MOFA sidesteps US congressional briefing demand SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not say Tuesday whether the government will hold a briefing that Republican members of the United States House Judiciary Committee have demanded by Aug. 20 on how a new law against false and manipulated information online will be enforced. Asked at a regular briefing whether the government was discussing the request internally, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesperson Park Doo-soon said Seoul was fie August 11, 2026

About 12% of wage workers earn below minimum wage SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - About one in eight workers in South Korea earn an hourly wage below the minimum wage, with women and temporary workers more likely to be paid less and struggle to make ends meet. Some 2.77 million workers were paid less than the minimum wage of 10,030 won (about US$6.7) per hour last year, accounting for 12.4 percent of the country's 22.42 million wage workers, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Minimum Wage Commission under the Ministry August 11, 2026

Samsung SDI to buy out GM's Indiana battery plant SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - Samsung SDI announced Tuesday it will buy out General Motors' entire 49.99 percent stake in their U.S. battery joint venture, SynergyCells, giving the South Korean cell maker its first wholly owned battery plant in North America. The two companies also signed a joint development agreement to co-develop next-generation prismatic batteries for electric vehicles, drawing on Samsung SDI's high energy density and fast-charging technologies. The resulti August 11, 2026

Unitree heads to market as China dominates humanoid robotics' first act SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - In humanoid robotics’ first commercial act, there is one dominant player: China, whose manufacturers accounted for more than 97 percent of global shipments in the first half of 2026. South Korea, despite betting heavily on physical AI, remains largely a robotics powerhouse inside its own factory gates. Korea has 1,220 industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, the highest density in the world, according to the International Federation of Ro August 11, 2026

Crowded leverage turns Kospi boom into bust SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) — South Korea’s spectacular stock bull run has ridden increasingly on borrowed money, with retail leverage growing at nearly twice the U.S. pace, heavily concentrated in a handful of large-cap stocks and turning the rally into an increasingly high-stakes bet. Outstanding margin loans reached 36.7 trillion won ($25.7 billion) at the end of June, 5.5 times the 6.7 trillion won recorded at the end of 2016, according to a report by Lee Hyo-sub, a sen August 11, 2026

Dog days of summer end, so does Korea's dog meat tradition SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - There are "dog days of summer" for English-speaking societies. Korea likewise has its own pun from ancient calendar for the season’s punishing heat — and this Friday, its final dog day will carry an unusually literal sense of ending. Aug. 14 is Malbok, the last of the three traditional hottest days collectively known as Sambok, or Boknal. It will also be South Korea’s last Malbok before breeding, slaughtering and selling dogs fo August 11, 2026

Kookmin shrinks self-driving AI to run inside cars SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - A self-driving car has to work out where every other vehicle, pedestrian and obstacle around it sits in three-dimensional space, and it has to do so many times a second on a computer bolted inside the car rather than in a data center. A South Korean university team says it has found a way to shrink the software that does the recognizing without losing accuracy. Kookmin University said Tuesday that two master's students in its artificial intelligence an August 11, 2026

Zelenskyy repeatedly warns of expanded N. Korean role in Russia's war SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - North Korea's expanding role in Russia's war against Ukraine should raise security concerns in South Korea as Pyongyang gains battlefield experience and improves its weapons through cooperation with Moscow, Ukraine's top military commander has repeatedly warned. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia was preparing to station additional North Korean troops on its territory and had received more ballistic missiles from Pyon August 11, 2026

Military to relocate Gwangju Air Base operations by 2028 for semiconductor cluster SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it will push to temporarily relocate military operations from Gwangju Air Base to other bases by mid-2028, clearing the way for the site to be developed as part of a major semiconductor cluster. “Consultations have continued throughout the process at various levels, including involving the defense minister, vice minister and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the Defense Ministry spokesperson s August 11, 2026

KOSPI reverses early losses as KOSDAQ extends recent rally SEOUL, August 11 (AJP) - South Korean stocks reversed early losses Tuesday morning, with the benchmark KOSPI edging higher and the junior KOSDAQ gaining more than 1 percent as buying in construction and semiconductor equipment shares offset pressure from higher oil prices and renewed tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The main index traded 0.3 percent higher at 6,321 as of around 10:30 a.m., after falling more than 1 percent earlier in the session. It moved between a low of 6,213.7 August 11, 2026