites, Nuri will perform a collision-avoidance maneuver and vent its remaining fuel, completing its flight about 20 min

KT&G has begun full-scale operations at a new cigarette plant in Indonesia, completing a five-country global production network spanning Korea, Indonesia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. KT&G said Wednesday that it held an opening ceremony for the plant in Pasuruan, East Java, on Monday Indonesia is one of the world's major tobacco markets and a key export hub in the Asia-Pacific region. KT&G entered the market in 2011 by acquiring a local company. It has since introduced Esse and Juara, its leading brands in Indonesia. The company ranks fourth in the country's cigarette market. KT&G built the plant to meet growing demand. It signed an agreement with Indonesia's Ministry of Investment and the Investment Coordinating Board in September 2023, began construction in April 2024 and started trial operations in the first half of 2026. Once all nine production lines are installed, the plant will have an annual capacity of up to 21 billion cigarettes. Combined with the existing plant's 14 billion-cigarette capacity, KT&G's total capacity in Indonesia will reach 35 billion cigarettes a year, making

The audit authority has cleared a key hurdle for six stalled public housing projects totaling nearly 4,000 units after the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) sought a preliminary consultation on behalf of builders struggling with soaring construction costs. The KCCI said on Tuesday that the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) determined that project costs for the six sites, covering 3,936 housing units, can be recalculated to reflect current market conditions. The case marks the KCCI’s first use of the consultation program since it was opened to private organizations in May. “Companies have faced difficulties for a long time, but this was not an issue they could easily make a decision on,” Lee Jong-myung, head of the KCCI's industry innovation division, said. “The BAI's decision to open its doors to the private sector has added another channel for resolving corporate difficulties, and its first result will benefit the public through housing supply.” The six projects are part of a public-private housing program, with public agencies providing the land while private bu

Private companies played a significantly greater role in the successful fifth launch of Korea’s Nuri rocket on Wednesday, signaling that the country’s efforts to keep pace with the global shift toward a private sector-led “New Space” era are gaining momentum. The Nuri rocket completed its fifth launch and 20-minute-long flight successfully after lifting off at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City, at 12:25 p.m. The most notable change in the latest launch was not the rocket itself, but the growing presence of private-sector personnel at the launch site. Hanwha Aerospace has overseen the manufacturing of the Nuri rocket as its system integrator since the fourth launch on Nov. 27 last year, but this time, its role expanded to the consoles at the launch control center. Hanwha Aerospace deployed 42 staffers for the fifth launch. They participated in operations at 20 of the 22 consoles responsible for launch vehicle systems, and at 18 of them, Hanwha employees directly operated the controls instead of specialists from the Korea Aerospace Researc

Hackers once had to manually test security defenses, identify vulnerabilities and work out how to exploit them. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) can do much of that work, requiring little human input. That possibility is at the center of Korea's latest security crisis in the financial sector, as investigators have found traces of an AI-powered autonomous penetration-testing tool in a series of recent cyberattacks on the country's major banks. Since last week, Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, Hana Bank, Yegaram Savings Bank and BNK Busan Bank have all reported data breaches, while Woori Bank and NH NongHyup Bank have detected signs of hacking attempts, though no data leaks were confirmed. Shinhan Bank reported that about 25,000 customers were affected, with personal information including names, phone numbers, annual income and loan limits exposed. KB Kookmin reported 119 affected customers, while Hana Bank said personal information belonging to 89 customers was exposed. The hacking spree has drawn particular concern after investigators reportedly found traces of an AI-powered tool known as

SK Energy and HD Hyundai Oilbank may face sanctions from the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that they colluded on gasoline, diesel and kerosene prices, with combined fines potentially reaching 4.63 trillion won ($3.45 billion). The antitrust regulator said Wednesday that it sent a review report to the two companies, formally launching deliberations over the alleged price-fixing case. The FTC said the alleged collusion lasted from February 2022, shortly before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, through March this year, shortly after the outbreak of the war in Iran. The case covers petroleum products that are essential to household and economic activity. Korea's oil refining industry is highly concentrated, with SK Energy, HD Hyundai Oilbank, GS Caltex and S-Oil accounting for about 98 percent of the domestic market. According to the FTC, SK Energy and HD Hyundai Oilbank exchanged information on the prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene, including provisional prices, final prices and sales policies. The regulator also determined that the two companies colluded on prices followin

Countries’ regulations on imported foods containing beef tallow pose a hurdle for Samyang Foods as the Korean instant noodle giant seeks to expand exports of its latest black bean sauce instant noodles, Charrr. The company has established Buldak as a massively popular product around the globe without using beef tallow, selling 10 billion units and generating cumulative sales of 7 trillion won ($5.2 billion) as of June. Unlike the spicy, brothless instant noodle brand, however, Charrr uses beef tallow as a key ingredient to give its sauce a rich, beefy flavor. Charrr is not Samyang’s first instant noodle product using beef tallow. The company launched Samyang 1963 in November last year with the ambitious goal of reviving the “forgotten” taste of its first instant noodle product, Samyang Ramen, which was introduced in 1963 and used beef tallow. Samyang Ramen, introduced by the late company founder Chun Joong-yoon to help feed a population suffering from widespread poverty at the time, remains a cornerstone of the company’s identity. Its use of beef tallow has now become part of

A growing number of customers affected by a string of recent personal data breaches at major commercial banks and other financial firms appear to be turning to class action lawsuits in pursuit of compensation, according to industry officials, Wednesday. The banks have pledged to fully compensate customers whose losses, including those from voice phishing scams, are found to have directly resulted from the leaks. But proving that a loss was caused by a specific data breach can be difficult in practice, and the banks have yet to set out clear standards for determining which claims would qualify, prompting some victims to resort to legal action. Seven financial firms have reported information leaks so far, including three of the country’s largest commercial lenders — Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank and Hana Bank. Shinhan reported the largest breach, affecting around 25,000 people, followed by 119 at KB Kookmin and 89 at Hana Bank. The exposed data includes customers’ names, contact details, resident registration numbers, annual income and loan limits. The combination of personal and fin

Korea’s domestically-developed Nuri rocket successfully carried out its mission in its fifth launch Wednesday, sequentially deploying 14 out of the 15 satellites it carried into their target orbit. The key objective of the fifth launch was to safely deploy the five microsatellite constellations, and its success has demonstrated Korea's increased multisatellite launch capabilities, taking another step toward privately-led commercial launch services. The rocket lifted off from the launchpad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City, at 12:25 p.m. and completed its roughly 20-minute flight at around 12:45 p.m. The rocket separated its first stage about two minutes after liftoff, followed by the second stage about four and a half minutes into the flight. At around 12:40 p.m., it reached an altitude of 570 kilometers and completed the sequential deployment of five New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety (NEONSAT) microsatellites (satellites No. 2 to 6), its primary payload, along with nine of the 10 CubeSats it carried. In

U.S. chip giant AMD announced Wednesday that it plans to establish an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in Korea by the end of this year and hire hundreds of researchers as part of broader AI cooperation between the company and Korea. The announcement came during a meeting between AMD CEO Lisa Su and Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT Ryu Je-myung in Seoul. AMD also plans to help develop graduate-level AI and AI transformation talent and collaborate with Korea on a reference model for heterogeneous AI computing. The model would combine AMD’s central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) with domestically developed neural processing units (NPUs). The meeting, arranged by the Ministry of Science and ICT, served as an interim review of AI cooperation agreed upon by the ministry and AMD during President Lee Jae Myung’s attendance at the San Francisco AI Summit in July. AMD also outlined plans to work with Korea’s private sector to create new business opportunities. At a subsequent roundtable with 13 Korean companies involved in AI infrastructure, c

Click here for more articles by Kormedi.com. For most people, getting ready for a date means taking a shower and perhaps putting on deodorant or perfume. But some are doing the opposite, deliberately avoiding showers and scented products in the belief that preserving their natural body odor could make them more attractive. The practice, known as "pheromone maxxing," has recently gained attention on social media, particularly among young men. The idea is to reduce showering and avoid deodorant, perfume and other fragranced products so that the body's natural scent remains as strong as possible. The trend centers on pheromones, chemical signals released by an individual that trigger specific responses in other members of the same species. Pheromones are well established in many animals and can play an important role in mating behavior. Female silkworm moths, for example, release a sex pheromone called bombykol that can attract males even at extremely low concentrations. Mice also use chemical cues in urine and other secretions to gather information about other animals, including their sex

At an age when most people have long stepped away from professional life, Lee Gil-ya is still thinking about what comes next. The 94-year-old president of Gachon University is Korea’s longest-serving university president. Lee took over the management of Kyungwon University in 1998 and became its president in 2000, later overseeing the integration of four institutions that culminated in the launch of Gachon University in 2012. She has since led the integrated university for nearly 14 years — an unusually long tenure in Korea, where university presidents typically serve relatively short terms. She attributes her forward-looking approach to decades spent building hospitals and educational institutions, where successes and failures alike taught her to recognize change early and act quickly — an approach now shaping Gachon University’s push to stay ahead in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. “Hardship itself is a kind of success. It becomes the foundation for success,” Lee said in a recent interview with The Korea Times, stressing that failures and setbacks are experiences peo

A police officer in Seoul has been indicted for using artificial intelligence (AI) to create and spread deepfake videos of people he knew, prosecutors said Wednesday. The Busan District Prosecutors Office said the officer, stationed at Seoul's Dongdaemun Police Station, manufactured roughly 400 such videos and distributed about 50 of them between March 2022 and August this year. He was earlier arrested and detained by investigators from the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, following a monthslong undercover investigation launched in December 2025 to verify suspicions that illegal, exploitative videos were being circulated via Telegram. The police officer was later found to have been probed for a similar offense before joining the police, but the prosecution decided against indicting him at that time. The officer was also charged with possessing about 5,600 illegally filmed videos, including about 1,600 that involve child abuse, and producing about 10 illegally filmed videos using his mobile phone.

The Unification Church foundation tried to dispose of assets worth 52.3 billion won ($39 million) while it was under investigation over corruption charges linked to former President Yoon Suk Yeol, a lawmaker said Wednesday. The Foundation for the Support of HSA-UWC, run by the Unification Church, filed two applications with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in December and March to dispose of its land and buildings, but both were rejected, Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea said, citing reports submitted by the ministry. By law, nonprofit organizations, such as religious foundations, must obtain approval from the ministry before disposing of their core assets, including land and buildings. The foundation applied in December to dispose of assets worth about 52 billion won in Seoul. The ministry rejected the request, however, saying there was insufficient justification for selling high-value assets without a specific plan for their use at a time when the foundation and its affiliates were under investigation by a special counsel and police. It submitted a se

Deann Borshay Liem spent much of her childhood believing she was an orphan. Adopted from Korea to the United States in 1966, Liem discovered in the early 1980s that her birth mother and siblings were alive. She also learned that her identity had been switched with another child during the adoption process and that her adoption documents had been falsified. That discovery found its way into Liem's work as a documentary filmmaker, through which she explored her own past and the broader history of Korea's overseas adoptions. "Trying to understand the truth about my adoption was part of the motivation for making my first film 'First Person Plural'," Liem said in a recent email interview with The Korea Times. Released in 2000, the documentary followed her search for and reunion with her Korean family. In 2010, she made "In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee," which traced the identity of the girl whose name had been substituted for hers. "These two films were intimate first-person explorations of my adoption and a means to recuperate my personal history and identity," she said. Her work also extended b

South Korea has added three more municipalities to its list of "depopulation" areas, raising the number of cities, counties and wards facing risk of regional extinction to 92, officials said Thursday. The interior ministry newly designated Geumjeong Ward of the southeastern city of Busan, Dongducheon, just north of Seoul, and the southeastern city of Tongyeong in addition to the country's existing 89 depopulation areas. The ministry first announced the list of depopulation areas in 2021 as part of efforts to provide intensive support and help the areas combat shrinking populations. South Korea has been struggling with chronically low childbirths and an overcrowded capital region, which have left many areas struggling to overcome declining populations. The updated list includes 16 areas from the southwestern province of South Jeolla, 15 from the southeastern province of North Gyeongsang, and 12 each from southeastern South Gyeongsang Province and northeastern Gangwon Province. It also includes 10 from southwestern North Jeolla Province, nine from central South Chungcheong Province and six

Under newly tightened anti-scalping laws, Korean authorities referred 170 high-volume ticket resellers to police on Wednesday, targeting an illegal trade estimated at more than 1 billion won ($770,000). The sweep marks the first major enforcement action under amended legislation that bans reselling tickets above face value, regardless of whether automated buying software was used. The move follows an unprecedented wave of public tips: Between Aug. 28, when the law took effect, and Oct. 1, authorities received over 68,000 complaints — averaging roughly 2,000 a day, a seventeenfold surge compared to last year. Cooperating with online secondary ticket platforms, regulators blocked around 30,000 suspicious posts and obtained transaction data to identify the most severe offenders. The suspects, comprising 121 sellers in sports and 49 in entertainment, allegedly offered 11,032 tickets. In one extreme instance, a single individual offered more than 1,000 tickets with a combined listing price exceeding 100 million won. “Ticket scalping is a clear criminal act that deprives creators and athl

The number of teenagers apprehended by police for drug-related offenses in the first seven months of this year reached nearly 80 percent of last year's annual total, a lawmaker said Wednesday, citing data from the Korean National Police Agency. According to the police data released by Rep. Kim Jun-hyuk of the ruling Democratic Party, 370 teenagers were apprehended for drug offenses between January and July, equivalent to 78.7 percent of the 470 teenagers apprehended for such offenses throughout last year. The number of teenage drug offenders stood at 309 in 2021 and 294 in 2022, but surged to 1,066 in 2023. It subsequently decreased to 442 in 2024 before rising again to 470 last year. The total number of drug offenders rose from 10,626 in 2021 to 12,387 in 2022 and 17,817 in 2023. The number then fell to 13,512 in 2024 and 13,353 last year, while 8,426 offenders were apprehended in the first seven months of this year. Students accounted for a significant share of those apprehended. As of July this year, 295 students had been apprehended for drug offenses, or 63 percent of the 468 students

Sejong University ranked eighth in Korea and 281st globally in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027. With an overall score of 55.8 points, the university placed among the top 10 of the 44 Korean universities evaluated by the U.K.-based rankings agency. The university, which was listed in the 251-300 band last year, ranked 281st globally this year among the 2,297 universities evaluated worldwide. Sejong University said the results reflected its strong performance in the research quality category. It received 90.5 points in the category, the highest among Korean universities. The university became the only Korean university to score above 90 in the category, highlighting its strength in research quality. The category assesses factors including citation impact, which reflects the number of citations per publication; research strength measured by Field-Weighted Citation Impact; research excellence, which evaluates the proportion of a university’s publications among the top 10 percent of the most cited papers; and research influence. The university also performed st

An appellate court overturned a lower court ruling Wednesday, acquitting former President Yoon Suk Yeol of charges related to receiving free opinion polls ahead of the 2022 presidential election in violation of the political funds law. The Seoul High Court found Yoon not guilty of violating the Political Funds Act, which bans improper political donations, reversing the Seoul Central District Court's conviction in July that had sentenced him to two years in prison. Following the appellate ruling, special counsel Min Joong-ki's team indicated it would file an appeal to the Supreme Court, while Yoon's legal team welcomed the acquittal. Yoon had been indicted on charges of colluding with his wife and receiving 58 opinion polls worth about 270 million won ($202,000) in total for free from self-proclaimed power broker Myung Tae-kyun between April 2021 and March 2022. The appellate court ruled that Myung's provision of opinion polls could not be seen as political donations under the political funds law as they could not be categorized as having a benefit in terms of property. "While the politica

U.S. Brig. Gen. Robert Brown has assumed duties as the new commanding general of the 2nd Infantry Division/Korea-U.S. Combined Division, the U.S. Army unit in Korea said Wednesday. A ceremony marking the assumption of command was held at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, about 60 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the 2nd Infantry Division. Brown assumed the command from Brig. Gen. Jason Rosenstrauch, who has served as acting commanding general since July 24. "To guarantee peace on this peninsula, we will have the courage to train for the realities of war," Lt. Gen. Joseph Hilbert, commanding general of the U.S. Eighth Army said. "Todd, I've got the absolute confidence in your ability to lead this combined division. You've got the experience, the drive and the warrior spirit to take this formation to new levels," Hilbert added, referring to Brown by his nickname. "I understand the power of our alliance," Brown said. "It is the honor of a lifetime to take command of this storied division." The 2nd Infantry Division/Korea-U.S. Combined Division is the last remaining permanently forward-stat

Prime Minister Han Seong-sook said Wednesday that South Korea should keep asking North Korea to apologize over the recent land mine blast that blew off the ankle of a South Korean military officer at the heavily armed border between the two sides. South Korea has determined that land mines deliberately planted by North Korea on the South's side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) were the cause of the Sept. 21 blast that left three South Korean soldiers wounded, two of them seriously. One of the two seriously wounded, a lieutenant colonel, had one of his ankles blown off in the explosion. South Korea's military has demanded North Korea apologize, but the North has denied any involvement, with Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, accusing Seoul of fabricating the findings and warning of "merciless" retaliation if the South takes any corresponding actions. On Wednesday, the prime minister said she believes there should be an apology from the North. "Now that it has been clearly revealed that this is North Korea's fault and that they committed this, I think there need t

Korea will speed up efforts to increase its renewable energy capacity to at least 100 gigawatts by 2030, with 1 quadrillion won ($746.99 billion) in government-led investment planned over the next decade. The 100-gigawatt goal is a key part of the Korean Green Transformation (K-GX), a strategy unveiled Wednesday that is aimed at achieving carbon neutrality and economic growth at the same time. The strategy seeks to make Korea one of the world’s top three green manufacturing powers by developing industries such as hydrogen-reduction steelmaking, next-generation solar cells and all-solid-state batteries. “The green transition is a sure strategy for the future that will secure international competitiveness while protecting people’s lives and livelihoods from the climate crisis,” President Lee Jae Myung said during a public briefing on the plan. The briefing was attended by about 80 people, including senior government officials, Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Chey Tae-won, representatives of Hanwha Qcells, POSCO Holdings, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, indus