Author: Jae young

August 5, 2025SEOUL – President Lee Jae Myung’s job approval rating for the fifth week of July rose by 1.8 percentage points to 63.3 percent, a poll by Realmeter showed Monday.The recovery — which reversed more than half the decline seen in the two previous weeks — followed Seoul’s announcement Thursday of a reduction in new US tariffs on South Korean goods, including cars, from 25 percent to 15 percent in return for a $450 billion spending package to invest in the US and buy US liquefied natural gas.The latest poll was conducted among 2,520 people across the country aged…

August 5, 2025SEOUL – South Korea’s last-minute trade agreement with the United States — concluded just under two days before the deadline — has dominated headlines and conversations both domestically and internationally. The attention is understandable. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term earlier this year, US tariff policy has emerged as one of the most destabilizing forces in the global economy. For South Korea — a country that relies heavily on manufacturing and exports — the stakes could not have been more critical.The agreement sets US tariffs on most South Korean exports at 15 percent, a significant…

August 5, 2025SEOUL – South Korea’s Ministry of Unification is reportedly reviewing the possible repatriation of Ahn Hak-sop, a former North Korean soldier captured during the 1950-53 Korean War whose refusal to renounce the North’s communist system led him to be imprisoned for over four decades.According to Yonhap News Agency on Monday, the 95-year-old Ahn submitted a request to the government in July asking to be returned to the North. Ministry officials visited him at his hospital on July 23 to check on his physical condition, verify his specific demands, and find out why he was asking to be sent…

August 5, 2025SEOUL – South Korea’s military will upgrade the Allied Korean Joint Command and Control System in a bid to ensure a smoother transfer of wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul, the state arms procurement agency said Monday.The command and control system — designed and developed by the South Korean military — will be upgraded and ready for operations by 2029, under a 117.8 billion won ($84.9 million) project, according to Seoul’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration.A key goal is to apply the latest technologies such as virtual desktop infrastructure, cloud-based servers and artificial intelligence to the system. It…

August 4, 2025SEOUL – The original soundtrack “Golden” of Netflix’s global animated hit “KPop Demon Hunters” soared to the top of the UK Official Singles Chart, marking the first K-pop song to reach No. 1 in over a decade.Released as part of the animated film, “Golden” achieved the No. 1 position in its sixth week on the chart, rising three spots from the previous week. The track, performed by the fictional girl group Huntr/x, is a part of the movie’s soundtrack, which features a K-pop girl group battling evil spirits to protect the human world.The UK Official Charts Company highlighted…

August 4, 2025SEOUL – It’s almost a truism at this point to say that movie theaters are in deep trouble, and Thursday’s midyear report from the Korean Film Council confirmed that yet again with hard numbers.According to the report, box office revenue declined 33 percent year-on-year to 408 billion won ($293 million) in the first half of 2025, with attendance dropping 32.5 percent.Only two films managed to break the 30 billion won threshold: Tom Cruise’s Hollywood blockbuster “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” led with 32.9 billion won from 3.36 million admissions, followed closely by local crime thriller “Yadang: The…

August 4, 2025SEOUL – Following days of intense heat, South Korea is bracing for another round of intense rainfall, with back-to-back nationwide downpours forecast this week.According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, moisture brought into the Korean Peninsula due to the lingering impact of Typhoon Co-may — which struck Shanghai a week earlier and has since reduced to a tropical depression — are set to bring extreme rainfall across the country, with a particular focus in the Greater Seoul region, which includes Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, as well as North and South Chungcheong provinces, North and South Jeolla provinces and the…

August 4, 2025SEOUL – An average of nearly 10 older South Koreans died by suicide every day between 2019 and 2023, according to a sobering new report that underscores the growing mental health crisis among the country’s aging population.In total, 18,044 seniors aged 65 and older took their own lives during that five-year period, amounting to over 3,000 deaths each year, the report said. The findings, published in the Journal of the Korean Medical Association and authored by Dr. Oh Dae-jong of the Workplace Mental Health Institute at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, point to the urgent need for improved suicide prevention…

August 1, 2025SEOUL – President Lee Jae Myung’s first tax code overhaul, unveiled Thursday, focuses on reversing the tax relief introduced under his predecessor over the past three years, chiefly by raising tax rates on corporations and high-income individuals.“The country’s tax revenue base has eroded sharply over the past three years, leading to a significant drop in the tax-to-GDP ratio,” First Vice Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il said Tuesday during a press briefing. “This year’s tax revision aims to support economic growth and stabilize livelihoods, while also rebuilding that weakened base to ensure fiscal sustainability.”Korea’s tax burden ratio fell to 19…

August 1, 2025SEOUL – The global success of “KPop Demon Hunters,” an animated film released on Netflix in June, has provided an unexpected boost to Korea’s soft power. The film, in which a fictional K-pop girl group battles demons with music-infused powers, has topped streaming charts in over 30 countries and propelled its soundtrack to second place on the Billboard 200.But perhaps more telling than the film’s entertainment value is what it revealed about Korea’s export potential and its limitations. While fans from Singapore to the Netherlands eagerly bought Korean goods tied to the movie’s characters — from folk-art-inspired souvenirs…