1.President Yoon Suk Yeol left for Prague on Thursday for a trip focused on ensuring a major nuclear energy project in the Czech Republic. Ahead of his departure, President Yoon expressed confidence in a written interview with Reuters that Korea will clinch the deal despite legal concerns.

2.The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered its benchmark interest rate by half of a percentage point to the 4.75 to 5.0 percent range, and hinted at possibly further lowering the rate later this year.

3.The opposition-dominated National Assembly passed three contentious bills on Thursday, including two mandating special counsel probes - one to look into the death of a marine last year and another to examine allegations against First Lady Kim Keon-hee. The ruling People Power Party chose to boycott Thursday's plenary session.

1.The Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles in a northeastern direction on Wednesday, further raising tensions just five days after North Korea disclosed a uranium enrichment facility.

2.Health authorities said Tuesday that emergency rooms at hospitals nationwide operated smoothly on Chuseok with patient traffic comparable to that of a typical weekend, amid a prolonged doctors' walkout.

3.Pagers used by hundreds of members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah exploded simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding over 2-thousand-800.

1.The government and the ruling People Power Party agreed Thursday to implement financial aid measures to encourage around 8,000 hospitals and neighborhood clinics to accept patients during the upcoming Chuseok holiday, amid a prolonged doctors' walkout.

2.South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Thursday morning.

3.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart, David Lammy, met with the top leaders of Ukraine in Kyiv on Wednesday to discuss lifting restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia.

1.The Korea Meteorological Administration said an unprecedented autumn heat wave is set to reach its peak on Wednesday, as the daytime high was forecast to rise to a record 35 degrees Celsius in Seoul, amid a heat wave advisory issued for almost all regions of the country.

2.According to data from the Korea Customs Service on Wednesday, South Korea's exports rose 24.6 percent on-year in the first 10 days of September on robust global demand for semiconductors.

3.U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump on Tuesday clashed over foreign policy, immigration, abortion, Russia's war in Ukraine and other issues during their first high-stakes televised debate in Philadelphia.

1.During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said the government will temporarily raise health insurance payments to hospitals for the upcoming Chuseok holiday to better reward their services and to prevent disruptions in emergency medical care.

2.North Korea's state media reported Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to bolster the country's nuclear capabilities to deter any threats by enemies, saying it is steadily carrying out a policy to increase the number of nuclear weapons exponentially.

3.Tokyo Electric Power Company said in a statement Tuesday that its “pilot extraction operation” to remove a small amount of radioactive debris from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant had started. The operation will take about two weeks, and be a crucial step towards decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

1.The National Assembly will hold a four-day interpellation session starting Monday. During the session, lawmakers are expected to clash over inflation, the health care crisis, a special counsel investigation centering on first lady Kim Keon-hee, and the pension system reform.

2.The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that North Korea sent more trash-filled balloons towards South Korea on Sunday, in what marked the fifth straight day of such launches. Around 40 bundles were confirmed to have landed in the Seoul metropolitan area.

3.A former Philippines police officer, who kidnapped and murdered a Korean businessman in 2016, has fled after being sentenced to life imprisonment.

1.President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held talks in Seoul on Friday to discuss ways to deepen bilateral cooperation as Kishida is preparing to leave office.

2.The presidential office is reportedly open to adjusting the medical school admissions quota for the 2026 academic year. The top office is also said to be willing to form a consultative body between the rival parties, the government and the medical community, to resolve the health care crisis.

3.The United States' said Thursday that it is seeking new export controls on quantum computing, advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and other technologies, in what it called a national security measure. Experts said it would have limited ramifications on South Korean firms.

1.Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong on Wednesday announced a national pension reform plan. The government proposed raising the pension contribution rate from the current 9 percent to 13 percent, and upwardly adjusting the nominal replacement rate to 42 percent.

2.The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that North Korea started sending balloons into South Korea again on Thursday morning. North Korea sent around 420 trash-carrying balloons from Wednesday night to early Thursday in what marked its resumption of its balloon campaign after a near month-long halt.

3.According to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea released Thursday, South Korea's real gross domestic product - a key measure of economic growth - contracted 0-point-2 percent on-quarter in the April-June period, amid weaker domestic demand, while exports remained solid.