news highlight

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  Will America risk New York for Seoul? SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and ordered scale-back in U.S.-South Korea military drills that anger Pyongyang and cost Washington heavily, reigniting a long-running question in Seoul: Should South Korea arm itself with nuclear weapons? Once taboo, the idea is gaining broader public acceptance. Sixty-five percent of South Koreans support the country possessing nuclear weapons, while 30 percent oppose it, according to the la September 3, 2026
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  Uzbekistan looks to its Islamic golden age to build a new future SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) - The Center for Islamic Civilization, sprawling across a site roughly the size of 14 soccer fields, embodies in its glittering magnificence and grandeur what “New Uzbekistan” envisions: ushering a young, increasingly digital population into the AI age while keeping it firmly anchored in Islamic heritage and spirituality. The sprawling cultural and research complex cost about $161.8 million to build, according to a government construction directorate. Its t September 2, 2026
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  Humanoids can beat Bolt. The harder race starts on the factory floor SEOUL, August 31 (AJP) - A humanoid robot ran 100 meters in 8.64 seconds at Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games last week, nearly a full second faster than Usain Bolt's world record. Except that it kept going. Tiangong Ultra hurtled past the finish line, slammed into a padded barrier and crashed to the floor in a shower of sparks, leaving staff to rush in with fire extinguishers before the machine was carried away. Impressive as the machines are, much of humanoid robotics still ends w August 31, 2026
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  Kazakhstan feels familiar. Family duty runs in reverse SEOUL, August 28 (AJP) - Kazakhstan can feel unexpectedly familiar to a Korean visitor. Across Astana, there are faces that at first glance would not look out of place in Seoul. Dark hair, familiar facial contours and gestures of deference toward older people can create fleeting moments of recognition in a country separated from the Korean Peninsula by thousands of kilometers of mountains, desert and steppe. The sense of familiarity runs deeper around the family table. Younger people wait for August 28, 2026
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  For Kazakhstan's Koryo-saram, exile became home ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Elena Ko has little difficulty answering a question that history made complicated for her family. "I'm Korean, but I think like Kazakh," she said through an interpreter. Ko, 55, is a third-generation Koryo-saram, a descendant of ethnic Koreans who settled across the former Soviet Union. She keeps Korean traditions, stays close to Kazakhstan's Korean community and travels to Seoul roughly once a year. But when she talks about home, there is little a August 27, 2026
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  Westinghouse stake report exposes US-Korea nuclear divide SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump has hardly been shy about expressing displeasure over the slow progress in Seoul's execution of its pledged $350 billion investment commitment, and the latest pressure involves the nuclear reactor business. Seoul has denied a report that Washington proposed jointly acquiring an equity stake in Westinghouse Electric, even as the Trump administration presses to draw Korean capital and construction muscle into a sweeping revival of American August 26, 2026
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  Blame game grows as Korean 'ants' get burned in herd trading SEOUL, August 25 (AJP) - The blame first fell on the president, who encouraged households to put their money into stocks rather than leveraged housing bets. Then came the financial regulator, criticized for allowing high-risk exchange-traded funds built around South Korea's chip supremacy. The latest to take a seat in Korea’s blame-game musical chairs are so-called finfluencers, the self-styled investment experts whose stock tips, price targets and market predictions fill YouTube and August 25, 2026
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  How Seoul's hillside neighborhood becomes hidden gem for foreigners SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - On a steep hillside beneath Mt. Namsan, a neighborhood once known for cheap housing is giving foreigners a reason to look beyond Seoul's better-known hotspots. It is not as crowded as Seoul's hip Hongik University neighborhood, a popular nightlife district known for its youthful energy or as busy as nearby Itaewon, Seoul's best-known international and entertainment district. Yet Haebangchon has plenty of bars, restaurants and cafés within walking dis August 21, 2026
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  Viet Nam's Gen Z protests without gathering SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - The flowers under the tree outside No. 55 Nguyen Huy Tu Street arrived one at a time, which is why the police had nothing to break up. Over roughly a week in August, young Vietnamese walked to the spot in central Hanoi, left a bouquet, photographed it and went home. By the time the pile was large enough to be a problem, no crowd had ever formed. The tree marks the place where a car crossed into oncoming traffic on May 30, 2025, and struck a motorbike carrying a father a August 21, 2026