Anseong Mayor Kim Bo-ra Says Speed Matters as City Drafts 18 Billion Won Emergency Budget Gyeonggi Province’s Anseong city has drafted an emergency 18 billion won supplementary budget to ease residents’ financial strain from high fuel prices, inflation and the prolonged Middle East war. The city submitted the proposal to the Anseong City Council on April 20 in line with the central government’s measures to stabilize livelihoods. The one-time budget focuses on urgent issues tied to the war’s spillover effects and is expected to be put to a final vote at the council’s 239th extraordinary session on April 28 after prior consultations and schedule coordination. The centerpiece is 14.9 billion won in high fuel price relief payments. The city plans to begin paying up to 550,000 won per household starting April 27 to basic livelihood recipients, near-poor households and households in the bottom 70% by income. The plan also includes 600 million won for K-Pass rebate support to respond to the fuel-price shock, encourage public transit use and improve mobility. Another 900 million won was set aside to hire temporary workers for a special farmland survey aimed at creating public-sector jobs. To help residents and small businesses hit by high prices, the budget includes 500 million won for a special credit guarantee program for small merchants and 1 billion won to support issuance of local currency to boost consumption. Mayor Kim Bo-ra said on social media on April 20 that she had approved the 18 billion won emergency budget, adding that the city had prepared a plan tailored to local needs and aimed at rapid execution after the government announced its own supplementary budget. “Speed matters with a supplementary budget,” Kim said. “The city is operating a task force team with the goal of starting the first round of applications and payments for relief funds from April 27. We will execute it quickly so it provides real help to residents who are struggling.” The city said it will begin spending as soon as the council approves the budget and will focus its administrative resources on ensuring there are no disruptions in applications and payments. An Anseong city official said the emergency budget was designed to prioritize stable daily life for residents and support the local economy, adding that the city will push detailed policies and swift execution to help overcome the current crisis.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:14:06

Adani Enterprises sets up three airport-city units for hotels and real estate Adani Enterprises, a core company of India’s Adani Group, said on April 18 that its wholly owned unit Adani Airport City has set up three subsidiaries to handle hotel and real estate development. Effective April 6, it established Adani Navi Mumbai Airport City, Adani Guwahati Airport City and Adani Ahmedabad Airport City. Each has paid-in capital of 1 million rupees (about 1.7 million yen). The companies plan to pursue real estate business using owned or leased properties, real estate construction, and hotel operations that include restaurants, banquet halls and business hubs. The Adani Group operates airports through its Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL). AAHL won operating rights for six airports in India and took over those concessions in fiscal 2020/21 (April 2020 to March 2021) and fiscal 2021/22. AAHL also acquired more than a 70% stake in Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MIAL), which operates Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), also known as Mumbai airport, from infrastructure conglomerate GVK Group and others. It also holds management control of Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (NMIAL), a MIAL unit that operates Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA). 2026-04-21 16:13:25

South Jeolla Province to Revamp Seedling Production for Climate-Resilient Forests South Jeolla Province said it held a meeting April 21 at its Forest Research Institute in Naju to discuss a structural overhaul of how it develops forest resources, including tree species selection and seedling production, in response to climate change. The meeting was aimed at preparing for shifting forest growing conditions, rising forest disasters and changes in forest-creation patterns linked to climate change. Eighteen people attended, including officials from the province and its cities and counties, forest research institutions and seedling producers. Participants focused on expanding climate-adapted species, meeting demand for large-tree plantings, and improving the seedling production and supply system. The province said it plans to move away from conifer-centered forest creation by expanding climate-adapted species such as warm-temperate broadleaf trees and nectar-producing trees, and by introducing tailored species suited to local climate conditions. It said the goal is to build forests more resilient to disasters such as wildfires while strengthening ecological stability and public benefits. The Forest Research Institute presented recommendations for key warm-temperate broadleaf and nectar-producing species based on matching species to suitable sites. The province said it plans to secure seed sources for species including inamu, aweenamu and odongnamu within this year and then build out a full-scale seedling production system. The province said nectar-producing trees are a key resource for protecting both the beekeeping industry and forest ecosystems because they provide food not only for honeybees but also for a range of forest insects. It said it will actively secure major nectar-producing species. It also said demand is rising for large-tree plantings to secure carbon absorption earlier, improve scenery and support species conversion as part of efforts to control pine wilt disease. To address supply-demand imbalances, the province said it will improve seedling-age standards and diversify specifications. For seedling production, which the province called critical to long-term forest planning, it said it will build a systematic supply system based on mid- to long-term supply-and-demand forecasts. It also plans to gradually establish an integrated forest resource management system linking seedling production, forest creation and follow-up management to improve policy effectiveness. Kang Sin-hui, head of the province’s Forest Resources Division, said rapid changes in forest conditions driven by climate change require a fundamental shift in forest-creation methods and nursery policy. “Based on field input and scientific data, we will actively push sustainable forest resource development and strengthen the competitiveness of the forestry sector,” Kang said. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:12:47

Cho Kuk Innovation Party’s Park Hong-ryul launches Mokpo mayoral bid, vows local political reform Park Hong-ryul, a preliminary candidate for Mokpo mayor from the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, held a news conference on 21 and formally confirmed his entry into the June 3 local elections, pledging to serve as a “steppingstone for reform in local politics.” In a statement, Park said citizens and party members had backed him to face the Democratic Party candidate in the general election. He thanked voters for choosing him, saying he would stand up to what he called the Democratic Party’s heavy-handed politics in Mokpo and help open an era of local government led by citizens. Park also urged primary rival Park Yong-an to join forces, calling for unity to break what he described as the Democratic Party’s stronghold. He said local politics in Yeongnam and Honam had been dominated by the Democratic Party and the People Power Party, arguing the system should move toward a genuine multiparty structure that reflects public opinion. Park said he would win the election, make Mokpo a base for political innovation and restore the city’s standing as a leading center of Honam politics. Park said his party and the Democratic Party share some goals, including prosecutorial reform, but criticized the Democratic Party for, in his words, repaying Honam residents’ support with “lineups” tied to nominations. “It is time for alert citizens to discipline monopolistic political power,” he said. Park pointed to his experience in city administration as an advantage. He said that during his time in office in the 6th and 8th elected administrations, Mokpo boosted tourism competitiveness by installing a marine cable car. He also said the city restarted the long-delayed Imseong District development project through an agreement with the Korea Land and Housing Corp., and improved the monopoly structure of city bus routes, resolving wage arrears and service suspensions. As a key pledge for the 9th elected administration, Park proposed building a Mokpo-style renewable energy convergence national industrial complex on 550,000 pyeong around Gohado, attracting 100 companies and creating 10,000 jobs. Park said he would make Mokpo “a happy city from cradle to old age” and a city with abundant jobs for young people. He asked for support, saying he would overcome what he called the Democratic Party’s high barrier and open a new era for Mokpo. The news conference was seen as signaling potential shifts in the local political landscape ahead of the June 3 elections and was expected to affect the Mokpo mayoral race.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:10:19

Hudson AI Unveils Automated AI Dubbing Tool at NAB Show, Targets One-Hour QC Media-focused voice AI company Hudson AI showcased its voice AI solution for media production and dubbing, Hudson Studio, at NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas. NAB Show is a global exhibition where the latest technologies across broadcasting, streaming and video production are introduced, drawing tens of thousands of industry participants from more than 100 countries each year. With the expansion of OTT services, AI-driven production tools have become a major theme, and participation has been rising in areas such as speech synthesis, automated dubbing and video generation. Hudson AI highlighted what it calls “Agentic Localization,” a system in which AI agents handle the full localization workflow — from planning and execution to quality control. The company said the approach goes beyond translation or generating dubbed audio by repeatedly evaluating and revising outputs to improve quality. A central focus is automating QC, a step the industry often cites as the biggest drain on time and cost. For a one-hour drama or variety program, the review stage alone can take several days after translation and dubbing. Hudson AI said it designed the process so agents complete much of the work in advance, aiming to limit human involvement to final checks and to bring QC down to about one hour. The company said it can maintain consistency by using project-specific terminology, style guides and tone as a form of memory. It also applies emotion-aware evaluation to analyze not only voice matching but also acting tone, emotional delivery and nonverbal elements, automatically reworking segments that fall below standards. Hudson Studio offers modular tools including voice separation, speaker separation, speech-to-text, text-to-speech and voice conversion. The company said users can separate background sound from dialogue to generate subtitles, or create dubbed voices that reflect a specific speaker’s vocal color and emotion. It currently supports more than 80 languages. As global OTT platforms expand multilingual dubbed content, the automated dubbing and localization market is growing quickly. Industry estimates cited in the sector suggest localization can account for 20% to 30% of total production costs in some cases, with demand for automation rising especially among platforms with large libraries. Hudson AI said it plans to use its NAB appearance to broaden collaboration talks with media and platform companies in North and South America. It also plans to attend SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 in Japan later this month as it targets the Asian market. “Even when AI dubbing is adopted, bottlenecks often occur at the quality review stage in real operations,” CEO Shin Hyun-jin said. “Agentic Localization focuses on automating the entire process — from planning to execution and review — to improve quality while addressing cost and scheduling at the same time.”* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:07:54

Morgan Stanley Sees Agentic AI Boosting CPU, Memory Demand; Samsung, SK Hynix Among Beneficiaries Agentic AI — autonomous systems that plan and carry out multistep tasks — could broaden AI chip investment beyond graphics processing units to include central processing units and memory, Morgan Stanley said. According to Reuters, Morgan Stanley said in a report released the previous day that as AI moves beyond content generation toward autonomous execution, CPUs and memory, along with GPUs, are becoming key components that determine overall performance. The bank said the shift could change how data center servers are configured and lift demand for CPUs, while adding that GPU demand remains strong. Morgan Stanley estimated that agentic AI could add $32.5 billion to $60 billion to a data center CPU market expected to exceed $100 billion by 2030. As AI workloads are broken into multiple steps, the bank said, CPUs are likely to serve as a control layer and memory demand could also rise quickly. Companies operating in supply-constrained areas could gain greater pricing power, it said. Morgan Stanley listed Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Arm as potential beneficiaries in CPUs and accelerators; Micron, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix in memory; and TSMC and ASML in manufacturing and equipment. Reuters earlier reported, citing recent earnings outlooks from ASML and TSMC, that U.S. Big Tech companies are still expanding investment in AI infrastructure. 2026-04-21 16:07:19

Cabinet OKs Capital Gains Tax Relief for Multi-Home Sellers Who Apply by May 9 A measure to exempt multi-homeowners from higher capital gains tax rates when selling homes in regulated areas was finalized on the 21st, provided they complete an application for land transaction approval by May 9. The government said it approved revisions to the enforcement decrees of the Income Tax Act and the Real Estate Transaction Reporting Act at the 17th State Council meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok that morning. As previously announced, the temporary suspension of higher capital gains tax rates for multi-homeowners selling homes they hold in regulated areas will end May 9. However, acknowledging that obtaining land transaction approval can take time, the government said it will not apply the higher tax rates to cases in which the approval application is filed by that date, easing selling conditions to some extent. The Cabinet also approved a revision to the enforcement decree of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, abolishing the per-transaction cap on small overseas remittances ($5,000) and switching late-payment penalties for the foreign exchange stability levy from a monthly to a daily basis. The government said the changes are intended to make remittances more convenient while refining penalties. A revision to the Public Official Election Act also cleared the Cabinet, introducing a mid-sized electoral district system for metropolitan council elections for the first time in the June 3 local elections and increasing the share of proportional representation seats. The total number of local council members will rise by 80 compared with the 2022 quota. A revision to the Political Parties Act also passed, allowing a party members’ council or local committee to operate one office to support smoother management of lower-level city and provincial party organizations. The Cabinet further approved a bill to enact a basic law on patients, broadly covering patients’ rights and duties, and a revision to the Child Welfare Act to strengthen protections for the right to learn for children who have suffered abuse. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:06:31

Naver News Tops South Korea’s Online News Traffic Rankings, Ahead of FMKorea and DongA Ilbo South Korea’s online news market remains heavily shaped by portals and online communities, according to traffic data and audience surveys. Similarweb, a web-traffic analytics firm, said its March 2026 rankings for domestic “News & Media Publisher” websites put Naver News (news.naver.com) at No. 1. It was followed by FMKorea (fmkorea.com), DongA Ilbo (donga.com), Nate News (news.nate.com) and Chosun Ilbo (chosun.com). The rankings were updated April 1. The list shows that the top tier is not dominated solely by traditional news outlets. Naver News and Nate News are portal news services rather than individual publishers, and FMKorea functions largely as an online community. Among publisher-run sites, DongA Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo ranked in the top five, but the broader pattern suggests that portals and communities still serve as key gateways for news discovery and sharing. That structure aligns with long-standing patterns in South Korea’s digital news habits. In “Digital News Report 2025 Korea,” the Korea Press Foundation said users rely heavily on portals and news aggregation services, while direct access to publishers’ websites or apps remains limited. Only 6% of respondents said news websites or apps were their main route to news, the lowest among 48 countries surveyed. The average across the 48 countries was 23%. The foundation’s “2025 Media Audience Survey” suggests portal news use is easing from earlier highs. It found 66.5% of respondents said they used internet portal news in the previous week in 2025, down 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier. The figure has fallen since peaking at 79.2% in 2021. At the same time, video-based news consumption is rising quickly. The survey found news use via online video platforms climbed to 30.0% in 2025 from 18.4% in 2024, an increase of 11.6 percentage points. YouTube accounted for 92.2% of that use. Short-form news use also rose, to 22.9% in 2025 from 11.1% in 2024. In mobile apps, the boundaries of “news” are also widening. Similarweb’s Android “News & Magazines” app rankings, as of April 18, 2026, listed X at No. 1, the investment information app SAVE at No. 2 and Google News at No. 3. Publisher and news-service apps including Chosun Ilbo, Maeil Business Newspaper, Newneek, Mobile Hankyung and Yonhap News Agency also appeared near the top. In iPhone news app rankings, X, Blind, Daum, Reddit, Newneek, The Korea Economic Daily, Maeil Business Newspaper and JoongAng Ilbo were among the leading apps. Shifts in online rankings are closely tied to advertising. For publishers, traffic influences ad rates and revenue, but heavier reliance on portals, communities and social media can make it harder to build direct relationships with readers. The Korea Press Foundation said that even as dependence on portal news declines, users are not necessarily moving to publishers’ sites or apps, but instead shifting to other intermediaries such as social media. The rankings, in that sense, reflect more than which outlet is read most. They point to a market where where news is found, shared and consumed can matter more than where it is produced. As portals’ dominance softens and YouTube, short-form video and communities gain influence, publishers face pressure to strengthen their own platforms and build loyal audiences beyond a simple race for clicks.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:04:24

Qoo10 Founder Gu Young-bae Denies Fraud Charges in Tmon-Wemakeprice Settlement Case Executives at Qoo10 Group, including founder Gu Young-bae, denied fraud allegations in court after prosecutors filed additional charges tied to the Tmon-Wemakeprice unpaid settlement crisis. The criminal trial over responsibility for the large-scale nonpayment is now moving into a fuller phase. The Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 24, led by Judge Lee Young-seon, held a hearing on 21 for Gu and seven others, including Ryu Gwang-jin of Tmon and Ryu Hwa-hyeon of Wemakeprice, on charges including fraud and breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. Prosecutors said Gu, Qoo10 Technology head Kim Hyo-jong and Qoo10 finance chief Lee Si-jun conspired to deceive marketplace sellers into believing payments would be made even after Qoo10 had lost the ability to pay settlement funds, and allegedly took about 844 million won. Gu’s attorney said the defense denies the indictment, and the other defendants took the same position. Whether the company was already unable to make settlements, and whether executives intentionally misled sellers, is expected to be central to the case. The court decided to merge the newly indicted case with the ongoing trial over the broader Tmon-Wemakeprice settlement crisis, meaning allegations of fraud, breach of trust and embezzlement will be heard together. Prosecutors previously indicted Gu and others in December, alleging they misappropriated about 1.85 trillion won in seller settlement funds from Tmon and Wemakeprice and embezzled about 100 billion won by siphoning affiliate money under the guise of loans and consulting fees. Authorities have put total damages at 1.8563 trillion won. The crisis surfaced in July 2024, when it became known that about 500 merchants on Wemakeprice did not receive payments on their scheduled settlement date. The nonpayment later spread to Tmon, widening the fallout. Qoo10, a Korea-linked e-commerce company founded in Singapore, acquired Tmon in 2022 and Wemakeprice in 2023. After the settlement crisis deepened its management troubles, Tmon was sold to Oasis, and Wemakeprice entered bankruptcy proceedings. Separately, Gu and others are also on trial over allegations of unpaid wages and severance. Prosecutors said they failed to pay about 5.6 billion won in wages to 613 workers and about 20.7 billion won in severance to 733 workers. Future hearings are expected to focus on when the company lost the ability to make settlements, what executives knew at the time, and whether fund management violated the law. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-04-21 16:00:52

Number of EVs tops 1 million in cumulative registrations SEOUL, April 21 (AJP) - The number of registered electric vehicles this year has surpassed 100,000 as of last week, bringing cumulative registrations to more than 1 million, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said on Tuesday. The milestone is coming faster than in previous years, as it took until early July to hit 100,000 registrations last year, and until mid-September a year earlier. Until March, EVs accounted for about 20 percent of new vehicle registrations, or 83,533 units out of 415,746, much higher than 13 percent in 2025 and 8.9 percent in 2024. The ministry attributed the increase to a wave of new models, fiercer price competition among automakers, expanded government subsidies, and incentives for those switching from internal combustion vehicles. Some market watchers also pointed to surging fuel prices due to supply disruptions caused by the prolonged conflict in the Middle East. The trend is likely to continue, as the government's supplementary budget will extend subsidies to an additional 20,000 passenger cars and 9,000 trucks, bringing this year's estimated total to 280,000 passenger cars, 45,000 trucks, and 3,800 buses. "This year will be recorded as a historic year that opens the era of 1 million electric vehicles," said Minister Kim Sung-hwan, vowing that the government will take steps to ensure EV users face no inconvenience. 2026-04-21 15:59:30