OPINION: Behind EV boom lies growing pile of battery waste

The global shift to electric vehicles has hit a temporary slowdown. Sales have cooled, incentives are waning, and skeptics are asking whether the EV boom has peaked. Yet the slowdown is likely to last only a few years. The market will recover as costs fall and technology improves. What deserves far more attention, however, is what happens after the battery runs out. Batteries make up roughly 40 percent of an electric vehicle’s cost. They are the beating heart of the EV

November 11, 2025

OPINION: South Korea's 260,000 GPUs and vision for AI hub

As artificial intelligence becomes the engine of global competition, nations are racing to secure not only the technology but also the computing power that makes it possible. South Korea’s recent partnership with NVIDIA — acquiring 260,000 of the latest AI graphics processing units — is more than a technical upgrade. It is a statement of intent that the country aims to be a serious player in the new digital order. The deal has quadrupled South Korea's na

November 11, 2025

Korea's National Dance Company "Double Bill" blends the worlds of discipline and freedom

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - What looks like total chaos — fourteen dancers leaping, crawling, and tossing one another in midair amid tightly arranged metal tables — is, in fact, a work of meticulous control. A single misstep could mean a ruined sequence or even a serious injury. Discipline is the axis of American choreographer William Forsythe’s “One Flat Thing, Reproduced.” The tables impose strict rules: confined space, exact timing, predetermined pa

November 10, 2025

Rose's nod by Grammys fails to persuade investors of her Korean label YG

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - BLACKPINK member Rose is leading a wave of female K-pop artists heading into the 2026 Grammy Awards — an unprecedented moment for Korean pop music — but the historic nominations has so far failed to lift investor sentiment toward her label. Shares of YG Entertainment tumbled more than 7 percent to 66,650 won ($46) on Monday, the first trading day after the Recording Academy shortlisted Rose’s “APT.” featuring Bruno Mars for Re

November 10, 2025

Asian stocks rise across the board; KOSPI rebounds sharply

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - Asian stocks rose across the board on Monday, relieved by the developments in the United States as Washington appeared to move closer to ending the longest-ever federal government shutdown. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI led regional gains, climbing 3.02 percent to 4,073.24 as the market warmed up the government’s plan to lower the separate tax rate on dividend income from 35 percent to 25 percent. Institutional investors drove the rebound,

November 10, 2025

AI-leveraged cheating in elite university test on AI calls for new class formula in Korea

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - ChatGPT has invaded university classrooms and come to test the ethical integrity of students in Korea, as shown by a large-scale exam cheating scandal at elite Yonsei University in Seoul. The case may be only the tip of the iceberg, with 70 percent of Korean universities still lacking any rules or guidelines on AI use. The issue surfaced when a professor teaching the third-year course "Natural Language Processing (NLP) and ChatGPT" at Yonsei

November 10, 2025

PHOTOS: Celebrating India – weaving tradition and modernity through fabric and culture

SEOUL, November 07 (AJP) - The vibrant colors of India’s northeast came to life on the evening of November 7 at the Textile Center in Seoul’s Gangnam District, where Celebrating India showcased the region’s cultural and fashion heritage. Organized by the North East Institute of Fashion Technology (NEIFT) in Guwahati, Assam, the event was held in collaboration with the Embassy of India in Seoul, the Korea Federation of Textile Industries (KOFOTI), and the Indian C

November 10, 2025

Seoul city braces for this week's nationwide university entrance exam

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - More than 550,000 students will take their annual university entrance exam at some 1,300 venues across the country on Thursday, prompting police and relevant officials to brace for safely getting them to their test venues. The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Monday said that more subway trains, buses and taxis will be put into service on the test day, with free transportation and emergency transport vehicles also provided. In Seoul, about 114,158 stu

November 10, 2025

Korean tofu major ventures into Europe, riding on U.S. success and K-food wave

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - After a decade of pushing its tofu onto American dinner tables, South Korea's leading tofu maker Pulmuone is preparing a full-scale entry into Europe, buoyed by the global rise of K-food and growing demand for plant-based diets across the region. The company said Monday it will establish a European subsidiary in Amsterdam as early as the end of this year and begin sales in France, Germany and Spain, marking its first major expansion into the bloc. &

November 10, 2025

Underperformance of KRW exposes fragility of economy overly exposed to USD and chips

SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - South Koreans involved in trade settlements or overseas spending may need to brace for the U.S. dollar staying above 1,400 won for an extended period, as structural vulnerabilities in the Korean economy and a strong preference for dollar-denominated assets continue to undermine the local currency. The dollar eased to 1,451.50 won on Monday after briefly topping 1,460 late last week — its highest since last April when the country grappled with the

November 10, 2025