Yonhap News Summary

SEOUL -- Seoul stocks were trading sharply lower late Friday morning on concerns that the Democratic Party's sweeping victory in the U.S. midterm election could slow the construction of data centers.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) was down 240.41 points, or 4.47 percent, to 5,143.39 as of 11:20 a.m.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Korea Exchange (KRX) had suspended trading of the KOSPI stocks for 20 minutes as the index tumbled by more than 8 percent.

SEOUL -- A U.S. cryptocurrency expert on Thursday called for South Korea to strengthen cooperation with the United States and Japan through unilateral and multilateral sanctions to counter North Korean cryptocurrency theft, including a recent major incident involving Binance.

"South Korea should also deepen joint work with the United States and Japan to put additional pressure on North Korea," said Ari Redbord, global head of policy at U.S. blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, in a written response to Yonhap News Agency's inquiry on South Korea's response to last week's major theft at Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

SEOUL -- Ruling Democratic Party (DP) leader Kim Min-seok issued a public apology Friday over allegations he had raised that members of a religious sect had joined the party en masse to influence the party's leadership race.

The renewed apology came after Kim apologized at a closed-door meeting earlier this week, acknowledging that an internal party investigation had found no evidence to support his earlier claim that followers of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a nonmainstream religious sect, had colluded with party lawmakers to join the DP to sway the outcome of the Aug. 17 leadership election.

SEOUL -- Authorities are investigating all possibilities surrounding the leak of personal information of President Lee Jae Myung and 167 members of his delegation for a trip to Europe in June, including whether an outside contractor was involved, officials said Friday.

The presidential office and the foreign ministry said Tuesday that they had discovered the exposure of personal information after a file containing details of 168 people aboard the presidential aircraft was uploaded to VirusTotal, a website used to scan files for malware.

SEOUL -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating rose slightly to 41 percent, a poll showed Friday, marking the first time in over two months that the figure exceeded 40 percent.

The survey, conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday through Thursday on 1,001 people aged 18 and older, showed that positive assessments of Lee's performance rose 2 percentage points from a week earlier.