Author: Jae young

August 15, 2025SEOUL – Former first lady Kim Keon Hee remained tight-lipped Thursday during questioning by a special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki, who is tasked with looking into allegations involving Kim.According to the special counsel team, the former first lady exercised the right to remain silent for most of the questioning, which lasted just over four hours.During a press briefing, assistant special counsel Moon Hong-joo said, “The questions we had prepared focused on topics regarding Kim’s influence-peddling in the 2022 by-elections and issues linked to the public opinion survey. But the suspect refused to answer, ending the questioning…

August 15, 2025SEOUL – The Lee Jae Myung administration on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping five-year national governance blueprint, a document that blends bold reforms with cautious caveats. Presented by the State Affairs Planning Committee just 70 days into his presidency, the plan is framed by Lee not as a fixed policy, but as a “set of proposals,” signaling a pragmatic approach in an era of economic uncertainty and geopolitical flux.The blueprint outlines 123 national tasks across five strategic objectives. Its execution would require an estimated 210 trillion won ($152 billion) in additional fiscal spending over five years, marking an unapologetically…

August 15, 2025SEOUL – It was 72 years ago that the bloody 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice.Today, the once-war-ravaged nation stands among the world’s leading arms exporters, its factories turning out advanced tanks, artillery systems and fighter jets destined for battlefields far beyond the Korean Peninsula.South Korea’s arms industry is riding a wave of global demand, but the current geopolitical climate brings both opportunity and risk. Its weapons are in high demand for their advanced technology and fast delivery, yet the country must tread carefully, as shifting alliances and regional tensions complicate the path forward.South Korea, in recent…

August 15, 2025SEOUL – Eighty years after the end of Japan’s 35-year colonial rule, South Korea and Japan remain locked in an uneasy duet — pulled together by the inescapable demands of geopolitics, yet held apart by the deep, unhealed wounds left by Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula.As Korea marks its 80th National Liberation Day on Friday, the question has never felt more urgent.Can Seoul and Tokyo — tethered by geography and facing many shared challenges — forge a genuinely future-oriented partnership despite historical disputes so deeply ingrained that they have outlived generations?The stakes are raised by the rapidly…

August 15, 2025SEOUL – South Korea’s top conglomerate leaders will join President Lee Jae Myung on a US visit next week for his summit with US President Donald Trump, aiming to promote major investments in strategic sectors including semiconductors, batteries, automobiles and shipbuilding, according to industry sources Thursday.The Aug. 24-26 trip will feature four chaebol heads — Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun and LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo — along with executives from leading shipbuilding, aviation and defense firms.The delegation will be tightly focused on the Aug. 25…

August 15, 2025SEOUL – The South Korean iteration of “Baby Shark” cannot be considered to have violated the copyright law, the Supreme Court confirmed on Thursday, as it upheld an earlier court ruling against the US plaintiff’s claim that accused the popular song of being plagiarized.The country’s top court confirmed the earlier ruling in the legal proceedings launched by New York-based composer Johnny Wright — known as Johnny Only — in 2015. He claimed that the globally famous song produced by the education company Pinkfong (previously named SmartStudy) had plagiarized his 2011 version of the popular children’s song.The underlying song…

August 14, 2025SEOUL – In the digital era, a new ecosystem of online creators, communities and algorithms is reshaping conversations around gender.Some of these spaces, known broadly as the manosphere, are fueling reactionary ideas about masculinity, embedding harmful stereotypes, and, experts warn, accelerating gender-based violence.“The dangerous part is that technology is becoming our new reality,” said Emad Karim, Advocacy, Campaigns & Innovation Coordinator at UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, during an interview with The Korea Herald. “Men have more power, more voice, more access to those tools and women have definitely less access and space to…

August 14, 2025SEOUL – The Korean burger chain Lotteria has made a sizzling debut in the United States, with its pre-opening event drawing large crowds despite the sweltering heat in the homeland of fast food.Lotteria opened its first US store on Monday in Fullerton, California, a city with a large population of Korean and other Asian residents, industry sources said Wednesday.The Fullerton branch is hosting a three-day soft opening from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The official opening is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday.Even in the scorching weather, visitors queued for up to two hours before the event, holding umbrellas…

August 14, 2025SEOUL – The State Affairs Planning Committee, acting as a de facto transition team for President Lee Jae Myung, announced Wednesday that amending the Constitution will be a top priority among 123 agenda items in the president’s policy blueprint. The committee added that the proposed reform aims to reinforce the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty.Also outlined in the Lee administration’s blueprint were a reform of the prosecution, as well as ways to increase South Korea’s potential economic growth rate to 3 percent, in large part through a wider adoption of artificial intelligence. This would be achieved by leveraging…

August 14, 2025SEOUL – Many political commentators these days point out that we are living in a world at war. Some say that the current situation of the world resembles that of the early 20th century when World War I broke out, and others argue that our times look more like the mid-20th century when World War II began. Either way, we are undoubtedly living in a time of unprecedented global crisis.Just a few years ago, everyone on earth desperately fought a war against the COVID-19 virus that devastated the world, leaving heavy casualties of human lives. Now the pandemic…