1.A U.N. General Assembly committee on Wednesday passed a resolution on North Korean human rights for the 20th consecutive year, calling for the U.N. system as a whole to continue to address the North's "grave" situation "in a coordinated and unified manner." 2.The Korean Railway Workers' Union on Thursday said they will launch an indefinite general strike on December 5th to demand higher pay and a bigger workforce. 3.A number of Western embassies in Kyiv said they would close on Wednesday for security reasons, with the American delegation saying it had received a warning of a potentially significant Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital. The U.S. said it had reopened its embassy in Kyiv late on Wednesday.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol wrapped up visits to Peru and Brazil on Tuesday, where he met with leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Lima and joined the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro during the six-day trip. 2.The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that South Korea's economy is forecast to grow 2 percent next year, citing downside risks including a slowdown in trade and heightened geopolitical tensions. 3.According to the French news agency AFP on Tuesday, Ukraine has reportedly fired the U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System into Russia for the first time since U.S. President Joe Biden authorized their limited use.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged Monday that South Korea will provide 10 million U.S. dollars worth of humanitarian aid to address the hunger crisis in Africa as a member of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, which was launched at the start of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2.The Suwon District Prosecutors Office on Tuesday indicted opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on charges of embezzling 106.53 million won, or roughly 76-thousand-600 U.S. dollars, from the Gyeonggi provincial government by misusing corporate cards and an official car during his term as governor. 3.The presidential office said Monday that South Korea was given prior notice by the United States on its reported decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
1.The leaders of South Korea, the United States, and Japan on Friday held a trilateral meeting in Lima on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In a joint statement, they announced the establishment of a secretariat for trilateral cooperation, and condemned North Korea and Russia’s decision to “dangerously expand” the war in Ukraine. 2.The Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday condemned North Korea for “crossing the line” with its continued sending of trash-filled balloons to South Korea, and warned that all responsibility “lies within the North.” 3.U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. for limited strikes inside Russia in response to North Korea’s deployment of troops to aid Moscow’s war effort.
1.The Seoul Central District Court on Friday sentenced opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung to a suspended one-year prison term for violating the Public Official Election Act during his previous presidential campaign. 2.According to a U.S. Treasury Department report on Thursday, the U.S. has put South Korea back on its list of countries to monitor for their foreign exchange policies, a year after the Asian country's exclusion from the list. 3.President Yoon Suk Yeol landed in Lima, Peru, on Thursday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. On the sidelines of the multilateral forum, President Yoon is set to hold separate talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday departed for South America to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Group of 20 summits. President Yoon is scheduled to first land in Lima, Peru, to participate in the APEC summit, then travel to Rio de Janeiro for the G-20 meeting. 2.Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok said Thursday the government will take active steps, if necessary, to address excessive volatility in the foreign exchange market. Since Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election last week, the local currency has been fluctuating around the psychologically significant level of 1,400 won against the U.S. dollar. 3.The annual college entrance exam kicked off nationwide Thursday. Choe Joung-chul, head of the CSAT question-setting committee, said during a press conference that extremely difficult "killer" questions were excluded from this year's exam.
1.The benchmark KOSPI on Wednesday plunged 2-point-64 percent to close at 2-thousand-417-point-08, with the market cap falling below 2,000 trillion won. 2.The United States confirmed Tuesday that North Korean troops, who have been deployed to Russia's western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat operations against Ukrainian forces. 3.South Korea's government said Tuesday all aircraft takeoffs and landings across the nation will be temporarily prohibited to keep noise down during this year's annual College Scholastic Ability Test held on Thursday. South Korean banks will also begin operations an hour later than usual.
1.North Korea's state media reported Tuesday that the treaty on "comprehensive strategic partnership" between North Korea and Russia was ratified the previous day as a decree by North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. 2.National Security Adviser Shin Won-sik said Tuesday South Korea is no longer a "one-sided beneficiary" of the bilateral alliance with the United States, vowing to work with the incoming U.S. administration for the denuclearization of North Korea. 3.The United Nations annual climate summit, COP29, began on Monday in Azerbaijan's capital Baku amid the re-election of Donald Trump as United States president, who has expressed his intention to walk out of the landmark Paris Agreement for the second time.
1.A consultative body involving the ruling People Power Party, the government and doctors' groups, was launched on Monday to seek to resolve a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors, with the aim of producing "meaningful" results by late December. 2.According to Russia's state-run TASS news agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday has signed into law a treaty on the country's strategic partnership with North Korea, which includes a mutual defense provision. 3.According to the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase on Sunday, the price of Bitcoin surpassed the 80-thousand-dollar mark for the first time just days after Donald Trump’s reelection to the U.S. presidency.
1.Two people died and 12 others remain missing after a fishing boat sank off the southern island of Jeju on Friday. The Coast Guard said a search is underway, and that the 12 missing are 10 South Koreans and two Indonesians. 2.The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to the 4.50 to 4.75 percent range, marking the second consecutive reduction following a jumbo 50-basis-point cut in September. 3.The Associated Press reported Thursday that Korean American congresswoman Young Kim has won a third term in the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday’s general elections, serving California’s 40th District.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday held a public address and press conference to mark nearly two-and-a-half years in office. After apologizing for “causing concerns” regarding allegations that first lady Kim Keon-hee interfered in party politics, Yoon laid out his plans for the remainder of term in office. 2.Principal deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told reporters on Thursday that President Yoon Suk Yeol spoke on the phone with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to congratulate him on his reelection. The two reportedly have agreed to hold an in-person meeting at an early date. 3.Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday that North Korean troops were engaged in combat in Russia's Kursk on November 4th for the first time.
1.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday confirmed the Ukrainian military's first combat engagement with North Korean troops, after a U.S. State Department spokesperson said Monday that as many as 10-thousand North Korean troops are in Russia's western front-line Kursk region. 2.The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Andy Kim, a third-term congressman, won a Senate seat for New Jersey in the U.S. general election, making history as the first Korean American elected to the upper chamber of Congress. 3.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after months of clashes over domestic politics and Israel’s war efforts. In a recorded statement Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said that “trust between me and the minister of defense has cracked.”
1.The presidential office said Monday that President Yoon Suk Yeol will address the South Korean people and hold a press conference on Thursday at 10 a.m. to discuss the future direction of state affairs and address a series of controversies. 2.South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, just hours ahead of the U.S. presidential election. 3.Voting to elect the 47th president of the United States began at 2 p.m. Korea time. Though voting schedules vary from state to state, polls generally open between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., and start closing at around 7 p.m., local time.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday called for thorough countermeasures against the “illegal” military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, saying the deepening alliance poses a significant security threat to South Korea. 2.South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and his Canadian counterpart, Bill Blair, held talks in Ottawa on Friday and condemned North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia. 3.U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are heading into election day neck-and-neck in national and state polls. Experts say that the seven swing states will determine who wins in the polls after they close on November 5th.
1.According to Seoul’s foreign ministry on Friday, South Korea's foreign minister Cho Tae-yul met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington the previous day on the sidelines of the “two-plus-two” meeting, and agreed to closely work together to respond to the North Korean troops' possible participation in Russia's war in Ukraine. 2.The Czech antitrust watchdog, the Office for the Protection of Competition, said Thursday it denied complaints from the United States' Westinghouse and France's EDF over the Czech government's decision to pick Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power as a preferred bidder to build two nuclear units. 3.According to data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Friday, South Korea's exports extended on-year gains for the 13th straight month in October, on the back of robust performance of semiconductors. Outbound shipments rose 4-point-6 percent on-year to 57-point-5 billion U.S. dollars last month.
1.South Korea's military said that North Korea fired what appeared to be a new type of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Thursday, in a move apparently aimed at bolstering Pyongyang's leverage ahead of the U.S. presidential election next week. 2.The Czech Republic's antitrust authority,, on Wednesday imposed a temporary hold on a deal to build two nuclear reactors, for which a South Korean consortium was chosen as the preferred bidder in July. 3. According to data by Statistics Korea on Thursday, South Korea's industrial output fell 0.3 percent from a month earlier in September on dwindling production in the semiconductor. Retail sales, a gauge of private spending, also went down 0.4 percent amid signs of weaker economic growth.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday that North Korean troops in Russia could be deployed to battlefield zones in Ukraine sooner than expected, describing it as a "grave" situation. Yoon shared the assessment during a phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 2.The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on Tuesday urged the Japanese government to continue its efforts to ensure the rights of victims to claim compensation related to the issue of “comfort women” during Japan’s colonial rule. 3.The education ministry decided Tuesday to allow medical schools the freedom to grant academic leave requested by students, as most medical students have been boycotting classes for months in protest against the increase in the medical school admission quota.
1.President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting that North Korea's troop deployment in Russia constituted security threats to both South Korea and the world, denouncing what he calls "illegal" military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow. 2.North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday reported that North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, left Pyongyang to visit Russia amid international criticism over the North’s participation in the war between Russia and Ukraine. 3.The South Korean Embassy in China said Monday that a South Korean man has been detained on espionage charges in China, the first time for a South Korean in such a case. The suspect in his 50s, whose identity has been withheld, was reportedly arrested late last year and had been working at a semiconductor company.
1.South Korea’s National Security Advisor Shin Won-sik, and his U.S. and Japan counterparts, held a trilateral meeting in Washington last Friday to address concern over North Korea’s recent troop deployment to Russia. 2.South Korea’s finance minister Choi Sang-mok on Monday vowed to enhance market monitoring and swiftly respond to excessive volatility under contingency plans amid weaker growth data and global uncertainties. 3.Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party, lost its parliamentary majority at Sunday's national election, as voters punished the party over a funding scandal and inflation. The results raise Japan's political uncertainty and sent the yen currency to a three month low on Monday.
1.According to the Presidential office on Friday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said weapons manufactured in South Korea will safeguard Poland's national security, as Yoon hosted a state dinner for Polish President Andrzej Duda Thursday. 2.Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday his country's military cooperation with North Korea is "our business," as he addressed a question about Pyongyang's troop dispatch to support Russia's war in Ukraine. 3.The first annual Dokdo Day ceremony took place on Ulleung Island in the East Sea on Friday afternoon. According to the local government of Ulleung County, North Gyeongsang Province, October 25 is Dokdo Day under an ordinance enacted in May.