Coupang unit to fully compensate sellers for warehouse fire losses SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - Coupang Fulfillment Services (CFS) announced Wednesday it will fully compensate third-party sellers for inventory destroyed in a fire at its logistics center in Incheon, moving to shield its merchant partners from mounting operational losses. The blaze, which broke out at the Seoknam-dong complex, gutted stock belonging to sellers enrolled in Rocket Growth, Coupang's fulfillment service in which merchants entrust goods to the company for storage and delive July 22, 2026

Lee receives credentials from 8 new ambassadors to Seoul SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday received letters of credence from eight newly appointed ambassadors to South Korea. At a ceremony at Cheong Wa Dae in central Seoul, the fourth since Lee took office, ambassadors from Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Nigeria and Tanzania presented their credentials to Lee. They were Brazil's Fernando Meirelles de Azevedo Pimentel, Colombia's Yovani Velásquez Quintero, El Salvado July 22, 2026

Borderline Koreans: too able to qualify, too slow to fit SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - It is 2 p.m., and the lunch rush has cleared at Youth Mungan, a kimchi stew shop in Seoul's southwestern neighborhood of Nakseongdae. A young man moves from table to table, spraying sanitizer and wiping every corner with meticulous care. "Customers sit here," Kim Ji-woo, 27, said sheepishly. "Wiping it perfectly clean puts my mind at ease." He clears plates, relays orders to the kitchen and folds used aprons neatly onto a rack. Cl July 22, 2026

Seoul to add ferries for summer island travel rush SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - South Korea will deploy seven additional reserve vessels and expand domestic ferry operations during the peak summer vacation season, as more than 855,000 passengers are expected to travel by sea to islands and coastal destinations, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said Wednesday. The special transport measures will run from Saturday through Aug. 10. The ministry expects about 50,000 passengers a day to use coastal passenger ferries during the period, with July 22, 2026

S-Oil launches biofuel-blended marine fuel for shipping SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - S-Oil, South Korea's fourth-largest oil refiner, announced it had begun supplying a biofuel-blended marine fuel as it moves to capture growing demand for cleaner-burning fuels in the global shipping industry. The new product, known as B30 VLSFO, combines conventional very low-sulphur fuel oil with about 30 percent sustainable biofuel. Because it can be used without any modification to a vessel's engines, the refiner said, it offers shipowners an imm July 22, 2026

S&P lifts Samsung outlook as AI memory boom gathers pace SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) — Global ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has made its call on Samsung Electronics, betting that an AI-driven memory supercycle will drive at least two more years of strong earnings growth. The agency revised its outlook on the chipmaker to positive from stable, saying favorable industry conditions, including strong demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and a prolonged supply shortage, are likely to support memory prices through 2027. "The po July 22, 2026

Seoul denies receiving US Hormuz warship request SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - No request has come from Washington for South Korea to send any specific military asset to the Strait of Hormuz, South Korea's presidential Blue House said Wednesday, pushing back against reports that a formal demand for a naval deployment was close. The denial is narrow, and the wording matters. The presidential office said the government has not been asked recently to dispatch a particular asset in connection with the safety of international sea lanes July 22, 2026

Stray Kids to open five-show Seoul run ahead of Aug. 7 EP SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - K-pop boy group Stray Kids will launch their latest world tour with five sold-out shows in Seoul before releasing its eight-track EP “THIS & THAT” on Aug. 7, JYP Entertainment said Wednesday. The “Stray Kids World Tour ” will open at KSPO Dome in Seoul’s Songpa District on July 25, 26 and 29 and Aug. 1 and 2. The EP will be released at 1 p.m. alongside its title track, “This & That.” Stray Kids’ July 22, 2026

Chinese state media warns of growing US 'pressure' on Korea's chipmakers SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - South Korea's semiconductor industry could become increasingly reliant on the U.S. as Washington pushes South Korean chipmakers to expand production and investment on American soil, Chinese state media warned on Tuesday. In an op-ed, the Global Times, an English-language sister newspaper of the state-run People's Daily, said U.S. industrial policies were directly affecting South Korea's semiconductor sector as a whole, citing Reuters' recent re July 22, 2026

AI to cut 256,000 jobs annually in S. Korea: Report SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - Artificial intelligence is expected to eliminate roughly 256,000 jobs a year in South Korea within a decade, a report released by the Korea Development Institute showed Wednesday. AI will concentrate pressure on professionals, office workers and sales staff rather than on the manual work that earlier waves of automation displaced. The scale is easier to read against what the institute expects the labor market to do otherwise. In its outlook published earlier July 22, 2026