Jeju deaths cast shadow over Korea police power shift SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Jeju, long known as South Korea's favorite resort island, has lately been making headlines for grimmer reasons: missing-person cases ending in death, abandoned searches and allegations of police misconduct. The string of cases has turned a local policing scandal into a broader reckoning over whether South Korea's already powerful police force is ready to take on even greater investigative authority. With the country set to abolish its current p August 26, 2026

Samsung doubles SSD speed as chipflation bites SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) -Samsung Electronics unveiled its next-generation portable solid-state drives Wednesday with twice the transfer speed of their predecessors, but the higher performance has a steep price amid skyrocketing consumer memory prices. The flagship P9 and mainstream P7 arrive as a broader bout of “chipflation” spreads from memory chips used in AI servers into consumer electronics. NAND flash, the memory technology used in solid-state drives, has remain August 26, 2026

Kakao union vows to block spin-off at December vote SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Kakao's labor union will campaign to defeat the technology group's planned split at a December shareholder meeting, arguing the restructuring lacks concrete reform and job-security measures. The union, a chapter of the Korean Chemical, Textile and Food Workers' Union, declared its opposition at a press conference held Wednesday following a rally to authorize a strike at Kakao Bank. Kakao's board resolved on Aug. 21 to divide the compan August 26, 2026

Migrant-background students rise as Korea's classrooms empty SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) -South Korea's school-age population is shrinking at its fastest pace in years even as the number of students from immigrant backgrounds continues to rise, government data showed Wednesday. Students from immigrant backgrounds — a category covering children born in South Korea to one Korean and one foreign-born parent, as well as children of two foreign-born parents — reached 210,838 in elementary, middle and high schools as of April 1. The August 26, 2026

Westinghouse stake report exposes US-Korea nuclear divide SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump has hardly been shy about expressing displeasure over the slow progress in Seoul's execution of its pledged $350 billion investment commitment, and the latest pressure involves the nuclear reactor business. Seoul has denied a report that Washington proposed jointly acquiring an equity stake in Westinghouse Electric, even as the Trump administration presses to draw Korean capital and construction muscle into a sweeping revival August 26, 2026

Seoul to cut power bills for chip and datacenter host regions SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - South Korea's industrial users will pay electricity rates that differ by region, with bills in the southern provinces tapped to host data centers and chip clusters falling by as much as 10 percent under a plan to draw advanced manufacturing away from the overcrowded capital area. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment and Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) presented the regional pricing scheme at a Wednesday public hearing in western Seoul August 26, 2026

Samsung Display puts expandable OLED at center of Genesis GV90 SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Samsung Display is stepping up its push into automotive OLEDs, supplying Genesis' flagship GV90 electric SUV with an expandable center screen that grows by nearly 70 percent when the vehicle is parked. The display maker said Wednesday it has begun shipping two OLED panels for the GV90 this month, including a 24.6-inch center display and 13.2-inch screens mounted behind the front-seat headrests. At the center of the vehicle is what Samsung calls August 26, 2026

Nvidia pushes AI beyond data centers as Korea ties deepen SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Nvidia is pushing its AI reach beyond data centers and deeper into South Korean manufacturing, expanding opportunities well beyond chipmakers as robots, factories and industrial systems increasingly adopt its computing platforms. The U.S. chip giant unveiled the Jetson Orin Nano 2, a compact robotics computer designed to run generative and physical AI workloads directly on edge devices such as autonomous robots, drones and vision systems. The new system August 26, 2026

Chip payouts may give Korean won more room to run SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - South Korea's won, already near its strongest level in almost a year, has more upside room as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are expected to dole out massive shareholder returns. The dollar influx, however, won't likely match the recent boost from SK hynix's $26.5 billion American depositary receipt issuance, traders say. The won has strengthened sharply in recent weeks as exporters increased dollar selling and SK hynix converted part of its August 26, 2026

South Korean matchmaker Duo fined $250,000 over false claims SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - South Korean regulator has fined matchmaking company Duo 345 million won ($250,000) for misleading claims that it had the industry’s largest pools of professionals and graduates from prestigious universities. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Wednesday the company had used the claims across its website, blog and outdoor advertisements since April 2022. The regulator also ordered the company to correct the practices. Among the slogans were stateme August 26, 2026