SEOUL, July 5 (AJP) - Travel demand from South Korea to Japan has dropped sharply amid growing fears over a rumored major earthquake expected to hit Japan in July, leading to widespread trip cancellations and a sharp decline in airfares and hotel bookings. Round-trip tickets to major Japanese cities like Osaka and Fukuoka are selling for just over 100,000 won ($70) on weekends in July and August, as demand remains weak despite the peak travel season. The sharp decline appe

SEOUL, July 5 (AJP) - South Korea on Saturday approved a 31.8 trillion won ($22.7 billion) supplementary budget aimed at reviving the economy and supporting livelihoods. The cabinet meeting, held at the presidential office in Yongsan, followed the budget’s parliamentary approval the night before. President Lee Jae-myung, who presided over the meeting, said the move was in response to the country’s “difficult economic conditions” and urged each ministry to

SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - France is pushing for stronger cooperation with South Korea in the area of intellectual property rights, particularly in film and media, as the rapid rise of generative AI and global content platforms continues to disrupt traditional frameworks. Speaking at a press conference hosted by the French Embassy in Seoul on Friday, Gaëtan Bruel, the President of the French National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC), underlined the urgency of protecting

SEOUL, July 4 (AJP) - GS Retail, the operator of convenience store chain GS25, has launched a new feature that allows customers to identify wines and other alcoholic beverages simply by photographing them without the need to scan QR codes or barcodes. Since last week, the artificial intelligence-assisted feature is available on its mobile app Wooridongne's Wine25Plus. It can recognize and provide information on approximately 10,000 types of alcoholic beverages such as wines and

SEOUL, July 4 (AJP) - Chinese tech giant Tencent aims to boost investment and hiring to expand its presence here, as it considers South Korea a key strategic market. During an interview in central Seoul earlier this week, general manager Nicky Fang of Tencent Cloud, a cloud computing service arm, unveiled the company's ambitious plans to further accelerate its business here, with a focus on gaming, e-commerce, and entertainment. In particular, it seeks to leverage its expertise

SEOUL, July 4 (AJP) - Director Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film "Parasite" has been voted the "best movie of the 21st century" by the readers of the New York Times. According to the daily, a survey of over 200,000 readers choosing the top 100 films named Bong's 2019 film as their top pick, followed by David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" (2001) and the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" (2007). Another film by Bong, &quo

SEOUL, July 4 (AJP) - North Korea on Friday slammed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad over its "coercive" demand for the isolated country's complete denuclearization, calling it a "provocation" that infringes on its sovereignty. The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) accused the informal alliance, which was formed among Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. to counter China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, of "reckl

SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - South Korea's prominent research institute Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) and Saudi Arabia’s King Saud University (KSU) have agreed to work together on building an open-source artificial intelligence platform, offering an alternative to the current dominance of the United States and China in the global AI landscape. The two universities held a meeting on Jul. 3 at the KAIST campus in Seoul. KAIST President Lee Kwang-hyun

SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - Singapore-based Empyrion Digital officially opened its KR1 Gangnam Data Centre on Wednesday, marking the first new data center development in Seoul's Gangnam district in more than 10 years. The 29.4 megawatt IT load facility, located in Seocho District, spans 30,714 square meters and represents the company's second operational asset in Asia following its 2021 acquisition of SG1 Dodid in Singapore. Singapore Ambassador to South Korea H.E. Eric Teo, Se