Op-Ed: Why Korea's stocks trade at a discount vs rest of the world The Korea Discount is the easy answer. It also happens to be wrong. What is the Korea Discount actually worth? Hundreds of trillions of won? More? For an issue that has occupied Korean policymakers, companies and investors for decades, the surprising answer is that nobody really knows. There is certainly abundant evidence that Korean equities have historically traded below comparable international markets. But a market-wide valuation gap tells us that a problem exists. I September 29, 2026

Op-Ed: Uzbekistan takes national initiatives to UN Editor's Note: The following opinion article is contributed by Jakhongir Isaev, the Head of Department at Uzbekistan's non-governmental organization “Center for Sustainable Development.” The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly marked a new stage in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy. The ideas and initiatives advanced in New York demonstrated an increasingly strong connection between the country’s domestic reforms, the new environment of September 28, 2026

Possible Love afterthought: A sober anthropology of human dignity It took director Lee Chang-dong eight years to return to the screen and to his enduring themes of class and desire, money and human relationships, with the value of human labor added to the layer. Possible Love, Lee’s first film since Burning in 2018, brings together two married couples whose lives could hardly be further apart. Ho-seok, played by Sul Kyung-gu, is a laid-off factory worker left scarred by a violent labor dispute. His wife Mi-ok, played by Jeon Do-yeon, September 21, 2026

OPINION: Korea's Eurasian pivot needs substance beyond summit rhetoric Kazakhstan's culture minister burned incense Wednesday at the grave of Hong Beom-do, the Korean independence commander who spent his final years in exile in Kazakhstan. The gesture came a day after Arman Kyrykbayev signed an agreement with South Korea to preserve sites associated with Korea's independence movement, witnessed by Presidents Lee Jae Myung and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Hong's remains were returned to Korea in 2021 after nearly eight decades in Kazakhstan, September 18, 2026

Op-Ed: Catalonia and Korea Editor's Note: The following opinion article is contributed by Choe Chong-dae, a longstanding member of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea and enthusiast of international cultural and historical affairs. The relationship between Spain and South Korea has a surprisingly long history. It dates back to 1593, when Gregorio de Céspedes, a Spanish Jesuit priest, arrived on the Korean Peninsula. What began as a modest cultural encounter has evolved over more than four centuries September 16, 2026

Op-Ed: Uzbekistan in new industrial architecture of C5+1 Editor's Note: The following opinion article was contributed by the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Seoul. The first "Central Asia-Republic of Korea" Summit in Seoul gives the C5+1 format a more substantive economic dimension. The new agenda focuses on industrial modernization, infrastructure, critical minerals and energy, human capital development, and private-sector participation. An important institutional basis for this work is provided by a dedicated consultat September 16, 2026

Kazakhstan puts AI to work as Tokayev heads to Seoul SEOUL, September 11 (AJP) - Kazakhstan's president says the country has finished the first stage of building a digital state and is now on the second, putting artificial intelligence to work for ordinary citizens. The United Nations' most recent E-Government Survey, published in 2024, bears out the first part of that claim. It ranked Kazakhstan 24th of 193 countries, up from 28th two years earlier, and placed it in the top 10 for online services alongside South Korea, Denm September 11, 2026

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

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

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