SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — In a quiet courtroom in Seoul on Thursday, the five young women of NewJeans lost the first round of one of K-pop’s most dramatic showdowns. A judge ruled that their management contract with the agency ADOR remains valid, rejecting the group’s bid for independence after months of turmoil that has [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Seoul is turning to artificial intelligence and advanced spatial data to make its streets safer, using a city-developed 3D mapping platform to identify and eliminate potential crime blind spots. City officials said Wednesday that the new system, known as the S-Map Crime Vulnerability Prediction Model, will be fully deployed [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial authorities are moving to tighten oversight of insurance agents in an effort to curb their involvement in fraud, introducing measures that would mandate pre-screening and expand public disclosures of disciplinary records. The Financial Services Commission said Wednesday it discussed the reforms during a meeting of the Insurance [...]
GWANGJU, Oct. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is confronting a troubling rise in criminal investigations and prosecutions involving people with mental disabilities, prompting renewed calls for reforms to safeguard their legal rights. According to a report released in May by the Judicial Policy Research Institute, criminal cases involving mentally disabled individuals nearly doubled in four [...]
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea and the United States announced a finalized tariff agreement on Wednesday, ending months of contentious negotiations and signaling a deepening phase in their industrial partnership. President Lee Jae Myung and President Donald Trump confirmed the deal during talks held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic [...]
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 [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – Three years after a deadly crowd crush turned a festive Halloween night into one of South Korea’s darkest moments, visitors returned Wednesday to a narrow alley in Seoul’s Itaewon district. They came quietly, many before dawn, carrying white chrysanthemums and handwritten notes that filled the street once choked with panic [...]
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 [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean court on Tuesday overturned the decades-old conviction of a 72-year-old man who was imprisoned during the military regime for possessing Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital,” ruling that his prior confession had been coerced. The Seoul Southern District Court acquitted Jeong Jin-tae, who was a student at Seoul National [...]
GWANGJU, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean appeals court has acquitted a father and daughter who spent roughly 15 years behind bars for a notorious 2009 poisoning, concluding that the convictions rested on coerced, legally flawed confessions. The ruling lands in October 2025, under a new political landscape that has made criminal-justice safeguards [...]