North Korea has attempted to steal Covid-19 vaccine technology by hacking Pfizer Inc according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday.

The de facto chief of South Korea's Samsung business empire was convicted Monday over a huge corruption scandal and jailed for two and a half years, in a ruling that deprives the tech giant of its top decision-maker.

South Korea is reviewing AstraZeneca's request for approval of its coronavirus vaccine, as it expands a ban on private gatherings of more than four people to the whole country with daily cases topping more than 1,000 in four days.

South Korea said on Tuesday it had scrambled fighter jets in response to an intrusion into South Korea's air defence identification zone by 19 Russian and Chinese military aircraft.

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in warned on Sunday that Covid-19 restrictions may be raised to the highest level after a second day of record increases in cases as the country battles a harsh third wave of infection.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Monday for expanded coronavirus testing and more thorough tracing as the country struggled to control its latest and largest wave of infections.

Asymptomatic Covid-19 patients are driving a surge in new cases in South Korea, frustrating efforts to control transmission by the Asian country which managed to keep infections under control in previous outbreaks.

More than 300 drones lit up the sky over Seoul on Friday in a show the government said was meant to give "comfort and hope" to residents enduring the coronavirus pandemic.

The wildly infectious and relentlessly repetitive children's song ‘Baby Shark’ became the most-watched YouTube video on Monday, with more than seven billion plays.

South Korea's richest and most powerful industrialist, Lee Kun-hee, turned Samsung Electronics into one of the world's biggest tech companies but lived a reclusive existence.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Friday it would not halt a wide flu vaccination programme aimed at heading off complications from the coronavirus, after reviewing more than two dozen cases of deaths that have raised public concern.

South Korea's forensic agency has found no links between a teenage boy's death and a flu shot he had taken, the Yonhap news agency reported, as 11 more people linked to the vaccination programme died, taking the toll to 36.