WASHINGTON — Hanwha Defense USA (HDUSA) and the U.S. Army have officially designated the American version of Hanwha's K9 self-propelled howitzer as the XM1776 Mobile Tactical Cannon (MTC), the company has announced. According to HDUSA, a U.S. subsidiary of South Korean defense giant Hanwha Aerospace Co., the company held a naming ceremony for the XM1776 at the Association of the U.S. Army's (AUSA) 2026 Annual Meeting and Exposition on Tuesday in Washington. In August, HDUSA was selected to provide prototypes based on a wheeled variant of the best-selling K9 Thunder self-propelled artillery system for the MTC program, which aims to develop a highly mobile 155-millimeter artillery system to replace the Army's aging M777 towed howitzers. HDUSA also announced that the U.S. Army has ordered a total of nine prototype XM1776 systems, with an option for nine additional units. The XM1776 is a wheeled artillery system designed to support the U.S. Army's modernization efforts, including improvements in mobility and long-range precision fires capabilities. "The XM1776 Mobile Tactical Cannon represe

When Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Yoo Mi-young was assigned to Udo Island, it was not the well-known tourist destination off Jeju but a much smaller island off Ganghwa in Incheon, near the inter-Korean maritime border. The scenery immediately caught her eye, but so did the significance of serving at one of Korea’s front-line military outposts. It is during nighttime guard duty, with the coastline quiet around her, that Yoo feels the weight of that responsibility. “When I look out over the coast in the stillness of the night, I feel a strong sense of responsibility for guarding the country’s front line,” Yoo said in an interview with The Korea Times. Yoo serves as deputy platoon leader of the Marine Corps’ Udo Guard Unit, part of the Yeonpyeong Unit, where her duties include coastal security operations, training and equipment inspections. Commissioned in July 2023, Yoo said she joined the Marines to challenge herself and serve her country. She was drawn to the demanding training and the chance to push her limits alongside fellow Marines, despite her family’s initial concerns about h

Students from the Department of Smart City Architectural Engineering at Chungnam National University donated all proceeds from the sale of locally themed merchandise at a regional festival to the university’s development fund. The university said five students met with university president Kim Jeong-kyoum on Tuesday and donated 728,000 won ($544) to the fund. The students — Shim Byeol, Park Ji-bin, Oh Yun-seo, Lee Yeon and Jang Seo-hee — were accompanied by their faculty advisers Kim Gyu-young and Lim Seung-cheol. As part of the Living Lab Capstone course, the students designed and sold merchandise at a regional festival as members of a team called “Oncheon Osungi.” Their products combined the appeal of Yuseong Hot Springs with Daejeon’s identity as a science city. The students ran an interactive booth at the 2026 Midsummer Night’s Yuseong Music Festa, held Aug. 7-9. They showcased keycaps inspired by Yuseong Hot Springs and the local specialty Pongdang Bread, as well as merchandise featuring the university mascot, Chacha. The university said the students designed and produce

A parent demands full marks for a written English answer, citing an email from a professor at an American university. In another case, a private academy challenged an English test score, and the dispute later led to a lawsuit over partial credit. These incidents, described in a casebook recently released by the National Secondary School Teachers’ Union, show the challenges facing discussions about introducing written-response and essay questions into Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), potentially aided by artificial intelligence (AI) grading. The casebook accompanied a survey of 2,427 middle and high school teachers conducted from Sept. 7-30. Middle and high school teachers nationwide say persistent grading complaints have pushed them to set questions with fixed answers. They warn that expanding essay-based assessments could worsen disputes and increase their workload. Several teachers described a tension between encouraging diverse, well-reasoned answers and creating grading criteria precise enough to withstand complaints. One English teacher reported that a dispute inv

A Seoul district court on Wednesday sentenced independent lawmaker Kang Sun-woo to 2 1/2 years in prison on charges of receiving money in exchange for an election nomination. The Seoul Central District Court handed down the sentence for Kang, formerly a member of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), also ordering her to forfeit 100 million won ($75,000). Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison term for Kang, accusing her of accepting 100 million won from former Seoul city councilor Kim Kyung in January 2022 in exchange for a DPK nomination ahead of the local elections that year. Kang served as a member of the DPK's nomination committee for Seoul city councilors at the time. Kim was selected as a DPK nominee and was elected in the 2022 local elections. The court sentenced Kim to one year in prison and a former aide to Rep. Kang to an eight-month prison term, suspended for two years, for arranging the meeting between Kang and Kim. The court ordered for Kang and Kim to be immediately placed under custody, citing concerns of flight and possible destruction of evidence. The two were b

Korea is bringing together archivists and cultural experts from 16 Asia-Pacific nations in Jakarta, Indonesia for an international workshop focused on preserving historical records and preparing them for global recognition under UNESCO’s documentary heritage program. The 2026 UNESCO Memory of the World International Capacity-Training Workshop, running from Tuesday to Friday, is hosted by the Korea’s Heritage Service and Korean National Commission for UNESCO at the National Archives of Indonesia. Launched in 2009, the annual program provides practical training for countries seeking to identify significant documentary heritage and prepare nominations for UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, with particular attention to nations underrepresented on the international list. Over 17 years, 18 documentary heritage items from participating countries have been added to the register, while 11 others have entered regional registers, organizers said. This year’s workshop is the largest yet, drawing participants from Timor-Leste, Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Sri Lanka, Uzbek

A special counsel team on Wednesday raided the National Election Commission (NEC) over suspicions of bid rigging involving around 5 billion won ($3.7 million) worth of election supplies. Special counsel Lee Tae-han's team said it sent investigators to the NEC's office and four other locations, including election supplies companies, to search for and seize evidence in connection with the allegations. Lee's team said it has found signs of alleged collusion between the NEC and the companies regarding polling station supplies for the presidential election last year and the local elections in June. The special counsel team launched last month to investigate ballot shortages reported across the country during the June 3 local elections in addition to other allegations of misconduct by the election watchdog.

Employees at a government-funded research institute responsible for national cybersecurity have been disciplined after they were caught playing video games together during work hours. According to data obtained by Rep. Hwang Jung-a of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, from the National Security Research Institute (NSR), an affiliate of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), five employees at the institute's Cyber Security Training Center were disciplined after an investigation found that they had spent as many as 90 hours connected to Battle.net, the online gaming service used for StarCraft, during work hours. StarCraft is a strategy game developed by U.S. video game company Blizzard Entertainment. The five employees repeatedly accessed the game server on their work computers between September and December 2024 when their supervisor was away on vacation or business trips. One employee was connected for as long as eight hours and 53 minutes in a single day. Another was co

President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday appointed the head of the National Tax Service (NTS) as his new chief of staff, his office said. Outgoing chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik announced the appointment of Lim Kwang-hyun as his successor, weeks after he offered to resign amid Lee's falling approval ratings and controversy over the qualifications of two Cabinet nominees, who ultimately withdrew. "(Lim) is a former economic official-turned-politician with both abundant administrative experience and political acumen," Kang told a press briefing at Cheong Wa Dae. "With experience across the National Assembly and government, he is the right person to more broadly incorporate the people's voices into the running of state affairs and speed up state achievements through cooperation between the ruling party, government and Cheong Wa Dae," he said. Lim served in various posts at the NTS before being elected a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea by proportional representation in 2024. He gave up his parliamentary seat upon taking office as NTS chief in 2025. Standing alongside Kang, Lim told

Korea has launched an ambitious national search for candidate sites to construct next-generation multipurpose indoor stadiums, aiming to address a chronic shortage of premier venues capable of hosting international sporting events and global K-pop concerts year-round. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Wednesday that it will accept bids from regional local governments and public institutions through Dec. 8. The government plans to select two candidate sites by the end of December — one for a large-scale dome capable of seating at least 40,000 spectators and accommodating over 50,000 people for concerts, and another for a medium-scale venue designed for 20,000 to 40,000 seats. The multibillion-won initiative, targeted for completion in 2034, reflects the government’s broader policy agenda to expand public access to sports and culture while establishing iconic, world-class landmarks to draw international tourists and stimulate regional economies. The drive comes as Korea’s cultural and entertainment industries grapple with an acute lack of covered, mega-capacity arenas

A POSCO Future M employee introduces an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered integrated materials management system during the company's AI Festival event in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday. The company said Wednesday that the event was held to share employees' achievements in using AI, with the company planning to select outstanding projects and apply them to actual operations by the first half of next year. The battery materials firm is introducing AI agents and AI-based factories across its operations, targeting a 30 percent improvement in manufacturing productivity and a 50 percent reduction in product development time by the first half of 2028.

SK hynix projected Wednesday that the performance scale of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure will grow roughly 20-fold by 2030, driven by rapidly rising demand for AI inference. Ahn Hyun, head of development at the Korean chip giant, made the projection during his keynote speech at the 2026 Semiconductor Exhibition (SEDEX), which opened earlier in the day for a three-day run in southern Seoul. Ahn said the AI inference market is expanding simultaneously in three areas — task complexity, the amount of information processed at a time, and the volume of inference requests. The interaction of the three factors is rapidly increasing demand for AI infrastructure, he said. As demand for AI inference surges, memory is becoming increasingly important for storing and transferring large volumes of data. In particular, the growing capacity requirements of key-value (KV) caches, which store and reuse information previously processed by AI models, are requiring data to be distributed across different types of memory, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM), dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)

Hanwha Group said Wednesday it has appointed an independent director as chair of the board at Hanwha Corp., the group's holding company, adding that other listed Hanwha affiliates will also appoint independent directors as board chairs. During a board meeting, the holding company appointed Kwon Ik-hwan as the new chairman of the board, replacing Kim Woo-seok, who is the company’s construction division CEO. Kwon is a former prosecutor who served as head of the Ministry of Justice's Planning and Coordination Office and chief prosecutor of the Daejeon and Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Offices. Since joining Hanwha Corp.'s board in 2022, Kwon has chaired the internal transactions committee and been a member of the audit committee and environmental, social and corporate governance committee. Hanwha Corp. said Kwon is expected to lead the board's decision-making transparently based on expertise in law and capital markets. The group said defense electronics unit Hanwha Systems and shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean will also appoint independent directors as chairs of their respective boards. Bot

Sung Jung-yong, a veteran bartender educator known in Korea’s drinks industry as a mentor to generations of bartenders, has been inducted into Keepers of the Quaich, one of Scotch whisky’s most prestigious international honorary organizations. Diageo Korea said Wednesday that Sung received the distinction in recognition of his contributions to the Scotch whisky industry and efforts to broaden understanding of whisky culture. Founded in 1988, Keepers of the Quaich is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Scotch whisky’s heritage and standing, with members active in more than 100 countries. Membership is reserved for individuals who have demonstrated sustained expertise and made significant contributions to the industry, with candidates nominated and selected through a rigorous review process. Sung began his career as a bartender at The Shilla Seoul and started training other bartenders in 2008, building a reputation as an influential educator in Korea’s hospitality industry. Since 2014, he has served as Diageo Korea’s brand ambassador and head of the Diag

LG CNS, the information technology services affiliate of LG Group, signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese telecom company KDDI to work together on artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation projects across the Asia-Pacific region, the Korean company said Wednesday. KDDI is one of Japan’s three major telecom operators. It provides consumer mobile and internet services as well as business IT services such as AI, cloud and network infrastructure. It runs business operations at 19 sites in 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The partnership combines LG CNS’ AI and digital transformation expertise with KDDI’s telecom infrastructure and global network to find new business opportunities in AI, smart cities, telecommunications and integrated IT system management. The two companies will explore developing agentic AI services — AI systems that can carry out tasks on their own — tailored to local businesses in KDDI’s regional markets. The services will be based on AgenticWorks, LG CNS’ agentic AI platform. They will also consider working together on autom

Netflix generated more than 1 trillion won ($730 million) in revenue in Korea last year, but sent 81 percent of that sum to its U.S. parent company, leaving its Korean operation with an operating profit of just 20.3 billion won, according to an analysis of its financial statements. Rep. Han Jun-ho of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, analyzed the audit report of Netflix Services Korea and found that the company’s domestic revenue rose to 1.0542 trillion won in 2025, up from 631.7 billion won in 2021. The figures highlight a widening contrast between Netflix’s growth and the financial struggles of domestic streaming platforms, with Tving reporting an operating loss of 69.8 billion won last year and Wavve losing 12.2 billion won. Netflix also dominated paid streaming subscriptions, with a usage rate of 46.7 percent, compared with 13 percent for Tving, according to the Korea Media and Communications Commission’s 2025 survey on broadcast media use. Of Netflix Korea’s 1.05 trillion won in reven

The organizer of the CES technology trade show on Wednesday highlighted Korean companies' innovation in cutting-edge technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), ahead of next year's event. "There are several things Korea does that are so important to CES," Kinsey Fabrizio, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), said during a press conference in Seoul, pointing to the "tremendous amount of innovation" in AI across the country. The 2027 CES will be held in Las Vegas from Jan. 6-9. Another area where Korea stands out is its startup innovation culture, Fabrizio said, noting that startups accounted for about half of the roughly 800 Korean companies that participated in this year's event. "We saw Korea's presence at CES 2026," Melissa Harrison, a CTA vice president, said. She added that a range of Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK hynix, Hyundai Mobis and Kia, are planning to attend next year's show. The press conference came as an increasing number of Korean companies, including those affiliated with SK Group, have withdraw

Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) officially launched its Vietnam subsidiary in Hanoi, aiming to expand financial support for Korean companies operating in the country and serve as a bridge for financial cooperation between the two countries, the state-run lender said Wednesday. The launch ceremony, held in Hanoi on Tuesday, came after the lender completed the establishment process following final approval from the State Bank of Vietnam in April. The subsidiary began operations on Sept. 25. The subsidiary is Vietnam's 10th foreign-owned bank, according to IBK. IBK Vietnam Bank plans to build on the operating experience of IBK's branches in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as the state-run lender's more than six decades of expertise in policy financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The bank will expand its network around major industrial complexes to better serve Korean businesses operating in Vietnam and provide financing to support productive investment and economic cooperation between the two countries. "IBK Vietnam Bank's official launch marks a new chapter in our loca

LG Electronics has built an alliance with Apple in the home artificial intelligence (AI) sector, unveiling a range of internet of things (IoT) devices that will be integrated into Apple's ecosystem. The two companies’ partnership is now extending into the home appliance sector, evolving from component supplies and service integration to jointly developing finished products. For LG Electronics, the collaboration provides access to Apple’s global ecosystem, while Apple can leverage LG’s expertise in home appliances to strengthen its presence in the smart home market. LG Electronics and Apple jointly held a new product showcase in Manhattan, New York, Tuesday (local time), unveiling seven IoT devices. LG Electronics North America CEO Kwack Do-yeong, LG Electronics Home Appliance Solution Platform Business Center Head Jung Ki-hyun and Apple Vice President of Hardware Engineering Matthew Costello attended the event. Dubbed as smart home accessories, the devices include indoor and outdoor cameras, a video doorbell, a smart lock, a smart thermostat and a temperature sensor. They were co-

Foreign embassies in Seoul are quietly monitoring the Korean government’s plan to relocate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Sejong, about 110 kilometers south of the capital, with some expressing concern over the “inconvenience” the move would create for diplomatic activities. Of a total of 44 ministries and agencies subject to relocation, 27 will relocate in two phases in the first and second halves of next year, while another 17 agencies, comprising 6,934 employees, will move in stages by 2031, after new office buildings are constructed. The foreign ministry is among those 17, along with the ministries of unification and national defense. With more than 110 foreign embassies and international organizations and representatives based in Seoul, the announcement has created uncertainty, particularly as no detailed relocation plan has been announced. Most embassies appear to be quietly assessing the situation. One European representative based in Seoul said it was still "too early" to evaluate the impact, adding they may discuss the matter internally as well as with their headquart

The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) on Wednesday called for a thorough investigation after followers of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a nonmainstream religious sect, were found to have joined the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). The DPK confirmed the findings following an internal investigation but did not provide further details, including how many Shincheonji members had joined the party. "We strongly urge the newly established Serious Crime Investigation Agency (SCIA) or the police to swiftly investigate whether (Shincheonji) members joined the Democratic Party of Korea, applying the same standards," PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sig said, referring to an earlier police raid of the PPP's headquarters over allegations of Shincheonji followers being forced to join the party. "Investigators even carried out a search and seizure of our party's membership records in connection with the mass recruitment of Shincheonji members," he added. A joint prosecution-police investigation team has determined that at least 56,472 church members were forced to join the PPP, with the chu

Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul visited an air base in the southwestern city of Gwangju on Wednesday to inspect the readiness of a key Air Force unit as the government plans to relocate the base to support a major semiconductor cluster project, his office said. Kang toured the Gwangju Air Base, home to the Air Force's 1st Fighter Wing, in the namesake city, about 270 kilometers south of Seoul, in a bid to urge troops to cooperate in completing the country's key strategic policy while maintaining a robust readiness posture. The Gwangju Air Base has been picked as the site for the envisioned chip cluster in the Honam region and is expected to be moved to nearby Muan County. "The military should coordinate closely with the defense ministry to follow through on the temporary rearrangement (of the 1st Fighter Wing) and the relocation of the Gwangju Air Base while maintaining a robust aerial defense posture," Kang said. The government plans to temporarily relocate three squadrons of the 1st Fighter Wing to three air bases, located in Yecheon, Seosan and Chungju, respectively, to minimize disru

About 100 small businesses in Seoul have raised a combined 850 million won ($632,000) through a city-backed crowdfunding campaign, helping local entrepreneurs bring their products directly to online consumers, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday. The campaign, called Botaem Sanghoe — which translates to "Helping Hand Shop" — attracted around 15,000 backer pledges. Organized alongside the Seoul Credit Guarantee Foundation, the initiative ran from Aug. 3 to Sept. 18 on Wadiz, Korea’s leading reward-based crowdfunding platform, giving promising small vendors hands-on experience in digital marketing and online sales. Participants included 50 companies from the city’s comprehensive support program for small businesses. The campaign used a preorder model, in which products are made only after customers order them. This lowers upfront production costs and inventory risk, and lets businesses test demand and gather customer feedback before entering new online markets. An alpaca coat by fashion brand Around X raised about 126 million won ($93,800), the most of any product, wit

Kim Ji-yong, a former prosecutor nominated to lead the newly-established Serious Crimes Investigative Agency (SCIA), pledged political neutrality at his parliamentary confirmation hearing on Wednesday, defending his suitability for the post while criticizing practices that have undermined public trust in the prosecution. Speaking before the National Assembly, Kim said he had worked without political bias and did not consider himself unfit to become the inaugural chief of the organization, which will hold investigative authority over seven serious crime categories, including corruption as well as national security violations and cybercrime. His remarks came as he sought to counter allegations that he was a close ally of Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor-turned-president. Kim said that under his watch, the SCIA would not allow politically motivated investigations, amid skepticism among ruling party politicians about his political neutrality. “I take pride in having handled cases according to my convictions (as a former prosecutor), without favoring any political side,” Kim said. Kim r

Seven years ago, a badly injured loggerhead sea turtle washed ashore on the coast of Jeju Island, entangled in abandoned fishing gear and suffering from severe trauma to its flippers, shoulder and esophagus. Following an extraordinary long-term medical saga that involved seven major surgeries, the fully recovered marine creature will finally be released back into the wild Thursday. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said Wednesday that the endangered turtle will be returned to the Pacific Ocean from Gwangchigi Beach in Seogwipo, Jeju Island. The location was chosen for its gentle sandy slope and close proximity to where the animal was originally found stranded in August 2019. The rescue and painstaking rehabilitation were led by Aqua Planet Jeju, a government-designated emergency response facility for marine wildlife. When caretakers first brought the turtle in, it was severely anemic and displayed deep tissue lacerations. Over the years, veterinary teams performed repeated procedures to seal open wounds, extract remaining debris and clear recurring deep-seated infections. To overcome

Navigating municipal waste regulations can be a daunting task for newcomers to any country, often resulting in accidental illegal dumping due to language barriers. To address this challenge, central Seoul’s Jongno District is rolling out intuitive recycling guides in multiple languages accompanied by easy-to-understand illustrations. Beginning Oct. 26, the district office will distribute two new types of public awareness materials: a comprehensive waste separation guide available in Korean, English and Chinese, alongside a visual poster clarifying commonly confused items. The initiative comes as Jongno District’s foreign population steadily climbs toward 15,000 residents. Local authorities recognized that language hurdles and complex disposal schedules were major contributors to improper waste sorting and illegal dumping in residential alleys. To ensure precision, the guides underwent rigorous reviews by environmental and resource circulation experts, while the foreign-language editions received dual inspections from native speakers and professional translation agencies, according to

An appellate court on Wednesday overturned the acquittal of Park Jong-joon, former chief of the Presidential Security Service (PSS), who was indicted for deleting secure phone data involving former President Yoon Suk Yeol and others following Yoon's martial law declaration in 2024. The Seoul High Court sentenced Park to one year in prison for destroying evidence by deleting data from secure phones, reversing a lower court's ruling that found him not guilty of the charges. Park was indicted in December last year on charges of arbitrarily deleting data from secure phones used by Yoon, former National Intelligence Service official Hong Jang-won and former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency chief Kim Bong-sik through a remote logout function following the December 2024 martial law declaration. Special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team had demanded a three-year prison term for Park. The appellate court said it could not rule out Park's intent to destroy evidence when he deleted secure phone data belonging to Yoon, Hong and Kim. Park has been held in detention in a separate case after being sentenced to

A parliamentary committee on Wednesday passed a resolution led by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to condemn North Korea over recent land mine explosions near the inter-Korean border that left three South Korean soldiers injured. The National Assembly's defense committee adopted the resolution, calling the incident a "provocation" that violated the Armistice Agreement that halted the 1950-53 Korean War. In the resolution, lawmakers also called on the government to provide treatment and support measures for the injured soldiers, while working closely with the United Nations Command to present facts regarding the incident to the international community. Lawmakers of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) walked out of the meeting in protest as the resolution was put to a vote. With its passage by the defense committee, the resolution can now be referred to the assembly plenary session for a vote. For weeks, the DPK and the PPP had been at odds over what to include in the resolution, particularly whether to explicitly describe the blasts as an act of provocation by the Nort

President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday called for restructuring Korea's social system to reflect rapid changes in demographics, stressing the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) provides an opportunity to redesign the industrial, employment, education and other sectors. The president made the call during a meeting of the presidential committee on population strategy, attended by government ministers and dozens of citizens and aimed at helping design the country's population policies. Korea has been grappling with a fast aging population, with people aged 65 and older already accounting for more than 21 percent of the total population, making the country a "super aged society," where over 20 percent of its population are aged 65 years or more. Lee called for policies to facilitate "qualitative," as well as "quantitative," population growth, saying the country needs "a major turnaround" in its population policies. "This means, Korea's entire social and economic systems should be redesigned from scratch in accordance with population changes," the president said, citing labor, welfare, e

Firefighters on Wednesday extinguished a blaze at a chemical manufacturing company in the southeastern city of Ulsan that forced thousands to evacuate, officials said, with no casualties reported. The fire at the company facility in Ulsan, about 310 kilometers southeast of Seoul, was fully extinguished at 1:50 p.m. about four hours after it began at 9:41 a.m., according to the Ulsan Fire Headquarters. No casualties have so far been reported from the blaze, which forced 12 company workers and about 7,000 workers at a nearby construction site to evacuate to safe locations. The fire is believed to have erupted as toluene, a flammable material, was being transferred to drum containers. The blaze then spread to storage tanks containing various hazardous materials, including acetone and ethanol. Fire authorities mobilized 201 personnel and 49 pieces of equipment to combat the blaze. Police and fire authorities plan to investigate the exact cause of the blaze.