Journalist
Park Sae-jin박세진
swatchsjp@ajupress.com
Assistant EditorForeign embassies in Seoul & Geopolitics, Diplomacy, Policy
Experienced journalist and editor at AJU PRESS specializing in multilingual news. I cover international diplomacy, geolpolitics, and policy, consistently delivering highly accurate, compelling reporting for a worldwide audience.
"Reporting the facts. Shaping the narrative. Every second counts."
Latest by Park Sae-jin
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Samsung rebate festival nets $1.3 billion in sales SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics' monthlong "Gratitude Festival" promotion generated an estimated 2 trillion won, about $1.3 billion, in device sales before the event ended July 5, according to industry estimates, a haul that is expected to lift the company's consumer electronics division in its upcoming second-quarter earnings. The estimate is based on the value of digital Onnuri gift certificates Samsung issued during the campaign, which industry sources put at approximately 400 billion won ($261.4 million). Onnuri certificates are government-backed vouchers that can be spent only at traditional markets and small local merchants, a mechanism designed to route large-company spending toward small businesses. Since the promotion refunded 20 percent of each purchase in certificates, the total certificate value implies roughly 2 trillion won in underlying sales. The scale of the rush was visible on the ground. At a mobile phone store near Wangsimni Station in central Seoul that typically sees one or two customers waiting at a time, about 20 people were in line the day before the promotion closed, with five staff members working to process purchases and registrations. "The number of customers usually goes up and down, but this week has been unusually busy," said an employee in his 40s at the store. "It got so crowded when we were taking customers as they came in that we switched to reservations only." Asked what was driving the surge, he said, "I think it is because of the Samsung Gratitude Festival." Samsung launched the "Gratitude Festival, Together with the People" campaign on June 8 to share the results of its recent performance with consumers, refunding 20 percent of purchase amounts in digital Onnuri certificates on Samsung products bought during the event. The company funded the rebates using profits from its Device Solutions (DS) division, the semiconductor business that has posted strong results in recent quarters, according to industry sources. Samsung said visits to its Samsung Store retail locations nationwide rose an average of 75 percent compared with the same period last year, with some stores seeing foot traffic double. Traffic to Samsung's own e-commerce site, Samsung.com, climbed more than 200 percent over the same stretch. Smartphones, washing machines, refrigerators, televisions, and air conditioners were the most popular purchases during the event. The Bespoke AI Steam robot vacuum, a device often bought by newlyweds furnishing a first home, drew particular interest because customers who purchased it through a subscription plan received both the 20 percent certificate rebate and up to twelve months of subsidized subscription fees. Samsung also reported that customers buying multiple appliances together frequently opted into its AI Subscription Club, a financing program that spreads out the upfront cost of large purchases, with new subscription sign-ups tripling compared with the period before the event began. The sales bump is expected to matter most for Samsung's Device Experience (DX) division, the unit that houses the company's consumer electronics and mobile businesses, because most of the estimated 2 trillion won in transactions took place in June and will be booked in second-quarter results. Within DX, the Digital Appliances and Visual Display (DA and VD) businesses, which rely heavily on domestic sales, stand to benefit most, while the Mobile eXperience (MX) division, whose revenue depends primarily on overseas markets, is likely to see a smaller effect. The timing comes as Samsung's appliance and television businesses work through a prolonged stretch of weak global demand. The DA and VD businesses posted a combined annual operating loss of roughly 200 billion won, about $130.7 million, last year before returning to profitability in the first quarter of 2026 with operating income of about 200 billion won on revenue of 14.3 trillion won, or roughly $9.35 billion. Market forecasts had placed second-quarter revenue for the businesses at around 14 trillion won, or about $9.15 billion, before the Gratitude Festival figures emerged, and some in the industry now expect the final total to come in above that forecast. 2026-07-05 16:32:09 -
Trump targets domestic left in July 4 anniversary speech SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - United States President Donald Trump used the country's 250th Independence Day address on July 4 (local time) to brand domestic political opponents as communists, in remarks that major American news outlets compared to the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s. Speaking at the National Mall in Washington after a two-hour weather delay caused by severe thunderstorms, Trump returned repeatedly to communism across a roughly 40-minute address, framing the November midterm elections as a contest between American values and an ideology he said posed an existential threat to the republic. The National Mall speech followed a similar address the previous evening at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where Trump had called communism a "mortal threat to American liberty." The language evoked the Red Scare of the 1950s, when alleged communists were persecuted and blacklisted from jobs across America, from Washington to Hollywood. What set Trump's remarks apart from Cold War-era presidential rhetoric was the target. Where presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan pointed at the Soviet Union as the communist threat, Trump pointed inward, at elected American politicians and a domestic political movement gaining ground in his own country. The backdrop is a string of recent primary victories by democratic socialist candidates. New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as mayor earlier this year, and similar candidates have won primaries in Colorado and Texas. Trump said there is now "a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life," calling communism "the enemy of the Constitution." At the National Mall, he reached for a starker image. "Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen," he said. "It's like a cancer, you've got to cut it out." Those warriors were on the stage with him. Trump thanked "veterans of the war on communism," including Marine Corporal Pat Finn and Private First Class Rudy Meekins, who fought in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War. The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, fought in the bitter winter of November and December 1950, saw United States and United Nations forces encircled and nearly overwhelmed by Chinese People's Volunteer Army troops in the mountains of northeastern Korea. The Marines who broke out of that encirclement are among the most decorated in the history of the Corps. For South Korea, the battle is not a historical footnote. It was fought on Korean soil, and the Chinese intervention it represented extended the war by nearly three years. "Because of heroes like these, our flag will always be a symbol of liberty and justice for all," Trump said. The occasion itself made the tone remarkable. Independence Day addresses have traditionally served as moments of national unity, with presidents of both parties setting aside partisan conflict in favor of shared history. The Associated Press assessed that Trump mixed partisan politics and patriotic appeals in a manner unusual for an Independence Day address, and NPR noted the speeches marked a departure from the typically unifying tone past presidents like Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan had set on the holiday. Trump also used the address to push for passage of the SAVE America Act, his proposed election overhaul requiring voter identification and proof of citizenship at the polls and prohibiting mail-in ballots in most circumstances. The bill faces an uncertain path in Congress. The celebrations unfolded under punishing conditions. Temperatures reached a record 103 degrees Fahrenheit in Washington, an all-time high for July 4, with 160 million Americans under extreme weather warnings according to the National Weather Service. The thunderstorms that delayed Trump's address also forced thousands of attendees to evacuate the Mall and be rescreened by security before returning. In New York, Mamdani delivered his own Independence Day address without mentioning Trump by name. "Those ideals upon which our nation was built are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them," he said. 2026-07-05 15:04:41 -
Blue House policy chief calls AI production revolution SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - Kim Yong-beom, director of the Blue House policy office, said Sunday that artificial intelligence represents a production revolution rather than a technology one, and that national power in the AI era will be decided by a country's ability to organize production systems rather than by technological strength alone. Kim made the remarks in a Facebook post on July 5, giving the clearest articulation yet of the governing philosophy behind South Korea's most ambitious industrial push in a generation. His statement comes less than a week after President Lee Jae Myung unveiled the Three Mega Projects at a June 29 briefing at the Blue House, a sweeping program covering semiconductors, AI data centers, and physical AI, anchored by a pledge of 800 trillion won ($522.8 billion) in corporate investment over the coming decade. Kim leads the policy office responsible for designing that program. "If the internet was a revolution of information, AI is a revolution of production," Kim wrote in the post. "If the winners of the internet era were companies that owned platforms, the winners of the AI era are likely to be nations that own production systems." He argued that what is scarce in the age of AI is not technology but productive capacity, and that competition has moved beyond companies to become a contest between states. The Three Mega Projects are the most concrete expression of that contest South Korea has mounted. For semiconductors, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have each pledged 400 trillion won to build new fabrication facilities in southwestern Jeolla Province, creating what the government describes as a second major chip cluster alongside the existing base in the Seoul metropolitan area. Samsung will invest 56 trillion won in high-bandwidth memory fabs in Cheonan and Onyang. SK hynix will complete its fourth Yongin fab by 2033, twelve years earlier than its previous 2045 target. The Chungcheong region is set to receive an 81 trillion won advanced packaging hub. The announcement marked the government's answer to what industry and policymakers have long identified as a strategic vulnerability. South Korea's semiconductor base, home to more than 40 percent of global memory chip output, has been concentrated in the capital region, leaving it exposed to power and water constraints that could limit further expansion. Spreading production to the southwest also addressed a political calculation. The Jeolla and Gyeongsang regions have historically competed for industrial investment, and the announcement was calibrated to signal that the Lee administration intended to benefit. Kim's Facebook post supplied the ideological frame that the June 29 briefing left largely implicit. He described three roles the state must now play -- connecting the fruits of production back into production, building production infrastructure, and reproducing productive capacity across generations. Data centers cannot operate without power grids, he wrote. Semiconductors cannot be produced without water. Physical AI cannot function in the real world without manufacturing, logistics, and urban infrastructure. "Companies can build AI," he said in the post, "but building power grids, developing industrial sites, and organizing supply chains is the work of the state." He also addressed the distributional question that critics of large-scale industrial policy tend to raise first. "Welfare is not an institution on the opposite side of production," he wrote. "Welfare is an investment that connects the surplus profit created by the production revolution to the productive capacity and social trust of the next generation. Production is the precondition for distribution, and good distribution makes greater production possible again. The state is the entity that designs that virtuous cycle." The framing is directed as much outward as inward. South Korea's semiconductor companies are simultaneously navigating pressure from Washington to expand their American manufacturing footprint, a tension the Jeolla announcement has sharpened. Samsung has committed $37 billion to a foundry complex in Taylor, Texas, scheduled to begin production in the second half of 2026, and SK hynix has committed $3.87 billion to an advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. Both companies are weighing whether those commitments will be enough to satisfy the Trump administration, which has threatened 100 percent tariffs on chips made outside the United States. Kim made no direct reference to that pressure. His post closed by returning to the historical register he opened with. "The AI production revolution will make the nation that has organized the best production system the center of the next era," he wrote. "South Korea is now standing on that historical turning point." 2026-07-05 12:19:21 -
US tariff threat looms over Samsung, SK hynix expansion SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - South Korea's top chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, are bracing for renewed pressure from Washington to expand their United States manufacturing footprint, days after the two chipmakers committed 800 trillion won, about $522.8 billion, to a sweeping expansion of South Korea's domestic semiconductor base. Industry sources said Sunday that both companies are weighing how to respond to what they expect will be a fresh push from the administration of United States President Donald Trump, which has used the threat of tariffs to press foreign chipmakers into building on American soil. The concern is that the scale of the Korean announcement, unveiled at a June 29 briefing by President Lee Jae Myung, will invite comparison with the more modest sums the two firms have committed to United States projects. The lever is a familiar one. In August 2025, Trump said he would impose a tariff of approximately 100 percent on chips and semiconductors, with an exemption for companies building in the United States. The measure has not taken effect, but neither has it been formally withdrawn, leaving it available as a bargaining tool. Memory producers without American fabs would be the most exposed, a category that includes Samsung and SK hynix. Samsung's largest United States project is in Taylor, Texas, a 37 billion dollar complex built around 2-nanometer foundry production. The company held an equipment move-in ceremony at the Taylor fab in April, closing a nearly two-year delay on the facility Samsung broke ground on in late 2022, and the plant is scheduled to begin operations in the second half of 2026. A Tesla contract signed in July 2025, worth 16.5 billion dollars, runs through 2033 and covers AI5 and AI6 autonomous-driving processors. SK hynix has committed an estimated 3.87 billion dollars to build an advanced packaging and research facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, its first production site in the United States, dedicated to high bandwidth memory for artificial intelligence products. Mass production is expected in the second half of 2028. The smaller footprint leaves the company more exposed to Washington's demands, and the timing sharpens the point. SK hynix plans to begin trading American depositary receipts on the Nasdaq on July 10, raising up to 29.65 billion dollars through 17.79 million new shares in what would be one of the largest United States listings of the year. Landing that debut smoothly gives the company an added reason to avoid friction with the Trump administration. Both companies are expected to accelerate rather than reopen their United States plans. For Samsung, that could mean firming up a second Taylor fab already contemplated on the same campus. For SK hynix, industry sources said the question is whether to add memory production in the United States alongside the Indiana packaging base. The domestic drive that triggered the pressure is on a different scale. Under the June 29 plan, Samsung will invest 400 trillion won in new fabs in the southwestern city of Gwangju and 56 trillion won in high bandwidth memory fabs in Cheonan and Onyang, while SK hynix will invest 400 trillion won in a new production base in the southwest and complete its fourth Yongin fab by 2033, twelve years earlier than the previous 2045 target. The plan is the semiconductor pillar of what the government calls the Three Mega Projects, alongside physical artificial intelligence and AI data centers. An industry official said the companies were navigating two demands at once. "Samsung and SK have to keep pace with the government's regional development drive while also weathering the pressure from the United States to expand investment there," the official said. "With the midterm elections approaching, the Trump administration is expected to push harder on local investment, and we are watching closely." 2026-07-05 10:44:25 -
Trump filings show Coupang trades amid scandal SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - United States President Donald Trump bought and sold shares of Coupang, the most-popular ecommerce service operator in South Korea, in the months surrounding the e-commerce giant's massive data breach, according to financial disclosure reports filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Three reports released in May and this month show 18 trades in Coupang Inc. shares between October 9 last year and May 22, conducted through two investment accounts run by money managers. The filings suggest Trump likely holds Coupang shares worth up to $130,000 on the books. The annual report, released Tuesday by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE), runs 927 pages and lists transaction values in ranges rather than exact figures, as is standard for such filings. The trades themselves are modest by the standards of a portfolio that includes multimillion-dollar positions in technology giants. What draws attention is the calendar. The transactions bracket the key moments of a scandal that has grown from a corporate security failure into a diplomatic dispute between Seoul and Washington. According to the filings, Trump purchased Coupang shares on October 9, in two transactions worth between 1,001 and 15,000 dollars and between 50,001 and 100,000 dollars, followed by a smaller purchase on October 16. Sales came on October 16, November 10 and November 17. Coupang says it detected unauthorized access to customer data on November 18, one day after the last of those sales. The company initially estimated about 4,500 affected accounts before further review showed the breach may have exposed personal information of as many as 33.7 million customers, more than half of South Korea's population. Trump then bought back in on December 11, with purchases worth between 1,001 and 15,000 dollars and between 50,001 and 100,000 dollars, and added more shares on December 18. By that point, parliamentary hearings in Seoul over the breach were drawing notice in Washington. This year, he purchased shares valued between 100,001 and 250,000 dollars in February before selling in May, a period during which the stock slid from around 18 dollars to the 15-dollar range. The disclosed returns appear to be minimal. His 2025 filing showed he earned nothing or only small amounts through the Coupang trades, and this year's positions may have produced a loss. Coupang is no ordinary foreign stock in an American portfolio. Founded in 2010 by Kim Bom-suk, known in the United States as Bom Kim, the company began as a Groupon-style deals site before rebuilding itself around its own warehouses and delivery fleet. Its Rocket Delivery service, launched in 2014, promised overnight or next-day shipping nationwide, with orders placed by midnight arriving the following day. That promise, unusual even by the standards of American e-commerce, made the company a fixture of daily life in South Korea. The COVID-19 pandemic turned that fixture into a lifeline. With much of the country avoiding stores, office workers and homebound families came to rely on Coupang for groceries, household staples and nearly everything else, delivered to the door before breakfast. The surge carried the company to a New York Stock Exchange debut in March 2021, raising more than 4.5 billion dollars in the largest United States listing by a South Korean company. It also concentrated an enormous share of the nation's personal data, including names, addresses and door entry codes, in a single firm, which is why the breach cut so deep. There is no indication the trades were directed by the president personally. The White House has said Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children. Presidents are not prohibited from holding or trading stocks while in office, but they are required to report their transactions. The timing lands in a charged moment. A House Judiciary Committee staff report and a White House official recently criticized South Korea's investigations into the breach as discriminatory, and South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission fined Coupang a record 624.7 billion won ($408.3 million)in June, citing internal management failures rather than an outside attack. Seoul's foreign ministry has expressed regret over the House report, saying it reflects only Coupang's side of the story. Coupang, whose parent company is incorporated in the United States and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has spent more than $ 1 million on lobbying in Washington since the scandal erupted in November, including efforts involving the White House and Congress, according to Lobbying Disclosure Act reports. 2026-07-05 10:22:07 -
Samsung, SK, Hanwha, Hyundai bet $194 bln on southeastern Korea SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - South Korea's ambition to build a "Chip Republic" expanded well beyond semiconductors on Friday, as four of the country's largest conglomerates pledged a combined 297 trillion won ($194.3 billion) to build artificial intelligence data centers, robot factories, defense systems and aerospace infrastructure across Korea's southeastern province of Gyeongsang. SK Telecom pledged the largest share at 140 trillion won, followed by Samsung at 60 trillion won, Hanwha at 55 trillion won, and Hyundai Motor Group at 42 trillion won. The announcements came at a state-backed investment briefing in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. The pledges build on a broader blueprint President Lee Jae Myung unveiled on June 29, when Samsung Electronics and SK hynix committed to an 800 trillion-won semiconductor expansion initiative centered on four new fabrication plants in Jeolla Province, an advanced packaging hub in the central Chungcheong region, and a supply chain cluster in Gyeongsang Province. Friday's briefing filled in that Gyeongsang piece and expanded it out to sectors including AI data centers, robotics, defense technology, and aerospace across a region that has long been the heart of South Korea's heavy industry. SK Telecom presented the most infrastructure-focused blueprint, framing Ulsan as the starting point for what it called Asia's largest AI infrastructure hub. The company will build a 100-megawatt hyperscale data center in the city by the fourth quarter of 2027, then scale up toward five gigawatts of AI data center capacity nationwide starting in 2029 and 15 gigawatts over the medium to long term, backed by about 140 trillion won, including foreign capital it is still working to attract. "The core elements of AI data center infrastructure are semiconductors, energy solutions, and the capability to build and operate data centers," said Jung Jae-heon, president of SK Telecom. "SK not only possesses all of these capabilities but already has experience building and operating AI data centers." Samsung Electronics, together with Samsung SDI, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung Heavy Industries, pledged 60 trillion won toward what it called a global Physical AI innovation cluster, spanning humanoid robot manufacturing in Gumi, solid-state batteries in Ulsan, AI server components in Busan and high-value vessels in Geoje. "To overcome the slowdown in our existing manufacturing growth engines, we will pursue an AI-driven factory in Gumi by building a humanoid mass-production system and carrying out a manufacturing AI transformation," said Roh Tae-moon, Samsung Electronics' chief executive and head of its DX division. Hanwha pledged 55 trillion won through 2040 for space and AI, aiming to build what Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan called integrated space infrastructure spanning independent launch vehicles, satellite networks and a defense AI data center in Changwon. "Securing space sovereignty starts with developing an independent launch vehicle," Kim said, adding that South Korea "can leap into becoming a country with world-class defense AI, not simply a country strong in hardware alone." Hyundai Motor Group pledged 42 trillion won over the next 10 years to convert its Ulsan plant, the world's largest single automobile factory, into a base for AI-based highly autonomous vehicles built toward Level 4 autonomy, the threshold for robotaxi service, while expanding into aerospace and energy projects across the region. "By making additional investments in new business areas in Gyeongsang Province, the origin of Hyundai Motor Group, we will cultivate it into a core hub for future advanced industries," said Vice Chairman Jang Jae-hoon. 2026-07-03 17:26:16 -
Kookmin team identifies seven medulloblastoma subtypes SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - A research team led by Kookmin University's Department of Applied Chemistry Professor Kyung-Hee Kim has identified seven distinct molecular subtypes within medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children, a finding that points toward treating the disease with drugs matched to each tumor's specific biology rather than a single standard protocol. The work, conducted with researchers from seven other institutions in South Korea and the United States, expands the four subtypes doctors have used since 2012 to classify medulloblastoma, splitting two of those categories into finer groups that better predict how a tumor will behave. The findings were published in Experimental & Molecular Medicine, a journal under the Nature Portfolio, which Kookmin University said carries an impact factor of 17.5 and ranks in the top one point eight percent of journals in its field. Medulloblastoma is treated today with surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy, a regimen that can leave lasting side effects in growing children. The bigger problem is what happens after relapse. Kookmin University said patients whose tumors return face a survival outlook that drops sharply, and doctors have lacked a fine-grained enough picture of each tumor's molecular makeup to know which drug might work for which patient. The research team analyzed tumor samples from more than 100 medulloblastoma patients using proteogenomics, a method that layers together five kinds of biological data, the genome, the transcriptome, DNA methylation patterns, the full set of proteins in a cell and the subset of those proteins that carry phosphate tags marking them as active. Combining these layers gives a functional picture of what a tumor is actually doing, not just which genes it carries. Since 2012, doctors have grouped medulloblastoma into four subtypes known as WNT, SHH, Group 3 and Group 4, each defined by different genetic drivers and different survival odds. The team's proteogenomic analysis split the SHH subtype into two groups, SHHα and SHHβ, and divided Group 4 into three, G4α, G4β and G4γ, bringing the total to seven. Patients with the SHHβ and G4γ subtypes showed strong activity in genes tied to neuron formation and had comparatively favorable outcomes, while those with the SHHα, G4α and G4β subtypes carried a higher risk of relapse and disease progression. The team also mapped which protein signaling pathways were switched on in each subtype and identified genes that could serve as drug targets specific to the more aggressive groups. These included CDK1 and CDK2, enzymes that control cell division, PARP, a protein involved in repairing DNA damage, CLK1, which regulates how genetic instructions are spliced together, and MET, a receptor that can drive tumor growth when overactive. Because inhibitors already exist for several of these targets, the researchers said the findings offer a possible starting point for subtype-specific treatment rather than the one-size-fits-all approach now in use. The study was carried out under the National Cancer Center's cancer proteogenomics research program, a long-running initiative that applies the same multi-layered molecular analysis to hard-to-treat cancers. Joining Kim's Kookmin University team were Jong Bae Park of Kyung Hee University, Seung-Ki Kim of Seoul National University Hospital, Jong Hyuk Yoon of the Korea Brain Research Institute, Jason K. Sa of Korea University, Youngwook Kim of the National Cancer Center, Harim Koo of the University of Ulsan, and Antonio Iavarone of Columbia University in the United States. Kim said, in comments translated from Korean, "By comprehensively analyzing cancer proteogenomic data that reflects the actual function of tumors, we have presented a new classification system that allows for a more precise understanding of the molecular diversity of medulloblastoma." She added that the results are expected to serve as foundational data for developing patient-tailored treatment strategies and targeted therapies. 2026-07-03 16:05:09 -
KAIST develops airflow tech for future EVs SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - A research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has built a system that adjusts the flow of air around an electric vehicle in real time, adapting to how the car is being driven to improve speed, braking and cornering. The work, developed with support from Hyundai Motor Company, won the top student paper prize at one of the world's leading conferences on intelligent vehicles, a result that signals South Korea's growing reach in the technology shaping the next generation of high-performance cars. According to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) on Friday, its team, led by Professor Shim Hyun-chul in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at KAIST, received the First Prize Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2026), held in Detroit, Michigan, in June this year. KAIST said the paper was one of only about eight and a half percent of accepted submissions chosen for an oral presentation, a session reserved for papers the conference organizers judge strongest, before going on to win the top prize among those presented. The research centers on what engineers call active aerodynamics, technology that automatically adjusts a vehicle's airflow depending on how it is being driven. In fast, high-performance cars, air moving around the body of the vehicle generates downforce, a pressing force that helps tires grip the road and keeps the car stable through turns. But the same shapes that generate downforce also increase drag, which slows a car down and hurts acceleration. Active aerodynamics is designed to resolve that trade-off by changing shape on the fly, cutting drag on straightaways to boost top speed and increasing downforce under braking or cornering to improve grip and stability. Variants of the technology are already used in Formula One racing and in some production supercars, including adjustable wings and spoilers and the overtaking aid known as the Drag Reduction System, or DRS. Most previous research into active aerodynamics has been confined to wind tunnel testing, computer modeling or scaled-down prototypes, KAIST said, with few public studies validating a fully integrated system on an actual production vehicle at a professional racetrack. The KAIST team said its work was different because it moved beyond simulation and tested a complete system on a real car under racing conditions. The system developed by Na Seong-won, a PhD student who served as first author on the paper, combines four separate aerodynamic components into one integrated setup. These include an active air flap and front skirt at the front of the car, a rear wing split into three independently controlled sections functioning as a DRS, and ducts built from shape memory alloy, a material that changes form in response to temperature or electrical signals. Each part can shift the balance of drag, downforce, and side-to-side load distribution depending on driving conditions. To make the system respond automatically, the researchers built a control algorithm that reads a car's speed, steering angle, acceleration, and other real-time data, then selects the aerodynamic setup best suited to the moment, whether that is a straightaway, a hard brake, or a tight corner. The team first modeled the system using wind tunnel data and simulation software, including CarSim, MATLAB, and Simulink, then mounted it on a Genesis G80 Electrified and tested it on the track using a dSPACE MicroAutoBox III real-time control unit and RT3000 GNSS and INS sensors, which track a vehicle's position and motion with high precision. The physical testing took place at the Korea International Circuit in Yeongam, a track built to FIA Grade 1 specification, the highest certification level a circuit can hold and the standard required to host Formula One races. KAIST said testing on a track of that caliber, rather than relying solely on simulation, was central to demonstrating that the technology works under real racing conditions. The results showed the active system outperformed a fixed aerodynamic setup on lap times, braking distance, cornering performance and overall vehicle stability, with the simulation and real-world results lining up consistently. Na has experience with high-speed vehicle control that predates this project. Since 2021, Professor Shim's lab has taken part in the Indy Autonomous Challenge, an international competition for self-driving race cars, and Na has served as team leader of KAIST's entry, called EURECAR, which has driven autonomously at speeds up to 290 kilometers per hour. KAIST said that the background in extreme-speed vehicle control fed directly into the aerodynamic control work. Shim said the recognition reflected years of accumulated experience from high-speed autonomous racing. "I think it is very meaningful that active aerodynamic control technology based on an actual vehicle, drawing on the experience our lab has gained through high-speed autonomous racing competitions such as the Indy Autonomous Challenge, was selected as the best student paper at a top-tier international conference," Shim said, according to KAIST. He added that he expects the research to develop into a core technology that improves both performance and safety in future vehicles, not just high-performance electric cars. The paper, titled "Development of an Active Aerodynamic System for Improving Circuit Driving Performance of High-Performance Electric Vehicles," lists Na as first author, with master's students Yang Seung-jin, Hwang Young-jun and Wang Jeong-ha as co-authors. Three Hyundai researchers, principal researchers Choi Jang-han, Lee Jeong-su and Son Jeong-gi, also contributed to the work. (Reference Information) Journal/Source: IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2026) Title: Development of an Active Aerodynamic System for Improving Circuit Driving Performance of High-Performance Electric Vehicles Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H68vDCwL9LJT-aONUHOOTmePxC14phC8/view 2026-07-03 14:42:18 -
Court terminates Homeplus rehabilitation bid SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - The Seoul Bankruptcy Court terminated the corporate rehabilitation proceedings of Homeplus on Friday, putting South Korea's second-largest retail chain on a path toward bankruptcy unless a buyer steps forward in the coming weeks. Rehabilitation Division 4 of the court, headed by Jung Jun-young, president of the Seoul Bankruptcy Court, who presided over the case, ruled that the revised restructuring plan Homeplus submitted on June 30 was unlikely to succeed. The plan called for narrowing operations to 67 core hypermarkets to restore profitability, but it offered no concrete way to raise the two hundred billion won, about 130 million dollars, that the company needed to carry out the overhaul. The court had already pushed back the original March deadline to May 4 and then once more to July 3, and it judged that a further extension would serve no purpose. Homeplus is South Korea's second-largest discount retail chain by store count, trailing only E-Mart. Private equity firm MBK Partners has controlled the company since 2015. The retailer filed for court-led rehabilitation, a process similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States that allows a financially distressed company to keep operating while it restructures its debts under court supervision, on March 4 last year. The filing followed a sudden downgrade of Homeplus's credit rating that left the company unable to roll over short-term debt, and it sent shockwaves through South Korea's retail and financial sectors as a measure the company described at the time as a precautionary step to ease its short-term debt burden. Since entering court protection, Homeplus closed dozens of underperforming stores, sold its Homeplus Express supermarket division to NS Shopping, an affiliate of the Harim Group, and cut its workforce by roughly half through attrition and voluntary retirement. The company's headcount fell 17.4 percent, from 19,924 employees in February last year to 16,450 by this past April. Even so, the restructuring failed to stabilize its finances. Annual revenue dropped 17.1 percent year on year to 5.8 trillion won, or about 3.8 billion dollars, while operating losses jumped 73.9 percent to 546.4 billion won, or roughly 356 million dollars, and the company's debt ratio soared to 2,955 percent. The funding standoff that ultimately sank the rehabilitation plan centered on a dispute between MBK Partners and Meritz Financial Group, Homeplus's largest creditor. MBK asked Meritz to provide the full two hundred billion won in emergency operating funds, while Meritz offered only half that amount and demanded that MBK and its chairman, Kim Byung-ju, put up personal guarantees first. Neither side moved from its position before the court's deadline, even as Homeplus and its labor union jointly warned that bankruptcy would be unavoidable without the funds and appealed directly to the government to intervene. Under South Korean insolvency law, a rehabilitation plan must win court approval within twelve months of the process beginning, though judges may grant up to six additional months for unavoidable delays. Since Homeplus entered rehabilitation on March 4 last year, the statutory deadline would not have expired until September. The court nonetheless chose not to extend the case further, concluding that another delay would not change the outcome. Friday's ruling also lifted the comprehensive injunction that had shielded Homeplus from lawsuits, asset seizures, and auctions by its creditors since the rehabilitation process began. With that protection now gone, creditors are free to pursue individual claims against the company, a step that typically precedes formal bankruptcy proceedings unless a rescue buyer emerges first. 2026-07-03 11:43:39 -
Turkiye marks 10th anniversary of National Day with events SEOUL, July 02 (AJP) - Turkiye will hold thousands of commemorative events across all 81 provinces and in cities on four continents this month to mark 10 years since a faction of the Turkish military tried to seize power on the night of July 15, 2016. The scale of the campaign reflects how deeply that night is woven into the country's modern identity, remembered less as a crisis than as the moment ordinary citizens stood between their government and a takeover. The Presidency's Directorate of Communications, the government body that manages President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's public messaging and coordinates state media strategy, said in a statement on Wednesday (local time) the anniversary program will include commemoration tents in all 81 provinces, a 253-vessel maritime procession on the Bosphorus, the strait that splits Istanbul between Europe and Asia, and panels held abroad in Berlin, Tirana, Brussels, Sarajevo, Jakarta, Pretoria, The Hague, Bern and Abuja. Burhanettin Duran, the Presidency's head of communications, laid out the plan to reporters in Ankara, describing a National Memory Project built on public and private submissions that has already drawn more than 3,000 entries. The events trace back to a single night. On July 15, 2016, soldiers loyal to a faction inside the Turkish armed forces closed two bridges over the Bosphorus, sent tanks into the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, and bombed the parliament building in the capital. Erdogan, on vacation on the Aegean coast when the coup began, reached the public by calling into CNN Turk on FaceTime and urging citizens to head into the streets and squares. Large numbers answered that call. Some stood in front of tanks. Mosques broadcast the sela, a call to prayer normally reserved for funerals, to pull people outdoors. Within about 24 hours, the coup had collapsed, undone largely by that civilian response rather than by any rival military faction. More than 250 people were killed. Ankara blamed the plot on a network loyal to Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who had lived in exile in rural Pennsylvania since 1999 and died there last year. Gulen was once a close ally of Erdogan's government, building influence through schools, media outlets and business associations before the alliance broke apart around 2013 amid corruption investigations that touched officials close to the president. The government calls Gulen's network the Fethullahist Terror Organization, usually shortened to FETO, and says it had spent decades placing loyalists inside the military, police, courts and civil service. Gulen denied any role in the coup until his death. What stood out that night, in the government's telling and in much of the country's own memory of it, was that the coup was stopped by people rather than by rival soldiers or foreign intervention. The Republican People's Party (CHP), Turkiye's main secular opposition party, condemned the coup within hours, as did the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which represented Kurdish and other minority interests in parliament at the time and has since been succeeded by the DEM Party. That early, cross-partisan rejection is central to why July 15 is remembered less as a partisan event and more as a moment of national convergence. Duran told reporters the 10th anniversary should be treated as a turning point in how deeply that night is fixed in the country's memory. "We regard 15 July as our nation's resistance, heroism, and victory," he said, framing the events as three overlapping acts of will: Erdogan's decision to call the country into the streets, the public's decision to answer, and the state's institutions moving to defend the government once the coup was underway. The commemorative program leans heavily on state media and public installations. TRT, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation and the country's public broadcaster, produced a drama series and a television film about the coup along with 19 documentaries, 13 for domestic audiences and six aimed at viewers abroad. Anadolu Agency (AA), the state-run news agency, published a photo and document collection titled "15 July: Witnesses to That Night." In Istanbul, the program includes a Quran recitation at Hagia Sophia with 253 reciters, one for each person the government counts among the dead, and 3D projection shows at the Galata Tower and the Maiden's Tower. Duran said the events are aimed partly at reaching young Turks who were small children or not yet born when the coup happened. Of the more than 3,000 submissions to the National Memory Project, 120 came from applicants between 18 and 35 years old, a figure Duran cited as evidence that a new generation had, in his words, taken ownership of the July 15 victory. In the months after the coup, Turkish authorities also dismissed or detained hundreds of thousands of soldiers, teachers, judges and civil servants suspected of ties to Gulen's network, a process some Western governments criticized as too broad. Ankara has consistently defended the scope of that response as necessary to dismantle a network it says had burrowed into the state for decades. "We will not forget 15 July, nor will we allow it to be forgotten," Duran said. 2026-07-02 17:28:43