South Korea's costly nuclear deal with Westinghouse traces back to 50-year dependency SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - South Korea’s fraught nuclear agreement with Westinghouse Electric of the United States, derided by critics as a “50-year slave contract,” is the culmination of a technological dependency that dates back to the earliest days of the country’s atomic energy program. In the 1970s, South Korea built its nuclear ambitions on American blueprints. The nation’s first reactors were based on designs from Combustion Engineering, a U.S. company that developed the System 80 model. When Westinghouse acquired Combustion Engineering in 2000, the intellectual property rights behind South Korea’s core reactor technology effectively passed into Westinghouse’s hands. At the heart of the current dispute is the APR1400, South Korea’s flagship reactor that it has sought to market abroad as a symbol of its industrial self-reliance. Though Korean engineers spent decades refining the design, the reactor remains rooted in Combustion Engineering’s System 80+, leaving room for Westinghouse to assert intellectual property claims. Those claims came to a head in 2022, after Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the state-owned operator, secured a $17.1 billion contract to build reactors in the Czech Republic. Westinghouse swiftly filed suit in U.S. courts, arguing that the APR1400 could not be exported without its approval because it was derived from Westinghouse-controlled technology. The legal challenge threatened to derail South Korea’s most important nuclear export deal in years, just as Seoul was trying to reassert itself as a global player in the nuclear market. Facing a March 2025 deadline to finalize the Czech contract, Korean negotiators found themselves under enormous pressure. Industry officials say Westinghouse used that urgency to extract concessions. A settlement was reached in January. Under its reported terms, Korea agreed to pay Westinghouse $650 million per reactor for equipment and services, along with $175 million in licensing fees. Westinghouse also secured restrictions on where South Korea can export its reactors and won the right to review future Korean designs. For South Korea, the deal ensures the Czech project moves forward and preserves its credibility as a nuclear exporter. But it also underscores the limits of the country’s independence in an industry it has long touted as a pillar of national strength. “This is the price of building our industry on borrowed technology,” said one energy policy analyst in Seoul on condition of anonymity. “Even after decades of innovation, the original license still determines what Korea can and cannot do.” The controversy has become a flash point in South Korea, where critics argue that early reliance on foreign technology created structural dependencies that have persisted for nearly half a century. Despite technological prowess and a record of safe operations at home, the country remains tethered to intellectual property rights inherited from contracts signed in a very different era. As Seoul pushes to expand its nuclear exports to new markets, the episode is a reminder that choices made decades ago can cast long shadows — sometimes measured not in years, but in generations. 2025-08-21 13:39:27

[[K-Tech]] Krafton brings real-time AI to its virtual world at Gamescom 2025 SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - Krafton, the South Korean publisher behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is betting that artificial intelligence will change the way people play life simulation games. At Gamescom 2025, taking place in Cologne, Germany, the company unveiled plans to weave real-time AI into inZOI, its early-access simulation title, enabling players to converse naturally with digital characters and receive lifelike emotional responses. “After listening to our users, we decided to redesign the roadmap from scratch,” Hyunjun Kim, the project manager at Krafton’s inZOI Studio, told reporters. “We’ve completely reworked the interaction system of the character ‘Zoi’ to enable human-like emotional behavior.” The revamped system equips Zoi with a built-in AI chatbot engine. Players can speak directly to the character or send written messages, and Zoi will respond in real time with AI-generated speech. Expressions, gestures and mood will shift according to the conversation. Kim said early tests produced amusing, if sometimes unpredictable, results. “We ran a test where players asked game characters to lend them money, and most of them just ran away and refused,” he said, smiling. “We’re still in R&D, and there are many unknowns ahead — but we’re committed to pushing forward with bold experiments.” Krafton has been among the most aggressive game publishers experimenting with artificial intelligence. Last month, it announced a collaboration with SK Telecom on a new post-training method for large language models, applied to three systems with roughly seven billion parameters each. The models, dubbed OpenThinker2, OpenThinker3 and AceReason-Nemotron-1.1, showed improved performance on a widely used math reasoning benchmark. Alongside its AI push, Krafton is still expanding inZOI’s content. At Gamescom, the company rolled out a free downloadable update called inZOI: Island Getaway, which introduces Cahaya, a sun-drenched island city modeled after Southeast Asian resorts. The expansion adds farming, mineral harvesting, deep-sea fishing and boating — mechanics that were absent from earlier builds of the game. Despite the progress, a full release remains far off. “When we started early access, we already expected this to take a long time,” Kim said. “We’ll keep delaying the official launch until we’ve fully incorporated user feedback. Not next year — realistically, the earliest would be sometime the year after.” 2025-08-21 10:37:04

[[K-Tech]] From 'Lineage' to AI: How NCSOFT is reinventing itself for new gaming era Editor's Note: This article is the 32nd installment in our series on Asia's top 100 companies, exploring the strategies, challenges, and innovations driving the region's most influential corporations. SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - In the late 1990s, when South Korea’s internet cafes were still filled with teenagers battling each other in primitive shooting games, a young software engineer, Kim Taek-jin, was quietly building something different. Kim, who had helped develop one of the country’s first word processors for the Korean language, launched a role-playing game called Lineage in 1998. It was South Korea’s first massively multiplayer online role-playing game — a virtual world where tens of thousands of players could gather at once, form alliances, and wage endless battles. The release transformed the country’s fledgling gaming industry and turned NCSOFT, the company Kim founded a year earlier, into a household name. More than a quarter century later, Lineage and its sequels still account for most of the company’s revenue. That dependence has been both a blessing and a burden. NCSOFT remains one of South Korea’s largest game publishers, but as the industry pivots toward mobile titles, console blockbusters and emerging platforms like the metaverse, it faces the challenge of reinventing itself while holding onto its most loyal fans. The company’s latest earnings, released this month, reflect that delicate balance. Revenue in the April-to-June quarter rose to 382.4 billion won, or about $284 million. Operating profit surged 71 percent from a year earlier, to 15.1 billion won. But foreign exchange losses pushed NCSOFT into the red, with a net loss of 36 billion won. The numbers underline a paradox: NCSOFT remains highly profitable when it leans on Lineage, but its long-term ambitions hinge on proving it can do more. In recent months, Kim has reorganized the company to prepare for that future. He stepped into a co-chief executive role alongside Park Byung-moo, who now manages business operations and acquisitions, freeing Kim to focus on the creative side of game development. NCSOFT has also invested in overseas studios in Sweden and Poland, betting that fresh talent can help diversify its catalog. Seven new titles are planned by 2026, including Aion 2, a sequel to one of its earlier hits, and Cinder City, a massively multiplayer tactical shooter that has already been delayed. Perhaps the company’s boldest move lies in artificial intelligence. NCSOFT has been rolling out Varco Studio, a proprietary generative AI tool that can build avatars, synthesize voices and automatically generate storylines. The company even spun off an AI subsidiary to accelerate development. Executives say the technology could dramatically reduce the time and cost of producing new games. “We’re at an inflection point,” said one Seoul-based industry analyst. “If NCSOFT can translate its AI investments into compelling new titles, it has a chance to break out of the Lineage shadow. If not, it risks being seen as a one-franchise company.” For Kim, the stakes are personal. At 56, he still sees himself less as a corporate chairman than as a developer. Friends and colleagues describe him as a tinkerer who would rather spend time with designers than board members. In that sense, the dual leadership model — with Park handling the business and Kim shaping the creative vision — reflects not just a corporate strategy but Kim’s own identity. The company’s ambitions are not limited to gaming. It operates a professional baseball team, the NC Dinos, and runs philanthropic programs through the NC Cultural Foundation, which supports education and campaigns against gaming addiction. NCSOFT is also experimenting with blockchain-based games and metaverse-style community platforms, signaling its intention to remain at the forefront of digital culture. Still, challenges abound. NCSOFT competes not only with domestic rivals like Nexon and Netmarble but also with global powerhouses like Blizzard and Riot Games, whose titles dominate esports arenas and streaming platforms. For all its technological prowess, NCSOFT has yet to produce a global cultural phenomenon on the scale of League of Legends or World of Warcraft. Yet in the company’s glassy headquarters south of Seoul, there is quiet confidence. After all, Kim has been here before: trying to convince the world that a small Korean developer could build something players would devote their lives to. In 1998, that gamble reshaped online gaming. The question now is whether NCSOFT can do it again — this time, with artificial intelligence and a new generation of players. 2025-08-21 10:26:46

Ex-first lady's detention period extended to late this month SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - Independent prosecutors investigating multiple allegations involving former first lady Kim Keon Hee can now hold her longer, as her detention period has been extended until the end of this month. In a press statement on Wednesday, prosecutors said the Seoul Central District Court had extended her detention for another 10 days until Aug. 31, as her detention period was set to expire this week. Kim has been detained at a remand prison in southern Seoul since early last week over multiple charges of accepting bribes including a luxury handbag and jewelry, being involved in a stock manipulation scheme, and interfering in candidate nominations during the 2022 by-elections. She was scheduled to appear for questioning later in the day, but she did not show up, citing poor health. During her previous questioning, she reportedly denied all allegations and claimed she couldn't remember. Prosecutors have now rescheduled her questioning and asked her to appear on Thursday. 2025-08-20 17:48:33

[[K-Culture]] Action-hero TV series 'Twelve' to premiere this Saturday SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - The cast and crew of “Twelve,” a new action-hero series produced in part by the actor Ma Dong-seok, gathered for a news conference Wednesday in Seoul. The event, held at the Ambassador Seoul Pullman Hotel, was attended by Ma, along with co-stars Park Hyung-sik, Seo In-guk, Lee Joo-been, Kang Mi-na, Sung Yu-been, Ahn Ji-hye, and Regina Lei. The show's directors, Kang Dae-kyu and Han Yun-seon, were also present. Inspired by the Eastern zodiac’s twelve guardian animals, “Twelve” follows a group of angels living as humans who fight to protect humanity from forces of evil. The series marks Ma’s return to the fantasy hero genre, a move that has generated significant anticipation following his starring role in Marvel Studios’ “Eternals.” “Twelve” is scheduled to premiere on KBS 2TV on Saturday, Aug. 23, at 9:20 p.m. 2025-08-20 17:41:31

Nonagenarian ex-North Korean soldier attempts to return home after decades in South Korea SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - A handful of surviving former North Korean soldiers have recently expressed their willingness to return to the North, with one of them attempting to cross the border in Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday. The Unification Ministry here said earlier this week that six former North Korean soldiers have recently requested repatriation. Now in their 80s and 90s, they spent decades in prisons here after refusing to abandon communist ideologies and pledge their allegiance to the South. The ministry said these are believed to be the last remaining prisoners of war (POWs) here, though others may still remain. Among them was 95-year-old Ahn Hak-sop, who tried to cross a bridge in Paju, north of Seoul, on his way to Panmunjom to enter North Korea. The bridge is inside a restricted military zone that requires approval from both the South Korean military and the United Nations Command. He was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint. Ahn said he had endured "humiliation and torture" for refusing to sign such a statement, claiming that it would be "unfair to remain buried here even after death." His supporters also argued that former POWs should be allowed to return to their homeland. The ministry said it is reviewing the matter on humanitarian grounds but stressed that immediate repatriation is impossible due to various factors and circumstances. "Various options are under review," a ministry official said. Ahn, who hailed from Ganghwa Island , was captured in 1953 during the Korean War and spent 42 years in prison before being released in 1995. In 2000, shortly after the first inter-Korean summit, South Korea repatriated some 63 long-term prisoners through Panmunjom. At that time, Ahn declined to join, vowing to continue his struggle here until U.S. troops leave the Korean Peninsula. No further repatriations have taken place since then. 2025-08-20 17:37:03

PHOTOS: Civil defense drill SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - A 20-minute civil defense drill, simulating an enemy air raid, was conducted nationwide on Wednesday, with sirens blaring and text alerts sent to millions, as citizens were directed to seek shelter in designated spaces. The drill, which began at 2 p.m., included a nationwide air raid warning that prompted a wailing siren and emergency broadcasts. In response, people across the country were instructed to move to nearby shelters and other underground areas. 2025-08-20 16:36:19

K-pop anime tops Netflix chart again SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - Netflix's South Korean anime "KPop Demon Hunters" has once again topped the global streaming giant's latest chart released on Wednesday. According to Netflix's ranking website Tudum, the animation garnered 26 million in cumulative views during the week ending last Sunday, reclaiming the top spot in its ninth week of release. The second-most-watched movie for the week was American crime thriller "Night Always Comes," followed by rom-com "My Oxford Year." Since its release on June 20, "KPop Demon Hunters," which deals with the story of K-pop superstars who are not just "selling out stadiums" but also "using their secret powers to protect their fans from supernatural threats," briefly held the top spot earlier before staying at No. 2 for several weeks. Along with the global popularity of the 100-minute-long animation, its K-pop-infused soundtrack has also been a hit, with eight of its songs entering Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. Meanwhile, President Lee Jae-myung is scheduled to appear on a special program aired on broadcaster Arirang TV later in the day to discuss the future of K-pop, with a focus on the recent huge sucess of "KPop Demon Hunters." 2025-08-20 16:33:19

South Korea turns to drone technology to guard against fires, bird strikes SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - South Korea has selected two consortiums to develop specialized drones for firefighting and airport bird control, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Wednesday. This came as the country moves to strengthen disaster-response capabilities following a series of deadly incidents. The ministry said it reviewed 22 proposals from 119 companies before awarding the projects. One consortium will focus on building heavy-duty drones to fight wildfires, while another will develop artificial intelligence–driven systems to detect and disperse birds near airports. The initiative comes after two stark reminders of the nation’s vulnerability: a plane crash last December that investigators suspect was caused by a bird strike, and massive wildfires in March that burned across wide swaths of the country. Angelux, which will lead the firefighting drone consortium, is set to receive 11.5 billion won, or about $8.2 million, over the next three years to develop aircraft capable of carrying 200 kilograms of fire suppressant. The drones, with a maximum takeoff weight of 450 kilograms, are designed to fly for up to three hours to battle blazes in areas deemed too dangerous for human firefighters. Angelux also plans to import larger foreign-made firefighting drones capable of handling 260-kilogram payloads. The second consortium, led by NH Networks, will receive 5 billion won through 2026 to develop bird deterrence technology. Its drones will patrol within four kilometers of airports, using AI to analyze flight patterns and deploying swarm units to scatter flocks that pose a threat to aircraft safety. Industry experts have long called for more advanced bird strike prevention measures, noting that major airports abroad already employ avian radars and laser systems. “This project will provide new firefighting response capabilities,” Joo Jong-wan, deputy minister of civil aviation, said in a statement. “The successful commercialization of heavy-duty fire drones will help meet growing domestic demand for specialized aircraft.” 2025-08-20 15:49:12

Spanish film starring South Korean footballer set for release next month SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - Midfielder Yang Jae-woo, who currently plays for Spanish football team Móstoles CF, has taken a leading role in the Iberian country's upcoming film, slated for release next month. Based on Venezuelan author Ariana Godoy's popular web-based novel, "Sigue Mi Voz" (Follow My Voice) tells the story of a young woman who leads a reclusive life but gradually opens up to the world after being moved by the voice of a late-night radio host, portrayed by Yang. Yang, fluent in both Korean and Spanish, reportedly earned the role through an audition, becoming the first South Korean to star in a Spanish film, though a few others have previously appeared in supporting roles. He moved to Spain when he was 11 years old after being recruited by Villarreal CF's youth team in 2012 and has lived there since. The romantic film is set to hit local theaters there on Sept. 12. 2025-08-20 15:37:23