AI touts in Korean teens' hands are a growing worry for parents SEOUL, June 24 (AJP) - Gambling used to be a taboo word in South Korea. Real-money betting is prohibited in online games, as are casinos, bingo and lotteries for most citizens. But illegally, online gambling is proliferating — and increasingly invading classrooms. The episode in Netflix's hit drama "Teach You a Lesson," in which an ordinary high school student becomes addicted to gambling, destroys his family life and is eventually pulled into a criminal ring to repay debt June 24, 2026

Team Korea throws gas project to sweeten sub pitch to Canada SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - The Canadian submarine contest is getting bigger and bigger as decision day nears, with Team Korea led by Hanwha Ocean throwing in a $16 billion floating liquefied natural gas project and pitching a broader economic partnership that could help Ottawa reduce its dependence on the United States as an energy market to counter Germany's NATO leverage. The Korean team is targeting a strategic vulnerability. Canada is the world's fifth-largest natural gas producer in 2 June 23, 2026

Korea's baffling vitals: an economy puffing hot and cold SEOUL, June 22 (AJP) -The South Korean economy is running hot and cold — and the honest answer to whether the hot part is real isn't yes or no. It's that the boom is genuine and the headline numbers are still misleading you about what it means for the economy as a whole. By the headline numbers, Asia's fourth-largest economy is doing exceedingly well, seemingly unfazed by nearly four months of disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for roughly a fifth of the world& June 22, 2026

When AI talks markets: Three chatbots, one Samsung question, and the $620 bet behind it SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - The world has always found curious ways to talk about the future. Sometimes the storyteller is a philosopher, sometimes an economist. In 2026, a new narrator has joined them: artificial intelligence. Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT — three large models built by three rival labs — were each handed the same question. A Wall Street analyst has put an 850,000-won target on Samsung Electronics. What to make of it? What stands out is not that the three reached wildly June 21, 2026

Drawing the hairline: Korea debates insuring hair loss  SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) -Going bald is personal matter, except in South Korea. It is quickly turning into a political and social hot potato. The South Korean government is weighing whether to extend National Health Insurance coverage to androgenetic alopecia, the common hereditary form of hair loss often associated locally with M-shaped hairlines. What had been thought as one of the most extreme populist campaign promises from liberal candidate Lee Jae Myung in his first presidential bid in 2022 June 19, 2026

Canada's submarine choice extends beyond hardware to workers and allies SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) - Canada's plan to acquire up to 12 new submarines is entering a decisive phase, but mounting concerns over labor shortages, industrial capacity and military interoperability suggest choosing a winning bidder may be the easiest part of the program. South Korea's Hanwha Ocean and Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, or TKMS, are the two finalists for the multibillion-dollar contract, with Ottawa expected to make a decision within weeks. But as the selection ne June 19, 2026

Inside KF-21, a test pilot pushes Korea's indigenous fighter to its limits SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) - The moment can come low above the ground, when the aircraft is turning hard and the pilot's vision begins to fade. For Maj. Song Min-seok, a test pilot for South Korea's KF-21 Boramae fighter jet, one of the most demanding parts of the job is not flying fast. It is holding the aircraft at the edge of its limits long enough to finish the test — even as his body tells him to stop. "When you keep turning under G-force, blood moves down toward your legs an June 19, 2026

Packaging bottleneck to decide winner in Korea's HBM4E race SEOUL, June 18 (AJP) - SK hynix and Samsung Electronics are locking horns to seize an early lead in next-generation AI memory by shipping samples of their 12-layer HBM4E chips to major customers such as Nvidia for future data-center GPUs including Rubin Ultra. But as the race moves beyond raw memory performance, industry watchers say the real bottleneck may lie elsewhere: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s advanced packaging capacity. SK hynix said Wednesday it had shipped samples of June 18, 2026

BOK chief spells it out: inflation is here to stay and rate hike is coming SEOUL, June 17 (AJP) - The new Bank of Korea governor left little room for doubt: inflation is heading higher and will not come down anytime soon, whether or not the monthslong Gulf war ends this week. The central bank said Wednesday that inflation would remain elevated for a "considerable period," with price pressure gradually shifting from oil and currency shocks to wages and domestic demand. It projected consumer inflation to hover around 3 percent through much of the second half o June 17, 2026

In "short-form" Korean economy, media empire is latest casualty SEOUL, June 17 (AJP) - South Korea is becoming a "short-form" society, where consumers increasingly favor quick commerce, short visits and low-friction experiences. As those habits harden, a growing list of institutions once considered too big to fail is discovering that their traditional business models no longer justify a physical trip. The latest casualty is JoongAng Group, one of South Korea's largest media empires, whose holdings include the 61-year-old JoongAng Ilbo newspap June 17, 2026