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  Op-Ed: Uzbekistan's priorities in the new political cycle Editor's Note: The following opinion article was contributed by the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Seoul. The traditional annual Address of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, delivered on the eve of the New Year, became an important programmatic statement summarizing the results of the outgoing year and outlining the country's strategic development priorities for the period ahead. As the Head of State emphasized, the past year marked a period of steady progress i September 11, 2026
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  Editorial: Korea's AI republic needs a human survival plan Suddenly, the hottest question in artificial intelligence is no longer whether AI will take our jobs. It is whether, one day, it could kill us. The prospect remains fiercely disputed and may sound like science fiction. Yet researchers inside some of the world's leading AI companies are now openly warning about the possibility of humans losing control of increasingly autonomous systems, with some putting the risk of human extinction within the next decade above 10 percent. September 11, 2026
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  OPINION: South Korea needs its own Iran policy Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its warning to South Korea in Korean. Esmaeil Baqaei, the ministry's spokesman and the official who states Iran's positions to the outside world, posts in English nearly every day. On Monday, he put up a statement on X, written in Korean, addressed to a public whose president had landed in Nice the evening before. It opens warmly. "The relationship between Iran and the Republic of Korea has a history spanning more tha September 7, 2026
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  Op-Ed: When sanctions change the rules: The world they create Editor's Note: The following opinion article was contributed by the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Seoul. SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - No policy exists in a vacuum. A measure designed to pressure one country can, over time, alter the calculations of many others. Companies look for new ways to trade. Banks develop new approaches to managing risk. Governments seek to reduce their dependence on financial networks and supply chains that can become instruments o September 4, 2026
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  Editorial: Relocate public institutions, but get the order right Move, merge or disappear. Hundreds of South Korean public institutions and their employees still do not know which fate awaits them. The government on Thursday put roughly 350 public institutions based in the Seoul metropolitan area under review for relocation while separately unveiling a sweeping restructuring plan that would reduce the number of public entities and subsidiaries by 109 through mergers, consolidation and other changes. Yet which institution will move where &md September 4, 2026
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  OPINION: Is anywhere safe from climate disaster? Planet Earth has suffered and is still enduring a punishing summer in 2026. Last week, a massive section of glacier-covered mountain near the Nepal-Tibet border simply gave way, plunging roughly 1,200 meters into the valley below and unleashing an avalanche of ice, rock, mud and water that tore through settlements along the river. The collapse was so violent that it generated seismic energy equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 event, briefly leading observers to believe an earthquake September 1, 2026
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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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  OPINION: Prevention is the best cure. But has the BOK overprescribed? South Korea's central bank on Thursday sent an unequivocal message to markets and borrowers through back-to-back rate hikes rarely seen outside extraordinary conditions. The diagnosis is that the artificial intelligence boom has given new traction to a Korean economy that had underperformed its potential growth rate of around 2 percent for nearly a decade - except during the post-pandemic rebound - and that deleveraging must begin as inflation and interest rates are unlikely August 27, 2026
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  OPINION: A stronger won can buy BOK more time South Korean policymakers spent much of the first half wrestling with a stubbornly weak won anchored around levels associated with previous periods of financial stress, even as the stock market roared to records and the economy posted its strongest growth in nearly five years on a semiconductor bonanza. The Bank of Korea enters this week's rate-setting meeting with an almost opposite financial-market picture. The won is at its strongest since September 2025. Bond yields hav August 24, 2026