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New US envoy Steel tours Seoul landmarks after taking up post
SEOUL, August 02 (AJP) - Michelle Steel, the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has visited a string of Seoul's most recognizable sites in the days since taking up her post, in an early effort to underscore her personal ties to the country as its
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S.Korea swelters as Yangsan hits record 42.5 degrees Celsius
SEOUL, August 02 (AJP) - South Korea buckled under its most brutal heat in more than a century on Sunday, as the southeastern city of Yangsan reached 42.5 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature ever recorded since modern observation began in 1904. The reading, logged at 1:26 p.m., pushed the country past 42 degrees for the
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Korea seeks emergency power to slash leverage on single-stock funds
SEOUL, August 02 (AJP) - South Korea's financial regulators are moving to arm themselves with emergency authority to unilaterally cut the leverage ratio on single-stock funds, escalating a campaign to tame the wild swings that have gripped the country's stock market. Industry sources say Sunday that the Financia
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AI coding tools thin out junior developer ranks, Gartner warns
SEOUL, August 02 (AJP) - Hiring of entry-level software developers has fallen sharply as companies lean on artificial-intelligence coding tools to handle routine work, a shift that research firm Gartner warned that could drain the industry's future talent pool. Employment of software developers aged 22 to 25 has dropped by about 20 percent from its late-2022 peak, accordi
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Korea's July exports hit record near $99 billion as chips soar
SEOUL, August 01 (AJP) - South Korea’s exports reached a record high in July, driven by a sharp increase in semiconductor shipments and broad gains across most major export items, the industry ministry said Saturday. Outbound shipments jumped 62.8 percent from a year earlier to $98.89 billion in July, while imports rose 26.5 percent to $68.56 billion, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Ene
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Korea to import Argentine crude next year as Lee, Milei deepen energy ties
SEOUL, August 01 (AJP) - South Korea will begin importing crude oil from Argentina next year as the two countries move to diversify energy supply chains and expand cooperation in critical minerals, the presidential office said Friday. President Lee Jae Myung, who is on an official visit to Argentina, held a summit with Argentine President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires to discuss energy, critical minerals, trad
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North Korea denounces NATO fuel network overhaul as war preparation
SEOUL, August 01 (AJP) - North Korea on Saturday denounced NATO’s plan to modernize its military fuel supply network as an “unprecedented” act of war preparation, accusing the transatlantic alliance of expanding its military reach beyond Europe. The criticism came after NATO approved a 27 billion euro ($31 billion) program to modernize its fuel storage and distribution infrastructure, includ
BTS' quiet Grammy boycott speaks volumes
SEOUL, July 31 (AJP) - It is hardly Grammy season, but BTS brought the awards debate into the middle of summer with a quiet boycott that produced loud repercussions. On July 29, all seven members of BTS posted the same message on their Instagram Stories within minutes of one another. There was no press conference, no statement from HYBE and no explanation beyond a few lines translated from Korean: they would not submit their comeback album, ARIRANG, for consideration at the 69th Grammy Awards.
by Joonha Yoo
Arrival of new US envoy presents fresh test for alliance
SEOUL, July 31 (AJP) - The arrival of a new U.S. ambassador to South Korea would, under ordinary circumstances, have been a routine moment in the long history of the bilateral relationship. He or she would present credentials, offer familiar words about friendship and cooperation, and begin the quiet work of diplomacy. But these may not be ordinary circumstances. Michael Steel's arrival on Thursday has drawn unusual attention here, not so much because she is another Korean-American envoy to
AI chip boom begins to warm South Korea's broader domestic front
SEOUL, July 31 (AJP) - Red-hot chip demand, which earned South Korea's two chipmakers 150 trillion won ($108 billion) in combined second-quarter operating profit — equivalent to about 6 percent of the country's entire 2025 nominal GDP — is beginning to warm the broader domestic front, with the AI boom spilling from exports into factories, construction sites and household spending. The latest government data suggest the country's semiconductor-driven expansion is no long
Chip boom fuels Samsung heyday, beggars its device business
SEOUL, July 30 (AJP) - A trophy child often comes at the expense of a sibling, and the "beggar-thy-family" concept can scarcely be better illustrated than by Samsung Electronics' second-quarter results. The South Korean technology behemoth reported that its Device Solutions (DS) semiconductor division generated an operating profit of 89.2 trillion won ($64.4 billion) on revenue of 127.5 trillion won in the second quarter, translating into a jaw-dropping operating margin of 70.0 pe
Seoul named global youth's favorite city for fifth straight year
Samsung slips into the red as LG's appliances hold the 1 trillion won line
