Lee Jae-myung calls for peace talks with North Korea on Liberation Day·Democratic Party primary AI open model competition accelerates·Incheon Airport ranks 1st globally for international flights

The Democratic Party of Korea held its capital region primary on the 16th for Gyeonggi and Seoul. Candidate Kim Min-suk, leading cumulatively with 57.5% in Honam, faced off against Jung Chung-rae, who has strong capital region support. The final party leader will be elected at the Daejeon Convention Center on the 17th.

In an August 15 report, the Gyeonggi Education Research Institute warned that essay tutoring fees could surge from last year's 912.3 billion won to as much as 4 trillion won if essay-based exams are introduced. The monthly average essay tutoring cost for high school students is 338,000 won.

In an August 15 op-ed, the director of the Institute for Educational Innovation criticized the National Education Commission's AI scoring plan, arguing that creativity assessment would be impossible if it relies on model answer accumulation and keyword matching. He noted that among 38 OECD countries, Korea is the only one using multiple-choice relative evaluation for both the college exam and school records.

Seoul Administrative Court dismissed Chunjae Education's lawsuit to cancel the AI digital textbook fee notice on the 14th. The court ruled that the notice has already lost legal effect and there is no standing for the lawsuit.

According to July employment trends released by Statistics Korea on August 12, youth (ages 15-29) employment fell 191,000 from the previous year to 3.44 million. The youth unemployment rate increase was the largest in over 5 years.

Hyundai Motor's CEO visited union branches on August 14 to request resumption of negotiations. Labor and management scheduled the 16th round of formal talks for the 18th following working-level meetings on the 15th-17th. The union shelved a planned strike on negotiation day.

The government is pursuing second-half legislation for mandatory retirement age extension while concurrently promoting youth hiring through improvements in public sector staffing and payroll. The extended age and implementation speed remain undecided, with labor-management consultation and National Assembly deliberation as variables.

On August 14, KOSPI closed at 6,977.94, up 164.60 points (2.42%). It rose to 7,010.86 during the session, surpassing the 7,000 mark, but gave back some gains. Foreign investors net purchased 3.0388 trillion won, with SK Hynix recording +3.26% and Samsung Electronics +2.43%.

On August 14 (local time), S&P500 closed -0.17% (7,786), Nasdaq -0.28% (26,729), and Dow -0.20% (53,732). July retail sales came in at -0.6% versus market expectations of +0.1%, falling significantly short.

As Liberation Day (8/15) falls on a Saturday with a substitute holiday designated on 8/17 (Monday), KRX will be closed for 3 days from the 15th to 17th. The next trading day is August 18 (Tuesday).

According to the Korea Real Estate Board's week 2 August report (as of the 10th), Seoul sales prices rose 0.21% (0.26% previous week). Gangnam-gu (-0.02%) and Seocho-gu (-0.04%) shifted to decline after 14 and 16 weeks respectively, citing concerns over increased tax burden for non-resident single-home owners.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced measures to rapidly supply housing in the capital region, including reducing the public land construction period from 68 to 37 months, relaxing redevelopment union establishment approval rate from 75% to 70%, and providing up to 1%p financial support for PF loan interest.

Anticipating increased property tax on homes exceeding 4.6 billion won in market value due to tax reform, Apgujeong 4 district association confirmed a target of completing relocation and demolition before June 1, 2028, by signing a construction contract with Samsung C&T on August 31.

Point to Technology (1.924 trillion won Series B led by Arm and LB Invest) and AI Games (1.416 trillion won strategic investment by Webtoon Entertainment) accounted for two-thirds of week 2's August funding.

BunkerKids raised 15 billion won Series A led by Kakao Ventures and Kolon Investment. The AI character chatting app 'Weefo' in operation ranks #1 in Asia for female-oriented AI chatting monthly revenue one year after launch.

The SME ministry launched a 1 trillion won LP growth fund with 80% private and 20% public structure. 18 organizations including Naver, GS, and Hyosung participate in establishing a 25 billion won open innovation fund in AI, beauty, bio, and defense sectors.

Incheon International Airport handled 38.39 million international passengers in the first half of 2026, surpassing London Heathrow (37.79 million) and Singapore Changi (34.53 million) to rank as the world's busiest international airport for the first time.

Google's Waymo imported 3,200 Chinese-made Zeekr electric vans into the US while bearing a 127.5% tariff. Despite costing over $100,000 per unit, it's cheaper than the Jaguar-based model ($200,000) and has 100+ units operating in LA and SF.

Kia officially announced the 2027 EV3 US base price at $29,890. It's cheaper than the Nissan Leaf and the higher trim with 81.4kWh battery can drive an EPA-estimated 321 miles.

Chinese PonyAI and Uber announced plans to deploy 2,000+ robotaxis in 5 European cities. PonyAI's Q4 2025 robotaxi revenue surged 159.5% year-over-year.

Z.ai released GLM-5.3 without retraining the 743B base model. Coding performance jumped from 4.6 to 28.3 based on Terminal-Bench 3.0, and achieved 84.5% in cybersecurity CyberGym. APIs are available immediately and weights will be released in 2 weeks.

Alibaba released Qwen3.8-27B under Apache 2.0. With 27.78B parameters, it supports multimodal capabilities for text, image, and video, provides 262K native context window, and can run locally on a single consumer GPU.

On August 14, Anthropic made Claude Code auto mode the default for Pro·Max·Team users. Internal testing showed 89% dangerous command blocking rate and 25% improvement in PR throughput.

CVE-2026-65400 (CVSS 9.8) allowed unauthenticated root access on exposed port 5900 systems. The Dutch NCSC confirmed damage on multiple systems with Monero miners installed. Apple patched it on August 6.

The CVE-2026-59310 (CVSS 9.8) directory traversal vulnerability was exploited within 5 days of disclosure. Suspected APT actors maintained persistent access via reverse SSH, with 361 affected IPs identified across 47 countries.

Microsoft patched 421 CVEs in August. The WinSock zero-day (CVE-2026-68820) is being actively exploited for SYSTEM privilege escalation, and also includes a possible DNS server worm RCE (CVSS 9.8).

From August 10-14, $389.7 million flowed out of US spot Bitcoin ETFs, marking the largest weekly net outflow in 6 weeks. IBIT alone saw $55.5 million outflow on August 14. Meanwhile, Solana ETF recorded net inflows of $102.6 million, the largest since May.

The SEC suddenly cancelled the 'Regulation Crypto' open meeting scheduled for August 14, citing 'unexpected scheduling issues' the day before. The NPRM includes approximately 400 pages of regulations covering 3 token offering exemption pathways and an annual fundraising limit of $75 million.

Fidelity filed an updated proposal with the SEC to add staking to its Ethereum ETF (FETH). Up to 100% of held ETH can be staked with 85% of rewards going to investors and 15% as staking fees.

At the 81st anniversary Liberation Day celebration, President Lee Jae-myung formally proposed inter-Korean dialogue, saying 'Let us begin discussions among the parties to end this long-standing war.' Regarding Korea-Japan relations, he emphasized 'a new 60 years of peace and prosperity.'

Korea and the US will conduct the 'Ulchi Freedom Shield' joint exercise from the 17th to 27th. The scenario incorporates response to drones, GPS jamming, and cyber attacks, as well as combat training of North Korean troops dispatched to Russia.

The US CDC announced that confirmed measles cases in 2026 reached 2,566, recording the highest figure in 35 years. 93% of cases involved unvaccinated individuals and 169 were hospitalized.

Stanford researchers confirmed that blood immune cells cross the blood-brain barrier and convert into microglia in the brain starting from middle age. Published in Nature as a uniquely human phenomenon not found in mice or primates.

FDA granted accelerated approval for BMS's iberdomide (Genvecksus) combined with daratumumab and dexamethasone for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. It showed superiority with 41% MRD-negative complete response rate versus 21% in the control group.

A study published in Nature found a new type of celestial body, 'black hole star' MoM-BH*-1, in the early universe. Analysis reveals a structure with a black hole 100,000 times the Sun's mass wrapped in a massive gas cloud.

A study showed that a single 54-meter class reflective satellite would create light pollution brighter than a full moon by 4 magnitudes, making star observation impossible beyond 30km. The international astronomy community is demanding the plan be withdrawn.

Analysis of 20 years of US NHANES health data confirmed that blood bicarbonate increased approximately 7%, from 23.8 to 25.3 mEq/L, proportional to atmospheric CO2 rise.

The Korea Meteorological Administration forecasts cloudy conditions nationwide on the 16th, with strong rain of 200mm or more, gusty winds, and thunderstorms through the 17th in the southern coast, areas around Jirisan, and Jeju mountain areas. It noted that the southern coast of Gyeongnam and areas around Jirisan may exceed 200mm.

Sogang University announced on the 15th that approximately 180,000 personal information records, including student IDs, contact information, and encrypted passwords of current students, graduates, and faculty, were leaked in an external attack from an unauthorized overseas IP. Emergency measures such as blocking the attack IP were implemented.

On the 15th, conservative organizations including the Free Unification Party and progressive organizations including the Democratic Labor Federation held large simultaneous rallies in the Sejong-daero area of Seoul. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and 9 descendants of independence activists held the 33 bell rings at Bosingak commemorating Liberation Day.

Negotiations have stalled as Iran refuses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz despite US sanctions and pressure. Brent crude has surpassed $89 per barrel, while OPEC has downwardly adjusted its 2026 demand growth forecast for the fourth consecutive time.

The Spanish government issued a decree through the official gazette on August 14 extending the operating licenses for Almaraz nuclear plant units 1 and 2 until June 2030. This reverses the original plan for closure in 2027 and 2028.

The Ministry of Environment and power authorities forecast a possible maximum power demand of 98.8GW in the third week of August. They warned it could surpass the record 97.1GW from 2024.

The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) officially appointed BIGBANG as inaugural ambassador on August 14. BIGBANG will promote major space projects to the public, including the fifth launch of Nuri and lunar exploration.

NCT 127 will appear live on the US broadcast 'America's Got Talent' on August 19. Ahead of their comeback with the 7th full album 'BLINGY' releasing on August 24, they're ramping up North American promotion.

2PM JUN.K revealed concept photos for the digital single 'Your Lips,' a collaboration with Red Velvet's Wendy. Scheduled for release on August 17 at 6 PM.

On the 15th in Gwangju, Yang Hyeon-jong recorded a quality start with 1 run in 6 innings, Kim Do-young hit a solo 35th home run in the 4th, and Park Jae-hyeon had 2 RBIs as Kia dominated Doosan 6-1.

Gu Ja-wook had 3 hits including a home run with 5 RBIs, and Choi Hyung-woo also had 3 hits including a home run with 3 RBIs as Samsung won 11-6 over Hanwha at their Daegu home on Liberation Day for their 3rd straight win.

On August 15, in K League1, FC Seoul beat Daejeon 4-2 with 2 second-half goals by Song Min-gyu, Pohang defeated Gwangju 2-1, and Jeju beat Anyang 2-0. The Suwon and Suwon FC derby ended 2-2.

On Liberation Day at Tokyo's Ariake Arena, Korea's men's basketball team lost to Japan 68-88 in a friendly. The 20-point margin represents the worst loss against Japan.

GS25 fresh specialty stores exceeded 1,000 locations this month, positioning convenience stores as fresh food hubs. Kurly recorded its highest operating profit of 27.4 billion won in Q2, and Lotte Mart launched its AI robot logistics center, Zeta Smart Center Busan.

Paris Baguette announced on the 14th that it will raise prices 5% on average for 127 bread and cake items starting August 25. Following Dunkin' (average 6.5%) and Tous les Jours (average 8.2%), all three major bakery chains have increased prices.

Samyang Food's Q2 overseas sales reached 645.8 billion won, exceeding 600 billion won for the first time on a quarterly basis. Operating profit was 176.2 billion won, a 46.7% increase year-over-year.