Author: Jae young

July 10, 2025SEOUL – South Korea’s one-time cash grants — part of a 31.8 trillion-won ($23.1 billion) supplementary budget that will provide every Korean citizen with at least 150,000 won starting July 21 — are not as free as they seem.They come with strings attached, as they are only allowed for use at small businesses, traditional markets and mom-and-pop stores with annual revenue below 3 billion won. As the government puts it, these restrictions are meant to prevent “misuse” and are intended to support small business owners, though some argue this only deepens divides in the retail landscape.The restrictions are…

July 10, 2025SEOUL – At Seoul National University, long regarded as the pinnacle of South Korea’s higher education system, an unsettling pattern has emerged. Over the past four years, 56 professors have left for academic posts overseas, a quiet but steady migration to institutions offering not only higher salaries but also more generous research funding and fewer bureaucratic hurdles.The symbolism is hard to miss: Even South Korea’s most prestigious university struggles to retain talent in an era when intellectual capital moves easily across borders.The numbers point to a deeper problem. Most of the departing professors headed to the United States,…

July 10, 2025SEOUL – The world is bracing for another tariff storm from US President Donald Trump. Delayed initially to take effect on July 9, the new tariff regime has now been postponed again until August 1, giving countries a few more weeks to negotiate. The delay was not a gesture of goodwill but a tactical maneuver. Trump’s initial negotiation timeline was unrealistically short, virtually guaranteeing failure. Yet after the bruising experience of the first round, almost no country can claim to be caught off guard this time. Twenty days may be short by regular standards, but qualitatively, they offer…

July 10, 2025SEOUL – An official at Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the latest South Korea-US defense cost-sharing deal for the 2026-2030 period — the Special Measures Agreement signed last year under then-US President Joe Biden — should be upheld.The remark came as US President Donald Trump raised the pressure on South Korea, suggesting that Seoul should shoulder more of the costs of stationing US troops here, on Tuesday, local time. The day before, Trump said he would start imposing 25 percent tariffs on Korean products.“It is inappropriate to react and assess every single remark made by a foreign…

July 10, 2025SEOUL – With South Korea entering the peak season for gastrointestinal illnesses, public health officials are urging heightened vigilance as cases linked to contaminated food and water nearly doubled in the past month.According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Wednesday, sentinel surveillance at 210 hospitals with 200 or more beds showed a sharp rise in two of the most common bacterial culprits.Salmonella infections rose from 66 patients in the first week of June to 127 by the fourth week, a 92.4 percent jump. Campylobacter, another leading pathogen in summer, recorded an even steeper trajectory: Related…

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July 9, 2025SEOUL – Actor Lee Si-young, 43, revealed that she is currently pregnant with an embryo created with her ex-husband through in vitro fertilization, despite his lack of consent.“I wanted to share this news myself to prevent misunderstandings or speculation later on,” she wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.Lee explained that she and her ex-husband had been preparing for a second child through IVF during their marriage. However, time passed without proceeding with embryo implantation and the couple began discussing divorce.By the time their legal separation was being finalized, the five-year storage period for their frozen embryos was nearing its…

July 9, 2025SEOUL – Pope Leo XIV appointed Fr. Matteo Kwang Hee Choi as the new auxiliary bishop of the Seoul archdiocese on Tuesday at noon, according to the Archdiocese of Seoul.The appointment comes about a year and a half after Fr. Paul Kyung Sang Lee was named the auxiliary bishop of Seoul by Pope Francis in February 2024, marking another addition to the Archdiocese’s episcopal leadership.Born in 1977 in Seoul, Choi graduated from the School of Theology at the Catholic University of Korea in June 2004 and was ordained as a priest in July of the same year. In…

July 9, 2025SEOUL – Once a major force in Korea’s auto market, city cars — with engines under 1,000 cubic centimeters and priced around 10 million won ($7,330) — are rapidly disappearing from Korean roads.The segment, which saw annual sales of over 200,000 units and left iconic models like the Tico and Matiz, has continued to decline, dropping another 32 percent to just 36,989 units in the first half of 2025.Birth: Daewoo Shipbuilding and Heavy Machinery, now Hanwha Ocean, launched Korea’s first city car, the Tico, in 1991 in partnership with Japan’s Suzuki Motor. Priced initially at 2.9 million won,…

July 9, 2025SEOUL – South Korea lost its bid to spotlight Japan’s longstanding failure to fulfill its promise to address its historical enslavement of Koreans at locations now listed as World Heritage sites, after losing a UNESCO vote Monday.The result was a stinging setback that exposed Seoul’s limited sway at UNESCO, as well as UNESCO’s lukewarm attitude to Seoul’s pursuit of historical justice.For the first time, South Korea and Japan confronted each other in a formal vote at Monday’s session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Paris, over a historical dispute stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of Korea from…