"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's…" SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - The sky above Gwanghwamun can be entrancing on deep-blue autumn days, with mountains rising beyond the broad avenue in downtown Seoul. But on Thursday, there was another reason to look up. Eyes and phones tilted upward as a man somersaulted 120 meters above the ground. Beneath him lay modern high-rises, an ancient palace, the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and hundreds of spectators. Jaan Roose, a 34-year-old Estonian slackliner and three- October 1, 2026

KOSPI jumps nearly 2% on chip rally, U.S. investment deal SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) — South Korean stocks rebounded nearly 2 percent Thursday as Micron Technology's stronger results lifted semiconductor shares, while nuclear and steel stocks gained on new U.S. energy investment projects. The benchmark KOSPI closed higher at 6,971.35, up 1.95 percent from the previous session. The index opened 0.34 percent lower at 6,814.49 and fell as low as 6,765.06 before reversing higher through the session. Institutions bought a net 334.4 b October 1, 2026

KOSPI enters fourth quarter fighting to reclaim 7,000 SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) — Much of the KOSPI’s early-year exuberance has fizzled out as 2026 enters its final quarter, with thinning trade, volatile bond markets and monetary tightening cooling the leveraged bets that helped propel its rally. After taking nearly five years to climb from 3,000 to 4,000, the benchmark swept past successive milestones to breach 9,000 in June. Now, 7,000 has become a resistance level, raising the question of how long the next breakthrough wil October 1, 2026

Alaska LNG steals the show as Trump sells Korea deal at home SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - South Korea and the United States have finally put multibillion-dollar price tags on the energy ventures underpinning Seoul’s investment pledge in return for tariff relief - $120 billion for eight nuclear reactors and $22.3 billion for a South Texas power project. But the project that stole the limelight when President Donald Trump announced the package was the one Seoul has yet to commit to — a long-proposed gas pipeline in Alaska. Flanke October 1, 2026

Aquatherm Tashkent 2026 draws over 200 firms from 11 countries SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - A trade fair for heating and water systems opens in Tashkent next week. For the first time, it will include a section on wastewater treatment, as Uzbekistan faces a growing shortage of usable water. The National News Agency of Uzbekistan reported in August that the country's water deficit could reach 7 billion to 15 billion cubic meters by 2030. The agency said as much as 80 percent of Uzbekistan's water comes from rivers shared with neighboring October 1, 2026

Kookmin ties humanities majors to sales, marketing jobs SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - Humanities and social science students at Kookmin University are getting career training built around specific jobs such as sales, marketing and planning. The Seoul university is trying to help them overcome a hiring gap that has followed liberal arts graduates for years. In South Korea's latest national survey, humanities graduates had the lowest employment rate of any field. Among people who finished school in August 2023 or February 2024, 61.1 perc October 1, 2026

Krafton cancels PUBG extraction shooter Black Budget SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - Krafton has halted development of PUBG: Black Budget, abandoning a nearly four-year attempt to carry its battle royale franchise into the extraction shooter genre, PUBG Studios said in a development update posted on Steam on Thursday. "After reviewing the project's development status and future direction, we judged that the current direction would make it difficult to deliver an experience players can enjoy for a long time," the studio said, a October 1, 2026

Korea's reactor comes full circle in America SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - South Korea today ranks fifth in nuclear power capacity and belongs to a select group of countries capable of designing and building their own reactors. Its journey began with Kori 1, which entered commercial service in 1978 with the help of Westinghouse Electric Company. The pupil has learned well enough to become its American teacher's partner. A South Korea-U.S. investment framework unveiled Thursday would bring Korean-designed reactors to America, n October 1, 2026

Korean chemical makers charged over record cartel SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) - Six South Korean petrochemical makers were charged on Thursday with rigging the prices of industrial chemicals worth 16.4 trillion won ($12 billion), the largest cartel ever brought by the country's prosecutors, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said. The companies kept fixing prices even after the government paid out about 146.5 billion won to steady petrochemical output when the U.S.-Iran war sent oil prices soaring, prosecutors said. October 1, 2026

Shinhan Bank offers payouts after loan data leak on 25,000 SEOUL, October 01 (AJP) — Shinhan Bank, one of South Korea’s largest commercial banks, pledged to fully compensate customers for losses arising from a data breach that exposed personal and credit information linked to about 25,000 customers’ loan applications. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Thursday it had launched an on-site inspection to determine the scope of the leak, the types of information exposed and how the breach occurred. Shinhan repor October 1, 2026