(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; ADDS more info, JCS comment in paras 2, 3) SEOUL, March 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea fired three unidentified projectiles into the East Sea on Monday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, a week after the communist regime fired two short-range projectiles. The projectiles were fired northeastward from areas near its eastern town of Sondok in Hamgyong Province, the JCS said in a brief release. Other details, including their type, flight range and altitude, were not immediately available. "Our military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture," the JCS said. Last Monday, the communist country fired two projectiles from a super-large multiple rocket launcher after a three-month hiatus. It was believed to be part of its artillery strike drill for the wintertime exercise. Last year, the North test-launched missiles 13 times amid the stalled denuclearization talks with the United Stat

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SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will not use Japan's anti-influenza medication, called Avigan, for the treatment of the novel coronavirus due to doubts over its efficacy and potential side effects, health authorities said Monday. The anti-viral drug developed by the Fujifilm Holdings Corp. has emerged as one of the potential drugs in the race to find an effective treatment for COVID-19 as there is currently no specific treatment. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said it has decided not to import Avigan after a team of infectious disease experts here ruled there is not enough clinical data to prove the drug's efficacy. Avigan was approved as a backup drug for reemergent influenza in Japan in 2014. However, it has not been used to treat regular flu because several animal studies showed potential fetal damage. "Avigan has not only not shown efficacy during test studies but also there is not data on clinical trials conducted on patients," said Oh Myoung-don

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SEOUL, March 23 (Yonhap) -- More than 2 million people have signed an online petition as of Monday demanding the government unveil the identity of a man who allegedly ran a group chat room where photos and videos of violent sex acts, involving underaged victims, were distributed. At least 74 victims are known to have been exploited in the so-called Nth room case, in which a man surnamed Cho allegedly lured victims into taking naked photos and later threatened and exploited them into more gruesome sex acts. Cho, who used the nickname "baksa," which means "doctor" or "guru" in Korean, is accused of distributing the videos in a group chat room on the messaging service Telegram, where at least 10,000 users are suspected of paying Cho to watch the videos. Police have so far tracked down 124 people in relation to the case, including Cho and 17 others who have been formally detained. The user who is suspected of first creating the chat room, however, still remains at large.

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(ATTN: UPDATES with details from 5th para) SEOUL, March 22 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, offering help with the communist nation's fight against the coronavirus, Kim's sister said Sunday. The letter is a "a good example showing the special and firm personal relations" between Trump and Kim, said Kim Yo-jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the North's Workers' Party, in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "We regard it as a good judgment and proper action for the U.S. president to make efforts to keep the good relations he had with our Chairman by sending a personal letter again at a time as now when big difficulties and challenges lie in the way of developing the bilateral relations, and think that this should be highly estimated," she said. "In the letter, he also explained his plan to propel the relations between the two countries of the DPRK and the

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SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Yonhap) -- South Korea reported the first case of reinfection by the new coronavirus on Saturday amid mounting concerns over the rapid rise in virus infections here. A South Korean woman has tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time, even after being released from quarantine, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The 73-year-old woman, who was diagnosed with the virus earlier in the month, was released from hospital on Feb. 22 after making a full recovery. She started showed symptoms again on Thursday and was found to have contracted the illness again on Friday, the public health agency said. This is the first time in South Korea that a person has been infected a second time with COVID-19 after being discharged. The woman had not traveled abroad, although her son and daughter-in-law had recently been to China's Guangdong Province, and both had contracted the virus. Local health authorities said that the woma

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SEOUL, March 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea reported 367 additional cases of the new coronavirus on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections here to 7,134. A majority of the new cases again came from the southeastern city of Daegu and neighboring North Gyeongsang Province, the two epicenters of the virus outbreak that together account for more than 90 percent of all infection cases, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Of the 367 new cases, which were detected Saturday, 294 cases came from Daegu, the country's fourth-largest city with a population of about 2.5 million that is located some 300 kilometers from Seoul. About 60 percent of confirmed cases here have been linked to a Daegu branch of a religious sect, Shincheonji. Daegu's total infection cases now stands at 5,378. North Gyeongsang Province, one of the most severely hit areas, saw its infection cases rise 32 to 1,081, according to the KCDC. Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi Pr

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SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean flight turned back while en route to Vietnam on Saturday after the Vietnamese authorities prevented it from landing in Hanoi. The flight of Asiana Airlines Inc., the country's second-biggest carrier, arrived back at Incheon International Airport around two hours after departing for Hanoi at 10:30 a.m. Asiana said it decided to return flight OZ729 when the Vietnamese authorities requested the plane land at Van Don International Airport, around 140 kilometers away from Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. The plane was carrying 40 passengers. It was not immediately clear why the Vietnamese authorities made the request. "While Vietnam has not provided us with a clear reason, we believe it is connected with the spread of the new coronavirus," an Asian Airlines official said. colin@yna.co.kr

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SEOUL, March 3 (Yonhap) -- Glead Sciences' experimental antiviral drug remdesivir is expected to be used to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus in South Korea as part of a trial, drug industry sources said Tuesday. Remdesivir, an investigational medication developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences Inc., was previously tested against the Ebola virus. The drug has shown efficacy in COVID-19 patients in other countries on a trial basis as there is no specific treatment. The sources said Gilead Sciences has been granted approval from local drug authorities to begin phase-three clinical trials of remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 in adult patients. The approval by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety came only four days after the application. "Experimental drugs under clinical trial are sometimes granted approval for usage in cases where diseases are life-threatening and there is no other treatment option," a ministry official said on cond

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(ATTN: RECASTS headline; UPDATES lead with latest figures) SEOUL, March 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's virus cases topped 7,000 on Saturday with most new virus infections in the southeastern city of Daegu, the epicenter of the virus outbreak here, and neighboring North Gyeongsang Province. A virus-hit apartment in Daegu was placed under lockdown as one third of its residents were infected with the novel coronavirus and traced to a religious sect related to most infections here. The country reported 274 new cases of the novel coronavirus over the past 16 hours, bringing the nation's total number of infections to 7,041, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). So far, 44 people, mostly elderly patients with underlying illnesses, have died in South Korea from the respiratory virus that emerged in China late last year, A total of 36 are in critical condition, while 118 have been released, up 10 from a day earlier, after fully recovering from t

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(END)

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