Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A North Korean man was captured by South Korea’s military on Wednesday after crossing the inter-Korean border, Seoul said. The man was identified by Seoul only as a North Korean male, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Investigations will be conducted “in cooperation with related agencies for details”, it added, including whether the man sought to defect to the South. No unusual activity of the North’s […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak was ordered back to prison Thursday as the country’s Supreme Court upheld a 17-year jail term for bribery and embezzlement offences. The conservative Lee, who served as president from 2008 to 2013, had been out on bail awaiting the ruling and was not in court for the decision. The ruling is not subject to further appeal and at age 78 means Lee is likely […]
by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, who transformed the South Korean firm into a global tech titan, died at the age of 78 on Sunday, the company said. Under Lee’s leadership, Samsung rose to become the world’s largest producer of smartphones and memory chips, and the firm’s overall turnover today is equivalent to a fifth of South Korea’s GDP. Samsung’s meteoric rise helped make […]
by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Samsung Electronics flagged a leap of nearly 60 percent in third-quarter operating profits Thursday, as its mobile and chip business were boosted by US sanctions against its Chinese rival Huawei. The South Korean tech giant said in an earnings estimate that it expected operating profit to reach 12.3 trillion won ($10.6 billion) for July to September, up from 7.8 trillion won in the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will cut short his trip to Asia this week, a department spokeswoman said Saturday, visiting Japan but skipping planned stops to South Korea and Mongolia. The schedule change comes as President Donald Trump is hospitalized near Washington after testing positive for Covid-19. The US top diplomat will be in Tokyo from Sunday to Tuesday, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement, where he […]
by Claire LEE Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare apology Friday over what he described as the “unexpected and disgraceful” killing of a South Korean at sea, Seoul’s presidential office said. Apologies from the North — let alone attributed to Kim personally — are extremely unusual, and the message comes with inter-Korean ties in deep freeze as well as a stand-off in nuclear […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Thursday called for better ties with South Korea in talks with President Moon Jae-in, the first in months between leaders of the countries. Suga, who took office last week, said he told Moon in a phone call that the countries must repair their “difficult” bilateral relations, which are mired in a long-running dispute over issues dating back Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula. “To […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean forces shot dead a South Korean fisheries official who disappeared off a patrol vessel and ended up in Pyongyang’s waters, Seoul’s defense ministry said Thursday, calling it an “outrageous act”. The 47-year-old man had been on board a vessel near the western border island of Yeonpyeong, the ministry said in a statement. After analyzing intelligence, the South Korean military had “confirmed that the North fired at a South […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea will temporarily ease coronavirus curbs in the greater Seoul area after a decline in cases, officials said Sunday. The country largely overcame an early Covid-19 surge with extensive tracing and testing, but has battled several spikes in recent weeks raising concerns of a second wave of infections. The new cases — mainly in the greater Seoul region, home to half the country’s 52 million population — prompted authorities […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s parliament was shut down on Thursday and a group of lawmakers were in self-quarantine as the country recorded more than 400 new coronavirus infections. The South endured one of the worst early outbreaks of Covid-19 outside mainland China before bringing it broadly under control with extensive tracing and testing, but is now battling several clusters mostly linked to Protestant churches. Thursday’s 441 new cases were mostly in the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean state media on Wednesday showed leader Kim Jong Un at a meeting of a top committee issuing warnings about the coronavirus and a looming typhoon, following international speculation over his state of health. Kim’s comments come amid conjecture over his condition after South Korea’s spy agency said he had delegated some authority to his sister Kim Yo Jong to relieve his “governance stress”. A former aide to late […]
by Sunghee Hwang, with AFP Bureaus SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea ramped up coronavirus restrictions on Sunday to try to contain a growing outbreak, as many countries around the world battled worrying surges in infections. The pandemic has killed more than 800,000 people globally, and continues to unleash destruction with areas such as Western Europe detecting spikes in infections not seen for many months. Infections have soared past 23 million globally, and some […]
