Fed Holds Rate·Democratic Party Rushes Criminal Procedure Law BTS Refuses Grammy Bid·AI Models Launch

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture on July 28 killed 34 and displaced approximately 300,000 people as of July 30. Rescue efforts continue amid shopping mall collapse and fires.

Russian attacks on July 30 killed 6, including children, and wounded 10 in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. President Zelensky again called for increased Western air defense missile support.

The Bank of Japan held its key rate at 1% on July 31. The dollar-yen exchange rate approached 163 yen per dollar, nearing levels not seen since the mid-1980s.

The Democratic Party of Korea processed the criminal procedure law amendment at the National Assembly plenary session on the 31st. The People Power Party denounced the expanded dismissal-of-charges clause as a 'poison clause to overturn Lee Jae-myung's trial.'

Hyundai Motor Labor Union held four-hour partial strikes by department from July 29-31. The union demands include a 149,600 won basic wage increase, 30% of net profits as performance bonus, retirement age extension to 65, and AI-related employment guarantees.

In Q2 2026, unemployed college graduates numbered 481,000, the highest since 2021. Young people aged 20-30 accounted for 64.2% of unemployed college graduates.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor will conduct special inspections targeting Mokpo and Yeosu, key aquaculture migrant worker areas. E-8 visa numbers in the fishing sector increased from 996 in 2021 to 8,796 this year.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor clarified that the ILO Platform Convention does not require disclosure of algorithms themselves, but rather requires companies to explain algorithm operations affecting working conditions and guarantee workers the right to human review.

The FOMC held the rate steady in a 9-3 vote on July 29. Three presidents from Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Dallas cast dissenting votes arguing for a rate hike.

According to the Bank of Korea's June foreign securities investment trends report released on the 31st, stock funds saw net outflows of $32.37 billion, surpassing the previous record of $31.8 billion in May.

KB Kookmin Bank raised non-face-to-face mortgage rates by 0.53%p starting July 31 and increased major credit loan rates by 0.1~0.5%p. The bank cited total loan size management and demand adjustment as its rationale.

On July 30, KOSPI closed at 5,593.56, down 69.68 points (1.23%) from the previous day. Despite foreign and institutional net buying, retail investors' net selling of 1.425 trillion won dragged the index lower.

Seoul apartment average jeonse prices surpassed 700 million won for the first time. Sharply declining new supply after August could add further upward pressure on jeonse prices, analysts noted.

Seoul apartment prices rose 0.25% in the fourth week of July, slower than the prior week's 0.27%. With the government's tax reform announcement pending, both buyers and sellers are watching, and Gangnam's three districts saw weakened appreciation.

The government is considering raising the comprehensive property tax assessment ratio on ultra-luxury single-family homes (over 3 billion won public price) to a maximum of 80%. Long-term holding tax deductions are also expected to be reduced.

In Q2, the average jeonse deposit for standard 84m² apartments in Seoul reached 730 million won, up 7.2% year-over-year. Yongsan District apartment prices rose 27.3% over the same period, significantly outpacing Seoul's overall rate.

July bitcoin spot ETF net inflows are on track to reach $205 million, the lowest monthly figure ever recorded. Over four trading days, $526 million was net withdrawn, and BTC prices fell to near $63,000.

AscendEX (7/1), BitMEX (7/23), and BitMart (7/26) announced operational shutdowns. BitMart's exchange token BMX crashed up to 60% within 24 hours of the announcement.

As of July 29, BlackRock's IBIT recorded $89.8 million net inflows, while Fidelity's Bitcoin ETF saw $43.08 million net outflows and ARK's ARKB saw $14.62 million net outflows.

Following AI smart glasses launches from Meta and Samsung Electronics, spatial intelligence firm DeepFind completed a 10 billion won Series B and optical module firm Retinal completed a 27.8 billion won pre-IPO round.

Boosters opened an official Japanese online mall to build local D2C channels. Global sales in H1 2026 increased 246% versus the prior half, and H1 shipments already surpassed 80% of full-year 2025 volume.

Korea Venture Investment and Korea Post signed an MOU for nurturing unicorn companies. Korea Post will give priority to Korea Mother Fund-selected operators in investment reviews, aiming to accelerate early fund establishment.

South Korea's cumulative electric vehicle registrations have surpassed 1 million with 21.8% annual growth. Over the same period, diesel vehicle registrations declined by approximately 250,000, accelerating the transition to eco-friendly vehicles.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport held a forum with over 150 public and private experts on July 30, reviewing H1 progress across five working groups including autonomous driving, DRT, and PM, and discussing 2027 Level 4 commercialization conditions.

Upstage released the 250-billion-parameter open-weight LLM 'SOLAR Open 2' on Hugging Face. With a MoE architecture, it has 15 billion active parameters and can run on 2 H200 GPUs with quantization.

Krafton released the 21-billion-parameter speech language model 'Raon Speech' on Hugging Face. It ranks 1st in overall Korean performance and 3rd in English among open speech models under 30B parameters.

The Ministry of Science and ICT launched the 'AIDC Alliance' to build AI data center infrastructure with 18.4GW capacity. 12 companies participated, including the three telecom operators, Naver Cloud, Kakao, Samsung SDS, and Furiosa AI.

Samsung Electronics recorded a cumulative operating profit of 14.67 trillion won in H1 2026. The DS (semiconductor) division accounted for 97% of total company profits, driven by surging server memory demand from agentic AI adoption.

SK Hynix's Q2 results fell short of market expectations, causing U.S. AI-related stocks including Micron (-9.9%), CoreWeave (-9.6%), and Vertiv (-17.3%) to decline in tandem.

Hacking group ShinyHunters claimed to have breached global accounting firm EY's IT support platform, stealing customer tax documents, ID numbers, and financial account information. They threatened to publicly release all data unless negotiations occurred by July 31.

Security researchers disclosed that a 22-year-old IPMI 2.0 protocol flaw causes 24,650 internet-exposed BMC servers to return password hashes without authentication. Many servers' passwords can be cracked within minutes.

According to Ahnlab ASEC's week 5 July report, The Gentlemen ransomware group claimed to conduct attacks against Korean IT software wholesale and IT infrastructure companies.

The death toll from the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture on July 28 rose to 34 as of the 30th. Thousands evacuated due to shopping mall collapse and fires, with over 4,600 rescue personnel deployed.

The UN Security Council held its first secret ballot on July 30 to select the next Secretary-General. Costa Rica's Rebecca Greenspan led with 10 'support' votes.

President Trump stated that the U.S. does not directly sell weapons to Ukraine while formalizing a method where NATO allies purchase U.S. weapons at full price and transfer them to Ukraine.

SpaceX launched the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) classified satellite NROL-95 on Falcon 9 at 3:10 AM EDT on July 30 from Cape Canaveral. The first-stage booster successfully landed approximately 8.5 minutes after launch.

The U.S. Space Force signed an approximately $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX for 18 Falcon 9 launches on July 30. Launches will be conducted from Vandenberg Space Force Base through the end of 2027.

NASA held a dedication ceremony for the 'Flight Dynamics Research Facility (FDRF)' at Langley Research Center in Virginia on July 31. NASA's first new wind tunnel in 40 years, it supports Artemis lunar exploration program research.

The pass rate for the 91st Medical License National Examination in 2026 was 90.8%, up 14.9 percentage points from the previous 90th session at 75.9%. Park Si-hyung from Kyung Hee University and Son Da-bin from Inje University tied for top score.

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service released 2024 acute stroke appropriateness evaluation results. Of 268 medical institutions, 112 (41.8%) received a first-grade rating. Timely mechanical thrombectomy implementation rate was 95.1%.

GangStem Biotech confirmed significant improvements in pain and joint function versus placebo at week 24 in Phase 2a trials of its osteoarthritis treatment OSCA in both medium and high doses. The OMERACT-OARSI responder rate was approximately twice that of the placebo group.

The Korean Medical Association formally opposed implementing a medical accident history disclosure system for medical professionals. The association cited concerns about high-risk patient avoidance and defensive medicine, proposing enhanced professional self-regulation as an alternative.

On July 31, extreme heat with nationwide highs of 31-38 degrees continued, with the southern interior and East Coast including Daegu, Pohang, and Ulsan reaching 37-38 degrees. Tropical nights persisted with no rain forecast.

Across Europe including Spain and France, 1,254 fires have occurred in 2026, burning over 250,000 hectares. Extreme heat exceeding 40 degrees accompanied the fires, leading to repeated forced evacuations.

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Steele stated that climate disasters are reaching nightmare levels and urged all nations to end fossil fuel dependence and take immediate climate action.

A migrant worker in his 60s working at an outdoor site in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi died of heat stroke on the 8th consecutive day of extreme heat alerts. He was found unconscious in a vehicle after work and died one day after hospitalization.

A 38-year-old Thai national assigned to farm work just three days after entering on a tourism visa collapsed with a body temperature of 43 degrees and died in Haenam, South Jeolla Province. A heat wave alert was in effect in that area on the day of the incident.

On July 31, with no rain expected nationwide, Daegu and Pohang reached highs of 38 degrees while the heat wave persisted in the southern interior. Tropical nights continue nationwide with heat-related illness warnings in effect.

As heat-related deaths among migrant workers continue, civic groups are demanding stricter penalties for employers. Migrant workers face language barriers and employment insecurity that make it difficult to refuse dangerous work, advocates noted.

BTS announced through SNS that it would not submit music for the 2027 Grammy Awards in response to the creation of the 'Best Asian Pop Music Performance' category. Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said he was 'saddened but respectful' of the decision.

Jennie and Tame Impala's collaboration 'Dracula' reached number one on the Billboard Adult Pop Airplay chart. This marks only the second time a K-pop artist has topped this radio chart in history.

UNIS released their first Japanese mini album 'UNI☆Sparkle!' on July 31. The album contains 5 tracks including the title track 'GimmeSummer☆'.

Kiwoom Heroes defeated LG Twins 18-11 on July 29 at Jamsil. Kiwoom set franchise records for most hits and most runs in a single game with 23 hits, and Seo Geon-chang went 5-for-6.

LG Twins' Austin Dean hit his 30th home run of the season on July 29 against Kiwoom. He became only the 9th player in KBO history and the first foreign player ever to achieve 30 home runs in three consecutive seasons.

On July 30, Day 7 of the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, gold medals were awarded in 17 events including athletics, track cycling, and weightlifting. Australia maintained its overall lead in the medal table.

Nongshim will raise ex-factory prices by an average 5.8% starting August 1 for 18 cup noodle brands including Yukkejang Sabal-myun and Shin Ramyun Cup, 23 snack brands including Shrimp Crackers, and 2 beverage brands. Bag noodles are excluded.

The Food and Drug Administration will expand GMO origin labeling requirements to include cooking oils and soy sauce. Soy sauce labeling requirements take effect on December 31.