news highlight

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  Editorial: Lee's Cabinet overhaul needs discipline, not haste President Lee Jae Myung has launched a broad Cabinet reset as his approval rating slides sharply barely into his second year in office, replacing six ministers at once in a bid to regain political momentum and accelerate delivery on the economy, housing and reform. The decision is understandable. What the administration needs now is not another prolonged season of personnel speculation but demonstrable results, particularly on the economy and housing. Lee's approval rati August 30, 2026
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  Editorial: Korea's football association scandal crosses the line The controversy surrounding the Korea Football Association has moved from damaging to deeply troubling. After disputes over the selection of the national team coach and the unprecedented police raid on the association, allegations have now emerged that foreign referees and match officials were provided sexual services around international matches in South Korea. According to reports citing a 2016 audit by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, around 10 foreign referee August 10, 2026
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  Editorial: South Korea is not the AI bust - it's the first stress test Everyone seems to have one thing to say about South Korea's stock market these days. Bloomberg Opinion warns that the country is becoming "uninvestable." Asia Times sees a familiar story in which "financial leverage plus unsophisticated new buyers plus a strong fundamental story" produced a spectacular bubble and crash. The Economist portrays South Korea as "a great experiment in mixing the extremes of state capitalism and market speculation," August 4, 2026
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  Editorial: The chip party isn't over. Seoul's party is. Only weeks ago, Seoul looked unstoppable. The KOSPI had nearly doubled this year, turning into one of the world's hottest equity markets. AI had become less an investment theme than a national obsession. Retail investors borrowed aggressively to buy leveraged ETFs tied to SK hynix, Samsung Electronics and the index itself. Every dip was bought. Every earnings beat was assumed. Every valuation looked justified because artificial intelligence was rewriting the rules. T July 29, 2026
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  Editorial: Super-weak yen is Korea's problem too The yen has just done something it hasn't done in 40 years: it broke past 163 to the dollar, a level not seen since 1986. In Tokyo, that's being read as bad news for Japanese households, who now face pricier imports and a shrinking real income. But Seoul shouldn't be watching this from the sidelines. A weaker yen doesn't just weaken Japan's currency — it chips away at Korean export competitiveness and drags the won down with it. The won has been s July 24, 2026
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  Editorial: From NATO to Mongolia: Seoul seeking strategic depth Viewed in isolation, President Lee Jae Myung's attendance at the NATO summit and his subsequent state visit to Mongolia may appear to belong to different diplomatic tracks. Together, however, they reveal a more coherent strategy. At NATO, Seoul sought to anchor South Korea more firmly within the emerging architecture of transatlantic defense cooperation. Discussions on expanding industrial cooperation and Seoul's negotiations toward a procurement framework with the all July 12, 2026
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  Editorial: Look beyond age, judge the crime The South Korean government is considering lowering the age threshold for juvenile offenders exempt from criminal prosecution from 14 to 13, but only for serious violent crimes. The proposal represents a compromise in a debate that has long divided public opinion between those seeking tougher punishment and those defending the existing juvenile justice system. The real issue, however, is not whether the legal threshold should be lowered by a single year. It is whether the justice system shou June 29, 2026
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  AI memory supercycle sparks Korean export renaissance The June export explosion: The AI memory supercycle and a new phase of growth for the Korean economy The June exports data offer an undeniable reason for national pride. According to Korea Customs Service preliminary data for the first 20 days of June, shipments jumped 60.4 percent on year to record $62 billion, drawing $17.5 billion in surplus. The South Korean economy is proving its critics wrong. The long, grueling winter of trade stagnation is decisively thawing, r June 23, 2026
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  True meaning of Jensen Huang's visits In the early summer of 2026, the industrial map of Asia experienced another massive tremor. Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia—one of the world's most valuable companies—embarked on back-to-back visits to Taiwan and South Korea. This was no ordinary overseas business trip or routine client management. It was an on-the-ground inspection of the new global industrial order and power dynamics forged by the AI revolution. Simultaneously, it was a strategic move to June 19, 2026