An appellate court on Thursday upheld a prison term for a hunter who shot and killed a taxi driver, mistaking the victim for a boar. The 73-year-old professional hunter was sentenced to one year and four months in prison for murder by occupational negligence at an appellate trial in the second criminal appellate division of Seoul Western District Court on Thursday, reducing the sentence by four months from the lower court’s ruling. The shooting took place around 8 p.m. on April 29 during a

Twice is making a comeback on March 10 with its 12th EP “Ready To Be,” said label JYP Entertainment on Friday. The EP comes about seven months since its previous album “Between 1＆2” that notched third place on Billboard 200, its third entry among top ten on the chart. The 11th EP was the fifth most-sold album in US last year, according to music sales data provider Luminate. The group dropped the English-language single “Moonlight Sunrise” last month as a pre-

South Korea and the US on Friday staged another military air exercise over the west coast of South Korea by mobilizing their stealth fighters, just two days after US strategic bombers flew to the Korean Peninsula for combined aerial drills. The air combat exercise involved F-22 and F-35B advanced stealth fighters and F-16CM fighting aircraft of the US Air Force and South Korean Air Force’s F-35A stealth fighter jets, according to South Korea’s Air Force. “The combined exercise

Shin Chun-soo, chief producer of OD Co., has been dealing with thyroid problems recently, a condition he described as even harder to deal with than his open-heart surgery two years ago. Shin confesses to being less and less stimulated by company. Once an extrovert, he has retreated to literature and musical books in his enduring search for inspiration. But when he talks about musicals and his upcoming projects in and outside Korea, his face lights up. Shin was originally a wannabe movie director

The presidential office said Friday it has filed a complaint against a former spokesperson for the Defense Ministry for libel, accusing him of making a false claim that its decision to relocate President Yoon Suk Yeol's residence to Yongsan, central Seoul, was linked to a fortune teller whom the opposition party suspects the president of having ties with. The office also sued for libel two other reporters -- from News Tomato and Hankook Ilbo -- for writing about the ex-spokesman's clai

South Korean internet giant Naver said Friday it will launch its own generative pretrained transformer, or GPT, for search functions by the end of June, as OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has been taking the tech world by storm. “We are gearing up to handle new search trends, such as the generative AI that is gaining a lot of attention now. And we plan to introduce our own upgraded version of SearchGPT in the first half of this year,” Chief Executive Officer Cho

Korean biopharmaceutical firm SK Bioscience is expected to log a sharp decline in its sales and operating profit for 2022, as demand wanes for COVID-19 vaccines, its key source of revenue, according to a report from a local securities firm on Friday. The company’s annual sales for last year are expected to drop 49 percent on-year to 474.2 billion won ($385.7 million), while its operating profit is also expected to plunge 70.3 percent to 141 billion won, the report released by Meritz Securi

Three members of the K-pop boy band Stray Kids have become official members of the Korea Music Copyright Association. KOMCA recently announced a list of 25 musicians who have been promoted to regular members, and among them were Stray Kids' Bang Chan, Changbin and Han. Since the beginning of the band's career in 2018, the three members have been writing almost all Stray Kids songs under their producing unit name 3Racha. Their songs include the act's chart-topping hits "Hellev

Former minister says he will appeal and continue fight against politically motivated prosecution

South Korean auto parts manufacturer SNT Dynamics said Monday it signed an export deal with Turkish commercial and military vehicle manufacturer BMC to supply automatic transmissions to produce tanks for the Turkish government. BMC is the firm in charge of delivering 1,000 Altays, a Turkish battle tank, to the government starting from this year under a Turkish-Qatari partnership. The Altay project, pushed forward by the Turkish government, has faced supply issues in the past. BMC has been seekin

South Korea and the United States are in talks over a possible state visit to Washington by President Yoon Suk Yeol in the first half of the year, a diplomatic source said Friday. If it materializes, it would be the first state visit to the United States by a South Korean president in 12 years. President Lee Myung-bak was the last president to pay such a visit to Washington in 2011. The source said the allies are keeping other options open, such as an official visit or a working visit. April is

A lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party on Friday countersued the office of President Yoon Suk Yeol for accusing him of libel after he raised stock manipulation allegations involving the first lady. Rep. Kim Eui-kyeom, the Democratic Party spokesperson, filed a complaint against the presidential chief of staff Kim Dae-ki with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on charges of making false accusation. Earlier this week, Yoon's office sued the Democratic Party spokesperson on charg

South Korea's financial regulator said Friday that local credit card firms can introduce Apple Pay, the long-awaited mobile payment service of US tech giant Apple Inc., as they have followed relevant procedures. There have been reports for months that Hyundai Card Co., a local credit card unit of Hyundai Motor Group, is in talks with Apple over the launch of Apple Pay that allows customers to make payments using iPhones and other Apple devices. Market watchers initially expected the service

Citibank Korea announced Friday that it signed a syndicated loan agreement with Posco Argentina to support the development of a salt lake with lithium reserves for Posco Holdings. As a joint mandated lead arranger, Citibank arranged a $412 million (505.4 billion won) syndicated loan for Posco Argentina with support from Korea Trade Insurance Corp. The agreement was reached on Jan. 25. “This deal is meaningful as it provides financing support for enhancing Korean companies’ competitiv

South Korea’s landmark illuminated billboard in southern Seoul will present “Youth” by acclaimed German artist Anne Imhof every day at 8:23 p.m. throughout the month, inspiring young people to hold out hope despite frustrating situations. The presentation is scheduled to kick off at 8:23 p.m. on Friday at Coex K-Pop Square in Gangnam, Seoul, which is the largest light-emitting diode billboard in the country. The work will also be shown at 8:23 p.m. in Hong Kong, London, Berlin,