KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – En route to Kuala Lumpur, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a strikingly positive endorsement of South Korea’s ambitions to reclaim wartime operational control from Washington, signaling a shift in how the alliance conceives of leadership during a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Speaking to reporters aboard his plane [...]
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean President Lee Jae Myung used a high-stakes summit in Gyeongju on Wednesday to push Washington toward a long-sought goal: the fuel needed to operate nuclear-powered submarines. Meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in the ancient capital, Lee argued that South Korea’s diesel-powered fleet no longer provides [...]
JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Maryland, Oct. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began a tour of the Indo-Pacific on Monday, a trip that unfolds like a map of American strategic anxieties: Hawaii, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam — and finally South Korea. His message is familiar, but increasingly urgent. The Pentagon says Hegseth intends to press [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – A clear majority of South Koreans continue to view unification with North Korea as a national goal, even as doubts persist about the prospects for renewed diplomacy with Pyongyang, according to a government-commissioned survey released Sunday. Nearly 69 percent of respondents said unification remains either “very necessary” or “quite necessary,” [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – United States President Donald Trump has described North Korea as “sort of a nuclear power,” AFP reported Saturday, as he seeks to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his ongoing trip to Asia. Trump made the remarks aboard Air Force One en route to Asia, AFP said, [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will turn the quiet, temple-dotted city of Gyeongju into a theater of global power politics. South Korea, long wedged between the gravitational pulls of Washington and Beijing, suddenly finds itself not as an observer, but as host—and potential broker—of an uneasy regional order. For [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The Halloween night in Itaewon began like any other — laughter spilling out of bars, music vibrating through narrow alleys — until it became a tragedy that left 159 people dead and a nation in disbelief. Now, nearly three years later, a government audit has concluded that one of the [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea remains one of only two major economies — alongside Japan — where large and small firms receive markedly different levels of tax incentives for research and development (R&D) and where unclaimed credits cannot be directly refunded, according to a new analysis by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Council is taking a landmark step toward acknowledging the economic and social value of unpaid labor traditionally carried out by women. Council Chair Choi Ho-jung announced Tuesday the introduction of an ordinance that would allow women who have spent years in household management or caregiving roles to [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — When Sanae Takaichi walked into Japan’s Diet chamber on Tuesday to become the country’s first female prime minister, the moment marked both a breakthrough and a question mark for East Asia’s uneasy diplomacy. In Seoul, officials were quick to strike a tone of optimism. “We will continue to closely communicate [...]