A gugak (Korean traditional music) ensemble performs at Changgyeong Palace in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Oct. 26.YONHAP
Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. Here are the stories you need to know in Korea!
In today's news, the head of the World Health Organization talks about Korea's contribution to global vaccine equity. In other stories, Southeast Asia is taking the K-pop blueprint and finding success of its own. And data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs finds that the United States is rejecting Korean visitor visas at the highest rate on record. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Today's top story
KOREA
WHO chief envisions AI-driven future for global health, hails Korea's vaccine equity push
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Korea is making a "substantial contribution” to global vaccine equity through its biomanufacturing training hub and pBUSd to AI as a tool for health care and disease surveillance.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared his views on Korea’s growing role in global health care and his meeting with President Lee Jae Myung during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily and JoongAng Ilbo at the Shilla Seoul in Jung District, central Seoul.
Southeast Asia's stars borrowed K-pop playbook. Will they now steal the show?
With the rise of Southeast Asian pop groups such as BINI, DICE and SB19, those in the K-pop music scene debate whether the shift means new competition or opportunities for shared growth and business partnerships — or both.
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Cold winds to send temperatures plunging, with wind chills below freezing
In Seoul, Monday's morning low was 14 degrees Celsius (minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit), more than 5 degrees above the seasonal average, and the temperature is forecast to fall to 10 degrees on Tuesday and 2 degrees on Wednesday. Read more
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Samsung SDI expands Texas storage deal
Samsung SDI will supply Alpha Omega Power with 1 gigawatt-hour of energy storage systems for a large-scale Texas project, bringing their total contracted volume to 1.5 gigawatt-hours.
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Home value of Korea's richest is record 290 times that of poorest
The average value of owner-occupied homes among the bottom 20 percent by assets fell 9.1 percent on year to 2.39 million won ($1,800) in 2025; for the top 20 percent, the average value rose 7.7 percent to 693.41 million won.
