• South Korea aims for 3rd-place finish at Asian Games SEOUL, September 4 (AJP) - With this year's Asian Games in Japan just weeks away, South Korea is aiming to finish third in the quadrennial sporting event by winning up to 50 gold medals.
• Teacher rights violations remain high despite recent decline SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - South Korean education authorities reviewed more than 4,000 cases of alleged violations of teachers' rights last year, more than triple the level recorded five years earlier, data showed Friday.
• Seoul joins global arms race with record defense spending SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - South Korea is joining a global rearmament push by packaging the largest military spending increase in nearly two decades.
• Korea weighs asking chipmakers to prepay power for AI build-out SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - South Korean memory makers envisioning an expansive build-out under government's ambitious push to turn the country into a chip republic involves more than billions of dollars for construction and purchases of land and equipment.
• KOSPI loses cash and conviction SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) -The KOSPI's summer hangover has followed it into September. Money is leaving South Korea's stock market, retail investors are nursing losses and foreign funds remain hesitant.
• Seoul draws line on labor strikes over profit and capex SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) -South Korean unions can no longer strike over demands for bonuses pegged to a share of operating profit or over opposition to new plants.

AJP Briefing

• Seoul pushes back tougher delisting rules to July '27 SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) -South Korea will push back tougher delisting rules for the KOSPI and KOSDAQ to July 2027 from the scheduled January, delaying a planned increase in minimum market-capitalization thresholds as authorities seek to give the market more time to recover. The decision was made at a joint market review meeting chaired by Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol on Friday, where officials also assessed rising bond yields, vulnerable borrowers and risks in the mutual finance sector. Th
• Chip stocks rebound to support KOSPI SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) -Seoul stocks opened sharply higher Friday as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix pulled out of a two-session slide after remarks from a U.S. Federal Reserve governor cut market-implied odds of an American rate hike this month to roughly a coin flip. The KOSPI, the benchmark index of the Korea Exchange, rose 90.59 points, or 1.4 percent, to 6,670.07 in early trade, while the KOSDAQ, the secondary board for smaller and technology-heavy companies, gained 2.3 percent to 808.

AJP ScaleUP

• Solution firm LaonPeople surges on gov't-led physical AI project SEOUL, September 3 (AJP) - Artificial intelligence (AI)-related solution company LaonPeople surged to its daily trading limit on Thursday after being selected for a government-backed physical AI project aimed at developing autonomous manufacturing technology. Its shares jumped 29.84 percent to 3,220 won (US$2.35) on the junior KOSDAQ as of around 2:40 p.m., reaching the market's daily price ceiling. The rally came after the company said it had been selected for a research project led by th
• Airbility raises 6.5 billion won to shoot down drones with drones SEOUL, September 01 (AJP) - A Seoul aerospace startup has closed a Series A round to build small aircraft that hunt other aircraft, betting that the cheapest way to stop an incoming attack drone is another drone rather than a missile. Airbility said Tuesday that the 6.5 billion won ($4.7 million) round was led by Sazze Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, with existing backer Stonebridge Ventures returning and the Industrial Bank of Korea joining as a new shareholder. Cumulative fun

ASIA Insight

• Will America risk New York for Seoul? SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and ordered scale-back in U.S.-South Korea military drills that anger Pyongyang and cost Washington heavily, reigniting a long-running question in Seoul: Should South Korea arm itself with nuclear weapons? Once taboo, the idea is gaining broader public acceptance. Sixty-five percent of South Koreans support the country possessing nuclear weapons, while 30 percent oppose it, according to the la by Lee Jung-woo
• Uzbekistan looks to its Islamic golden age to build a new future SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) - The Center for Islamic Civilization, sprawling across a site roughly the size of 14 soccer fields, embodies in its glittering magnificence and grandeur what “New Uzbekistan” envisions: ushering a young, increasingly digital population into the AI age while keeping it firmly anchored in Islamic heritage and spirituality. The sprawling cultural and research complex cost about $161.8 million to build, according to a government construction directorate. Its t by Lee Jung-woo

AJP Watch

• At Kiaf and Frieze, Seoul's art crowds come before the buyers SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - Kiaf Seoul, Korea's flagship art fair, has plenty to celebrate in its 25th edition. On Thursday morning, its audience looked ready for the occasion. Minutes before the 11 a.m. opening, VIP guests were already gathered inside COEX. The dress was polished rather than extravagant: neat jackets, muted colors, the practiced restraint of an art-fair crowd. Then the doors opened and the phones came out. Visitors paused before paintings, stepped back for photographs a
• Korea's squishy toy craze puts 14+ labels under scrutiny SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) -South Korea's squishy-toy craze is getting a sober safety check. In Seoul's Dongdaemun toy district, the old staples of childhood are still everywhere. Children weave between shops packed floor to ceiling with transforming robots, Lego sets, dolls and BB guns. Wedged among them is a newer kind of toy, designed less to build or shoot than to squeeze, stretch and crack. There are croissant-shaped squishies, tubs of brightly colored slime, stretchy "slan

AJP Focus

• AI spending binge steepens Korea's bond curve SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - As the race for AI supremacy sends government and corporate spending into the stratosphere, investors are demanding more to lend for decades — a shift showing up starkly in South Korea, where yields have risen progressively faster toward the long end of the government bond curve. The yield chart over the past year shows an increasingly steep repricing toward longer maturities. The 30-year yield has climbed the most, touching a record 4.751 percent in August, wh
• Will AI contracts shield Korean chipmakers from boom-and-bust cycle? SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) - Investment banks and market trackers are betting South Korea's memory giants can extend their red-hot earnings streak into a third year in 2027 and possibly beyond, as AI pushes the business away from the spot-price-driven boom-and-bust cycles that have long defined memory chips. Before the rise of AI, earnings at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were heavily exposed to prices for mass-market DRAM and NAND flash, commodities notorious for swinging between shortag