Korea

In 1953, North Korea and South Korea spoke the same language. In 2026, they begin to be two different

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The abrupt political changes, the traumatic measures imposed by force of military mandate on a people, can have unexpected effects visible in the short term and leave wounds that do not heal until long after the end of the discord. We saw it very clearly in the two “Germanies” that the Cold War left us and we see it clearly today in another country: Korea. Traveling to the present, and although we know the mark that the battle between the capitalist and communist blocs is leaving on the Korean population, there is a dimension of cultural inequality that may have gone more unnoticed: idiomatic. As a recent study showed, and after just over seven decades of separation, Korean is no longer the same between the north and the south. 45% of the population surveyed He had problems understanding the dialogues of Koreans from the opposite area, and in 1% of the cases the North Koreans did not understand at all what the South Koreans were telling them. In conclusion, and as linguists dedicated to this company have stated, at least a third of everyday vocabulary is no longer the same, especially that referring to professional and business topics. This is how their vocabularies have varied The main difference between both territories is that in North Korea the language has remained purer, with slight grammatical incursions from Chinese and Russian, while South Korean has embraced many neologisms from English without hesitation. While over time in South Korea companies have created various terms to say “paper”adapting to new and different formats and materials, in the north the original term is maintained exclusively, which they must use for all variants. In the south, and to speak of football terminology, penalty goals are scored with a “penalty kick”expressed literally in English, while in the north the Koreans triumph by making an “11 meter punishment.” Southerners, when they want to have a juice, ask for a “juice”, while northerners talk about “sweet fruit water”. to wish you “good luck” to someone, those from the south have adopted an English-speaking expression in colloquial speech, “hi-team”something that those from the north do not understand at all. North Koreans “have a headache,” while those in the south, who in recent decades have discovered the concept of stress, talk much more about the pain of “suturese”stress in the corrupt slang konglish. The new lexicons also show the ideological transformation between the two nations, between their political systems and their social structures. Since the separation, the word “dongmu”which meant friend, fell out of use in the north in favor of the Soviet term товарищ, “comrade.” “Sun-mul”, a term that means “the action of introducing your friend”, is now prohibited from being used among the general population, and its privileged use was reserved for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il. The problematic oral life of deserters These changes have already had recognizable consequences and it is logical that it becomes a more pressing problem every day. During the 2018 Olympic Games, for example, the two countries decided to launch a reconciliation message to the world by allowing its women’s hockey teams to compete in the same group head to head. As the athletes from the south commented later, there was quite a few communication problems that harmed their final strategy: apparently, the coach, from South Korea, used technical words in English, something that is most common in sports disciplines anywhere in the world, but the players from the north were not able to follow her lessons because of this vocabulary that, for them, was indecipherable. Something more serious than the lack of coordination for a sporting event is what many of them have had to experience. the 28,000 deserters who traveled from north to south in recent years. Their language unintentionally betrays them in their new country of residence. In the best of cases the locals They laugh at their outdated dialect. That they do not know how to adapt to the jargon of a post-war and globalized reality. At worst, they can have many problems getting into schools or getting jobs and live a second life as sacrificed as the one they tried to leave behind. Language preservation: a national trauma Because, in addition, Korean has great emotional and identity relevance for the 75 million citizens that both fronts have together. After the dramatic occupation of the peninsula by Japanese forces between 1910 and 1945, the locals were subjected to Japanese linguistic norms as a strategy to control the population and eradicate their culture. They imposed themselves “scientific” speeches that they defended their language was little more than a dialect descended from Japanese (a controversial claim for any linguist with a neutral vision), and that therefore it was not worth preserving a perverted use of a language superior in its purity. T After the Pacific War, teaching in Korean was strictly prohibited, its vocabulary was extinguished, people who spoke it daily were reprimanded, and intellectuals who tried to preserve its legacy were executed. With the end of the Second World War, the two resulting nations partly had to re-empower their language. There are attempts to reunify the language Both governments have been working bidirectionally for several years on a unified glossary project. It is known as the Gyeoremal-kunsajeon, or the Dictionary for People’s Understanding of Korean, and is the plan under which future generations will be educated. These 70 years of linguistic change They have gone much further than the transformation of some terms. There is even conversational structures that have been modified. It would be a change as abrupt as uniting people of a language with those who use one of its dialects. It is not just the fact that neither of the two States want to give in, it is that any modification of the linguistic structures that are not careful could cement syntactic inconsistencies or phonetics in the future. The company’s objectives, furthermore, are achieved at irregular rates, since relations between both nations have cooled … Read more

While everyone was looking at the Middle East, North Korea has had time to do what Iran has not been able to: go nuclear.

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It happened a few years ago, when in the midst of increasing tensions with North Korea, the Japanese government came to send alerts to millions of mobile phones through the J-Alert system when it detected the overflight of a missile, causing unusual scenes in which trains stopped and citizens took refuge in stations without knowing exactly what was happening. That reaction, almost automatic and difficult to imagine in peacetime, left a clear image of the extent to which certain global balances can be strained without warning. The regime that did not fall. I told a few days ago in an extensive special report the wall street journal the story of the surprising source of North Korea’s enduring power, a nation that has survived the demise of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China because it ceased to be just a communist state and became something more resilient: a closed ideological structurehereditary and almost religious. There it is impossible not to start with the Kim dynasty that managed to consolidate a system in which power is not only exercised, but also believed, internalized and transmitted as a faith. That model, built from Kim Il Sung and perfected by his successors, has made it possible to maintain extraordinary internal cohesion even in conditions of extreme isolation. While other regimes eroded as they opened up to the world or collapsed under external pressure, Pyongyang consolidated a base of control much deeperdifficult to dismantle from the outside. From ideology to state religion. I remembered the Journal that the core of that system is not only political, but also symbolic and emotional, with elements that clearly recall an organized religion. The Juche ideology It progressively replaced classical Marxism, incorporating rituals, symbols and an almost messianic narrative around the leader. The omnipresence of Kim Il Sung, his conversion in “eternal president” and dynastic continuity have generated a structure of loyalty that goes beyond political obedience. This model, influenced indirectly through Christianity that once dominated Pyongyang, allowed the construction of a system where loyalty to the leader is perceived as an absolute truth, something that largely explains its stability and capacity for resistance. The silent military leap. On that internal basis, North Korea has developed a pretty clear strategy: to arm oneself militarily until one becomes practically untouchablealthough no one knows exactly how much of it is true. Today it is recognized that it has intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reach US territory and has reinforced its arsenal with increasingly sophisticated systems. Not only that. The recent tests, just a few days ago from their new destroyer, with high-precision cruise and anti-ship missiles, they clearly show that it is no longer just a matter of accumulating weapons, but of integrating them into a modern military architecture, with rapid response capacity and systems resistant to interference. In fact, accelerated construction of new warships It aims at a transition from isolated platforms towards a structured naval force, which expands its projection capacity and complicates any containment scenario. Nuclear expansion in full noise. I told it this week Guardian through internal analyzes held by the UN nuclear watchdog. While much of the international attention was focused on the conflicts in the Middle EastNorth Korea has been taking advantage of this context to advance its nuclear program without restraint. As? Activity at key facilities such as Yongbyon has intensifiedwith new reactors, reprocessing plants and possible undeclared facilities to enrich uranium. The agency’s estimates point to dozens of warheads already operational and a growing capacity to produce enough material to between ten and twenty weapons additional each year. In other words, this rhythm, sustained over time, indicates that the objective is not only basic deterrence, but rather reaching a volume that guarantees the survival of the regime in the face of any attempt at forced change. The power that Iran has not consolidated. The key difference here is that North Korea has achieved what other countries in similar situations have achieved (call it Iran) have not been able to: convert their nuclear program into a fully integrated tool in their survival strategy. While other powers under international pressure have seen limited or braked its development, Pyongyang has moved closer to a point of no returnone where its capacity is broad enough to deter any intervention. In this context, it is possible that the real change is no longer just quantitative, but strategic: because when it reaches a surplus of nuclear capacity, the risk will cease to be solely regional and will have global implications, opening the door, at the very least, to new proliferation dynamics. Image | DPRK In Xataka | The US has activated plan B before Iran knocks down its last radar: disarm South Korea against the North’s new nuclear “toy” In Xataka | If the question is what has North Korea achieved in the last four years, the answer is simple: an unimaginable arsenal

South Korea overtakes China as ASML’s largest market. Sanctions are already changing the world

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In the first quarter of 2026, South Korea has accounted for 45% of ASML salesthe Dutch manufacturer of lithography machinery without which no advanced chip exists. China, which until now led the same ranking with 36%, has fallen to 19%. The order of the semiconductor world has been inverted in the duration of a ‘Q’. Why is it important. ASML is the only company on the planet capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machinesessential to produce chips less than 7 nanometers. Whoever controls access to ASML controls, to a large extent, which countries can manufacture elite semiconductors. That is why the figures for the first quarter of 2026 are not just another balance sheet but a way to understand the geopolitical map in real time. Or at least with “only” three weeks of latency. In figures: South Korea: 45% of ASML sales in Q1 2026 (up from 22% in the previous quarter). China: 19% (up from 36%). Taiwan: 23% (up from 13%). ASML’s total net sales in the quarter: €8.8 billion. Net profit: 2,760 million euros (+17% year-on-year). Sales forecast for 2026, revised upwards: between 36,000 and 40,000 million euros. The context. The United States has been building a sanctions architecture for years designed to disconnect China from access to advanced semiconductor technology. ASML, a Dutch company but with technology whose development has also involved American and British partners, stopped selling its EUV machines to China years ago. In 2023 added restrictions on more advanced DUV/UVP systems. What the first quarter data show is that this fence already has measurable effects on real sales flows. Between the lines. South Korea’s jump is not explained only by the Chinese fall. Samsung and SK Hynix They are in full race to build high-end memory capacity (the type of chip that powers AI data centers), and both companies have accelerated their orders for EUV machines. SK Hynix has committed nearly 12 trillion won (about 8.2 billion euros) in EUV lithography equipment for its Cheongju and Yongin factories. And Samsung, for its part, has placed a bulk order for approximately 20 EUV machines as part of a larger purchase of 70 systems for its P5 plant in Pyeongtaek. The underlying message is that the demand for AI is already sold in advance. According to ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, customers in the memory segment have already exhausted their capacity for the entire year. Supply will not meet demand in the foreseeable future and prices continue to skyrocket. Main loser? China, without access to EUV, has been using older DUV systems for years and multiple exposure techniques to approach the 7 nanometer nodes. This translates into chips that are more expensive to produce and have lower yields. Companies like SMIC, ChangXin or Yangtze Memory Technologies operate under increasing financial pressure: the more exposures you need to compensate for the absence of EUV, the worse the production economics. The big question. Can China build its own ASML? There are prototypes in development and the ambition to achieve mass production of EUVs before 2030 is public and no one hides it. That doesn’t mean we can take it for granted: neither Nikon nor Canonwho have dominated lithography for decades, have managed to develop EUV systems. ASML is where it is because it spent years working to achieve it, and it also did so with a very well-coordinated ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, specialized laser technology, thousands of components from suppliers around the world… Replicating that from scratch, under sanctions, in less than five years, is a titanic task even for a country of 1.4 billion inhabitants and an excessive ambition. Yes, but. The restrictions, in fact, have not sunk China, but have forced it to adapt. SMIC produces 7 nanometer chips using alternative techniques, although at higher cost and on a smaller scale. The pace of state investment in semiconductors has not slowed down. And the fact that several engineers who have worked at ASML have ended up in Chinese projects has raised alarms on the other side of the Pacific. China has built its current position on a long-term mindset. The sanctions close the shortest path, but that does not mean that other paths do not exist. In Xataka | China prepares a 2nm AI chip to end NVIDIA’s dominance. Your problem is how you are going to manufacture it Featured image | ASML

If you are going to install air conditioning, remember what happened to South Korea. It was the architectural disaster of the millennium

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In the 1990s, some of Asia’s densest cities reached concentrate millions of people in urban areas built in just a few decades. In that same period, several studies began to warn that a significant part of the buildings erected during the great economic booms had serious structural deficiencies. In fact, in some inspections after major accidents, it was estimated that only a minority of buildings fully complied security standards. When you grow faster than you can build. In a few decades, South Korea went from the devastation of war to becoming an industrial and urban powerwith a speed of growth that was hardly unprecedented. Furthermore, during the economic boom in the 1980s, the country was chosen to host the 1988 Olympic Games, and an exorbitant number of buildings were built to meet these new needs. That impulse translated into a construction fever where building architectures mattered more than doing them well, and where practices such as cutting costs, accelerating deadlines or ignoring technical warnings became common. In that scenario was born Sampoong Department Storenot as a project exceptionally flawed from the beginning, but as a typical product of an era when progress was measured in square meters and not in safety standards. Air conditioning as a wick. The key point of the tragedy that was about to take place and that ended up turning the department store into the millennium architectural disasterit was not a single error, but a chain of decisions that ended up concentrating all the fragility of the building in an apparently secondary detail: the air conditioning system. As? Apparently, the equipment installed on the roof They weighed tens of tonsfar above what the structure could support, and their accelerated installation did not even follow normal procedures, as they were dragged on the roof, damaging the structure itself. From that moment on, a terrifying image: every vibration when you turn them on widened invisible cracks that toured the building. What should have been an element of comfort became a lethal burden that ended up acting as the final trigger for the collapse, concentrating years of accumulated negligence in a single point. The department store before the disaster Condemned from the plans. The disaster began long before anyone heard creaking in the ceiling. The original project It was a residential block four floors, but was transformed by Lee Joon, future director of the Sampoong Group, to turn it into a large shopping center without properly redesigning the structure. Plus: Due to bans in Seoul that prevented foreign companies from signing contracts in the city, these monstrous buildings were awarded to a handful of South Korean companies. Overwhelmed by pressure, companies decided that it was best to accelerate the pace of work, regardless of the cost. Thus, the diameter of the pillars was reduced from 80 to 60 centimetersand the distance between them was increased to increase the useful surface, columns removed to install escalators, its thickness was reduced to gain commercial space and a fifth floor was added that was never planned. Each modification increased the weight and weakened the resistancewhile companies that warned of the danger were fired and replaced by more accommodating ones. The result was a chaotic building that, on paper, no longer had a safety margin even before opening its doors. Cracks getting bigger. In the months before the collapse, the building gave multiple warnings that something was wrong. Visible cracks appeared, floors vibrated, employees felt dizzy, and engineers warned of a imminent structural failure. The management’s reaction was to close some areas, turn off the air conditioning at the last minute and continue operating normally in the rest of the building. The reason was so simple as devastating: Losing a day of sales in a complex that received thousands of people was unacceptable. Even on the day of the collapse, with cracks of several centimeters and obvious signs of danger, it was decided do not evacuate customers. Images after the collapse The collapse. On the afternoon of June 29, 1995, the building did not explode nor was it the victim of an external attack: he just gave in to the crazy number of negligence. The air conditioning equipment ended up passing through the weakened roof, the columns could not support the accumulated load and the building collapsed. collapsed in a matter of 20 secondscrushing entire plants on top of each other. More than 500 people died and more than a thousand were trapped, many of them in a space that, just a few hours before, symbolized the country’s economic success. It was a destruction so rapid that it turned a shopping center full of life into a mountain of rubble in less than half a minute. Images after the collapse An avoidable tragedy. Rescue efforts continued for weeks, with survivors found even more than two weeks later under the remains of the building. But the magnitude of the disaster revealed an even more disturbing reality: many victims did not die only from the collapse, but due to subsequent failures in emergency management. Meanwhile, investigations confirmed the most obvious: there was not a single cause, but one after another.accumulation of avoidable errorsfrom the use of low-quality materials to business decisions that prioritized immediate profit over any safety criteria. Monument in memory of the collapse Corruption, punishment and a system in question. The collapse not only destroyed a building, but exposed an entire system. Those responsible, starting with owner Lee Joon, were convicted, including several officials involved in corrupt practices, but the impact was much broader. Subsequent inspections revealed that a significant portion of Seoul’s buildings had very serious structural problemswhich forced us to review regulations and reinforce controls. The Sampoong ceased to be an isolated case and became in a symbol of what happens when a society builds too quickly and too badly. The legacy. Today, where the building stood there is no visible trace of the tragedy, but its lesson remains crystal clear. The disaster was not the result of bad luck … Read more

behind is North Korea

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A European company publishes an offer for a remote technological position and, after several filters, hires a candidate who perfectly fits the profile. The resume is solid, the interviews are carried out without problems and, on paper, this incorporation becomes integrated into the team as one more. But there is a possibility that until recently many companies did not even consider: that this worker is not who they say they are. Cybersecurity experts maintain that this phenomenon comes almost exclusively from North Korea, a practice documented in the United States and whose first signs are also beginning to be seen in Europe. The problem of fake employees in Europe. To understand why it is now starting to cause concern in this part of the world, it is worth first looking at what has already happened in the North American country. There, authorities and cybersecurity specialists have been investigating a very specific pattern for years: supposed technology professionals who were actually part of networks linked to Pyongyang. According to data from the Department of Justice, these operations managed to infiltrate more than 300 companies between 2020 and 2024, generating at least $6.8 million in income for the North Korean country. How deception works. The process usually begins with building a compelling professional identity. According to the Financial Timesoperatives can take over inactive LinkedIn accounts or even pay their owners to use them, and from there create apparently legitimate profiles with falsified resumes and recommendations generated by other members of the network. Language models also help them create culturally appropriate names, plausible email addresses, and messages that reduce linguistic or cultural cues that could previously give them away. In the interview phase, technology plays an increasingly important role: these networks can resort to digital masks, avatars or video filters, and when some companies tighten controls, they also go so far as to pay real intermediaries to appear on video calls in their place. The success of this scheme is not explained only by the technological tools used by false candidates. It also has to do with a structural weakness within many organizations. According to cybersecurity experts cited by the aforementioned newspaper, the hiring process has rarely been considered a corporate security front. For years it has been managed mainly from human resources, with controls designed to evaluate talent, not to detect infiltration operations. That approach has left a vulnerability that these networks are exploiting. Once inside the company. Getting through the hiring process is only the first phase of the operation. Some of these schemes include intercepting the laptops that companies send to their new employees to work remotely. After accessing the equipment, operatives can connect from other locations and carry out their work activity using tools based on language models and chatbots. This system allows them to fulfill the tasks assigned by the company and, in some cases, manage several technological jobs at the same time. Furthermore, the risk is not limited to collecting salaries; some also steal information or infect systems with malware. For threat analysts, the first signs of expansion towards Europe are already visible. According to information collected by the Financial Times, researchers have identified signs that networks linked to North Korea are trying to reproduce in the region the same model that was previously observed in the North American country. One of the elements that has attracted attention is the appearance in the United Kingdom of the so-called laptop farmsspaces where remotely connected laptops are concentrated so that operatives can work as if they were physically in the country. This type of infrastructure suggests that the scheme could also be beginning to be replicated in Europe. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | We knew that North Korea has been infiltrating workers into Western companies for years. Now we know how they do it

disarm South Korea against the North’s new nuclear “toy”

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It we count a few days ago. There are military infrastructures so scarce and sophisticated that there are barely a handful of them on the entire planet. Some are designed to detect missiles at gigantic distances and cost a fortune, others are installed in allied countries thousands of kilometers from where they are manufactured. When several of those pieces disappear from the board At the same time, the security of entire regions may begin to depend on movements occurring on the other side of the world. A war that eats up the shields of the planet. The offensive against Iran has triggered a strategic domino effect that goes far beyond the Middle East. After the Iranian attacks on US critical infrastructureWashington met an unexpected problem: Several of its most sophisticated warning and tracking systems (those unique radars capable of detecting and coordinating defense against ballistic missiles) were left damaged or destroyeddrastically reducing surveillance capacity. Of the eight most advanced radars of this type that the United States possesses, four were offside. That means another similar strike could leave Washington virtually blind to new waves of missiles or drones. Faced with this risk, the priority became protecting the US bases deployed in the Gulf and the Levant. The result has been a decision that reveals the extent to which the war against Iran is straining the global defense architecture: the United States has begun to withdraw Asian anti-missile systems to reinforce its shield in the Middle East. Plan B. The solution adopted by the Pentagon has been to move pieces from one of the most sensitive boards on the planet: the korean peninsula. For years, the THAAD system deployed in South Korea was presented as the key piece to intercept North Korean missiles before they reached Seoul or US bases. That decision sparked protests localities and tensions with China and Russia due to the powerful radar associated with the system. Now, almost a decade later, parts of that shield are being disassembled and loaded on transport planes heading to the Middle East. And not only that, because the transfer is not limited to THAAD. It is also studied move Patriot batteries and other defensive assets towards US bases in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates to protect them from possible Iranian retaliation with drones and missiles. For Seoul, the scene is extremely disturbing: Defenses designed to stop attacks from the North are being sent thousands of miles away to sustain a war on another continent. THAAD The strategic cost of a war. They remembered in the Guardian that the withdrawal of these systems has generated a wave of concern in South Korea and Japan, two of the pillars of architecture American military in Asia. South Korea hosts about 28,500 U.S. troops and relies heavily on Washington’s defensive umbrella to balance North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Although the South Korean government insists that its deterrence capacity remains intact, many analysts they fear that Pyongyang interprets the move as an opportunity to test the limits of the alliance. Japan, for its part, observes with the same concern how American destroyers based in Yokosuka move towards the Arabian Sea, while in Tokyo the debate grows on whether US bases in the country could end up involved in conflicts outside the Asian theater. The question that floats in both capitals is uncomfortable: to what extent the war against Iran is draining military resources that were intended to contain North Korea or China. Hyunmoo-3 cruise missile on display during South Korea’s 65th military anniversary parade Pyongyang and a lesson. They remembered this week on CNN that, in North Korea, events have reinforced a conviction that has been guiding its strategy for decades: the nuclear weapon It is the only real life insurance in front of Washington. The destiny of leaders who abandoned or never developed nuclear weapons (from Gaddafi to the recent bombings against Iran that ended with his supreme leader) is constantly repeated in North Korean propaganda as a warning. For Kim Jong Un, the conclusion seems simple, because giving up the bomb means opening the door to operations regime change. Therefore, while the United States focuses its attention on the Middle East, Pyongyang accelerates its nuclear program and continues to develop missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to the mainland United States. North Korea already possesses, in fact, dozens of warheads and enough material to produce many more, which completely changes the risk calculus for any power contemplating direct military intervention. The new nuclear “toy”. In parallel, the North has presented one of the most ambitious projects of its military modernization: the destroyer Choe Hyona 5,000-ton ship that represents the most important leap in its navy in decades. During its first sea trials, the ship launched strategic cruise missiles under the direct supervision of Kim Jong Un and displayed a battery of up to 104 missiles of different types thanks to an expanded vertical launch system. The regime intends to build at least ten ships of this class in the coming years and convert its navy into a force capable of projecting power beyond the peninsula. The program also includes the progressive integration of nuclear weapons into naval forces, a change that would expand the platforms from which Pyongyang could launch nuclear attacks. Kim and the Iranian example. The war in Iran has also reopened a broader strategic debate in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un and his inner circle are analyzing each phase of the American operation: from the ability to locate enemy leaders to the speed with which Washington can pass from diplomacy to action military. In that sense, possibly the memory of the failure of Hanoi summit In 2019 it continues to weigh in that calculation. At the time, Kim believed a deal with Trump was close and returned home with nothing. Since then, North Korea has strengthened its association with Russiasending ammunition and troops for the war in Ukraine in exchange for fuel, food and possibly military technology. However, the lack … Read more

South Korea has had the most catastrophic birth rate in the world for years. And now it has finally managed to grow

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For a few years now, talking about demographics in South Korea has made it necessary to first take out a clinex package. Despite all his attempts (and there have been not a few) the country seemed condemned to suffer an uncontrollable ‘bleed’ of birth rates and see the seams of its economy tighten. It may sound exaggerated, but it is good to remember that he said goodbye to 2024 by declaring “super aged” and that there are academics who warn that the nation is emptying (literally). With that backdrop, Seoul has started 2026 with a positive fact: wins babies. And it also does so for the second consecutive year. The big question that arises now is… Are we facing a change in trend or just a mirage? The figure: 254,457. It is provisional data (the definitio will not arrive until the summer), but even so it has arrived like manna in a country accustomed to every piece of news about demographics involving a national drama. Last year South Korea registered 254,457 birthsa good balance no matter where you look at it. To begin with because it means 6.8% more that in 2024 and leaves the largest percentage increase since 2007; but those are only two of the possible readings. More babies per woman. Another interesting reading is the one that tells us about the “fertility rate”, the average number of babies that (at a statistical level) a woman is expected to have throughout her reproductive life. A few years ago that indicator plummeted to 0.72very far from the “replacement rate” (2.1 children per woman) that allows societies to remain stable. The data is still below that red line, but at least it has grown: in 2025 it passed from 0.75 to 0.8. Not only that. Reuters remember that the South Korean Government had optimistic estimates that suggested that this rate would grow to 0.75 in 2025 and 0.8 in 2026, which appears to be recovering positions faster than expected. In Seoul the trend is even more pronounced. There the indicator rose 8.9%, going from 0.53 to 0.63. The data is still very poor and they are far away to solve the problem that Korea has, but they suggest a change of cycle. Breaking the bad streak. That the birth rate is increasing in South Korea is news, but it is even more so if (as is the case) that growth is maintained for two years. In 2024 the country has already registered a positive fact (breaking up with eight exercises of consecutive falls) that now invites us to think about whether it has really found the right way to encourage its young people to have more offspring. Of course, the country has invested time, efforts and especially economic resources in that objective, in which it is played from the social sustainability and the march of his industry to issues as relevant as national defense. More weddings, more babies. 2025 has not only been a good year in maternity hospitals. It has also been for the wedding planners. Marriages increased by 8.1% in 2025, reinforcing the 14.8% rebound already recorded in 2024. This is good news because, in a conservative society like South Korea (the percentage of births outside of marriage It’s surprisingly low.), weddings are often considered an early indicator of a rebound in birth rates. Trend or mirage? That’s the million dollar question. That South Korea has been trying to activate its birth rate for years is undeniable, as is the fact that it has invested large resources in this effort and that they have been involved in the effort since the public institutions to the business world. However, there are other factors at play that suggest that the recent growth in the South Korean birth rate could be more circumstantial than structural. That is to say, in reality we would be facing a kind of demographic ‘mirage’. The hangover of the pandemic. When explaining the phenomenon, there are those who point to the influence of the pandemic. Not so much in the birth rate itself as in marriages. It is true that more South Koreans are getting tired and that this indicator will probably influence the birth rate in the coming years, but it is also true that many couples had to postpone their plans during the pandemic. “The number of marriages has increased for 21 consecutive months, from April 2024 to December last year, as couples who had delayed their marriages due to COVID-19 have tied the knot,” recognize Park Hyun-jung, director of the government office that analyzes population trends. He himself admits that today it is very difficult to establish a clear “correlation” between government policies and improved birth rates. A demographic with ‘echo’. There are those who point out, however, another factor that would be directly influencing South Korean demographics: history. The explanation I broke it down Rapahel Rashid recently in Guardian and provides an alternative theory. More babies have been born in the South Korea of ​​2024 or 2025 simply because the same thing already happened in the Korea of ​​30 years ago. To be more precise, more or less during the first half of the 1990s (1991-1995) there was a peak of around 3.6 million of babies who today enter their thirties and begin to become parents themselves. Reviewing history. We explain ourselves. Paradoxical as it may be, in the 1950s and 1960s Korea had a very different problem than today: a very high fertility rate which led authorities to launch family planning programs. The objective: guarantee the country’s recovery after the war. The message that was launched was very simple: have fewer children (two, one) and guarantee them a better life. It worked so well that by the early 1980s the fertility rate had fallen below the replacement margin and Seoul decided change course. By doing so, it favored the rebound that would now be heating up the birth rate. According to that theory, what we see today is actually a … Read more

The US chip industry is being forged in Silicon Valley. Curiously, the hammer is held by South Korea

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The United States has embarked on a journey of technological sovereignty. It has some of the largest and most cutting-edge technology companiesbut they depend on foreign companies. That’s why, Appield Materials has put 5 billion dollars on the table seeking US technological hegemony. And, in this ambitious project, it is not an American who has slipped in as founding partner of the EPIC Center. It’s Samsung. EPIC. It’s a “modest” name for a $5 billion facility that will be in the heart of Silicon Valley. The name comes from Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization and is the spearhead of American investment in research and development of advanced semiconductor equipment. Its objective is to accelerate the development of equipment and processes to create advanced memory chips, shortening traditional cycles when developing cutting-edge chips. The installation is imposingwith more than 16,700 m² of clean room and is expected to come into operation this spring. Samsung. And, in that ambitious objective, is the South Korean company. The alliance is to address one of the semiconductor industry’s most important challenges: the long time required to bring new chip technologies to market. from research to production. The EPIC Center is not a competition for the European ASMLbut something complementary to shorten those processes that can take between 10 and 15 years. And Samsung will be there as one of the founding partners. Samsung Electronics CEO Young Hyun Jun commented that the collaboration will allow “advance in cutting-edge semiconductor equipment technologies.” The EPIC Center Expansion. Samsung is one of the most important foundries in the world and, in the era of artificial intelligence, it is consolidating itself as a pillar by being the first that will supply NVIDIA of the new HBM4 memories. Its presence at the EPIC Center seems like a key strategic move, but it is not the only advance that the company has recently made on American soil. In that pursuit of creating high-bandwidth memory and advanced systems, Samsung has a facility in TaylorTexas, to advance the production of 2 nanometer chips. Foreign industrial fabric. One of Donald Trump’s goals was to recover the American industrial fabric with American companies and American labor. That’s why he ‘rescued’ Intel a few months ago with the aim that the company was his great foundry. And it is having its fruits: Intel has risen from the ashes with new advanced processors and is positioning itself to supply both NVIDIA and Apple. However, what is also arriving is foreign muscle like Samsung and something more serious: TSMC. The Taiwanese giant is the company on which the entire semiconductor and device industry pivots, and it is increasingly becoming making more land in the United States to manufacture in the country and continue with a diversification project which includes Europe. That is to say, the United States is reindustrializing and is taking steps to have an authoritative voice in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, but much of that muscle belongs to the same old foreign companies… that will simply now also produce in the United States. HBM4. Meanwhile, Samsung continues to do its thing. Not only are they at full production HBM4 memoriesbut also investigating the possible replacement for that technology: DRAM memories in which Intel and SoftBank are also taking steps. And in addition to their own Exynos for their mobiles, there are sources who claim that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is developing its own chip for artificial intelligence and is in talks with Samsung for it to be manufactured. Images | Applied Materials (edited) In Xataka | China’s future in the chip industry is in the hands of a single, almost unknown company: SiCarrier

North Korea believed the threat was miles from its border. A video has revealed that it is a few meters away with a huge warhead

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For years, North Korea has built your security on the idea that the most dangerous thing came from afar and could be seen coming in time. But on the peninsula, threats do not always come from the other side of the world: sometimes they develop much closer than anyone imagined. A “monster” missile. a video has revealed that South Korea has begun to operationally deploy the Hyunmoo-5its largest ballistic missile to date and one of the most peculiar in the world due to the combination of size and mission. Although it remains shrouded in secrecy and there are no publicly confirmed test launches, its input in units indicates that Seoul already considers it a real instrument of deterrence. A weapon designed for an extreme scenario on the peninsula, where the problem is not just attacking, but hitting what is buried, protected and designed to survive. The key: the head. What it places to Hyunmoo-5 In a category of its own is its warhead gigantic penetrationmuch heavier than that of usual conventional missiles. Where it is normal to carry loads of less than a ton, here we are talking about a block that can be around several tons, with an important part dedicated to dense metal and structure to pierce before detonating. The logic is simple and we have seen it before in the United States MOP: enter the ground at enormous speed, break through like a kinetic hammer and then explode once inside, attacking bunkers, command centers, warehouses and shelters designed to withstand traditional attacks. Ballistic bunker-buster. In terms of effect, it is reminiscent of bunker buster bombs launched from a planebut with a decisive difference: here it is not falling from a bomber at subsonic speed, but rather hits like a ballistic projectile at speeds close to hypersonic or directly hypersonic. This multiplies the penetration capacity by pure impact energyeven before counting the explosion. It does not make the weapon “nuclear,” because the type of destruction is different, but it does create a conventional tool with the power of entry and demolition that seeks to get closer to what a regime fears most: losing its underground shelters. Ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Korea The mystery of scope. The huge warhead penalizes the range, and that is why many estimates They place their radius of action around about 600 kilometersmore typical of a short-range missile despite the size of the set. For South Korea that is not a problem, because the priority objective is close and it’s concrete: Hardened facilities in North Korea. Still, if the load were lightened, it could reach much greater distances, even entering intermediate-range missile parameters, opening the door to broader regional readouts. Total design freedom. For decades, Seoul developed missiles under agreed limits with Washington, first very strict and then increasingly relaxeduntil those guidelines disappeared completely in 2021. That change was not symbolic: it came at the pace of North Korea’s advance in missiles and nuclear weapons, and left South Korea with room to create heavier, more capable systems with greater range options. Hyunmoo-4 had already raised the bar with a powerful charge, but Hyunmoo-5 represents the definitive jump to the idea of ​​“demolition power” as a main feature. The three-way strategy. Plus: the Hyunmoo-5 is integrated into the South Korean scheme designed to avoid or respond to a North Korean nuclear attack, with three pillars that complement each other: a preemptive strike plan on nuclear and missile capabilities if deemed inevitable, an air and missile defense to intercept launches, and massive conventional retaliation against leadership and strategic infrastructure if the North strikes first. On that board, the missile serves both to punish and to decapitate capabilities, because its specialty is attacking what the adversary hides underground to guarantee its continuity. Deterrence and escalation. They counted the TWZ analysts that the South Korean bet aims to maintain a “balance of terror” with increasingly forceful conventional means, but it also fuels an uncomfortable debate about the future. If Seoul one day decided to pursue a nuclear arsenal of its own, a missile from this family would be a natural candidateand a nuclear charge would also be much lighter than the current conventional one, which would expand range and flexibility. Meanwhile, the mere existence of Hyunmoo-5 already serves as an unmistakable message: even without crossing the nuclear threshold, South Korea wants the ability to open any relevant bunker and force Pyongyang to assume that his depth no longer guarantees security. Beyond Pyongyang. In public, South Korea frames these weapons as an answer to North Korea, but the regional background weighs more and more. Have a missile potentially adaptable in range and with a devastating payload add margin facing scenarios where the threat is not only from North Korea, but also from nearby powers such as China or Russia. The idea of ​​​​increasing their survival and employment options with future naval platforms is even contemplated, following the trend global from “arsenal ships”because in deterrence it is not enough to have the weapon: we must also guarantee that it will remain alive when the time comes to use it. Image | Lightrocket, 촬영 – 이헌구 기자 In Xataka | “It’s a level 10 Godzilla, but they only see a tiger”: South Korea’s surprising response to North Korea’s rearmament In Xataka | If the question is what has North Korea achieved in the last four years, the answer is simple: an unimaginable arsenal

and that includes products from Korea

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Entering Mercadona and finding empty shelves in the cosmetics section is no longer surprising. What was once an almost automatic purchase—gel, deodorant, a basic cream—has transformed into a treasure hunt driven by social media: 3.50 euro products They sell out, they are recommended as if they were high-end and They generate videos with millions of views. It does not happen in a specialized perfumery or in Sephora, but between preparations and delicatessen. In the last year and a half, the white label Deliplus has gone from being a functional and cheap option to becoming one of the great engines of skincare in Spain. And not only because of price. What is happening in the aisles of Mercadona is the visible symptom of something deeper: a change in the way of consuming beauty, in the perception of luxury and in the growing—and now structural—influence of Korean cosmetics. Before the Korean aesthetic became explicit in its launches, Mercadona had already been training its consumers in a different logic for some time. In the last two years, Deliplus has intensified its presence with products that go far beyond basic care: serums with promises botox-likepatches, facial treatments, perfumes inspired by great houses and cosmetics designed to function as dupes of the high range. The strategy is to detect trends, replicate them quickly and place them in an everyday and massive environment, where the low price reduces the perceived purchase risk to almost zero. The result is not only sales volume, but a cultural phenomenon: the supermarket cosmetics aisle converted into a new aspirational showcase. Trying stops being a thoughtful decision and becomes an impulsive gesture. It is on this basis – a brand already accustomed to virality, to dupe and immediate consumption—where the codes of Korean cosmetics fit with special ease. The settlement of K-Beauty Korean cosmetics, known as K-Beautyhas not prevailed only for its products, but for a combination of industry, culture and digital marketing that has been going on for more than a decade expanding outside of South Korea. In economic terms, Korea has established itself as one of the great cosmetic powers in the world. since last year compete directly with historical giants like France or the United States. The K-Beauty It has ceased to be a niche fashion and has become a structural force in the global market, with a presence in pharmacies, department stores and European supermarkets. But its success goes beyond the numbers. Korea has been able to sell a specific idea of ​​beauty: compared to the traditional Western approach, which is more corrective and focused on treating visible problems, Korean cosmetics has built his story around prevention, care of the skin barrier and consistency from an early age. It is not about covering up imperfections, but rather preventing them from appearing. Hence aspirational concepts like the glass skin: luminous, uniform and healthy skin. This approach fits especially well into the logic of the algorithm. Step-by-step routines, visual formats, assets with recognizable names and photogenic results turn the K-beauty in perfect content for TikTok and Instagram. Added to this is the cultural weight of Hallyu u “Korean wave”: music, series and aesthetics that reinforce the association between Korea and cosmetic innovation. Mercadona does not adopt this philosophy in all its complexity, but it does translate its codes to European mass consumption: sticksessences, “all-in-one” products, language of star assets and visible promises in a short time. Koreanness works here as a cultural shortcut: it evokes care, modernity and efficiency without needing to explain the entire system behind it. One of the clearest examples is the Facial Clean detox & illuminating stick facial mask, which costs 3.50 euros. As explained Trendsit is a stick mask—very common in Asian cosmetics—whose format and message of quick results explain a good part of its success. However, compared to the narrative of “it works for everyone”, the first crack appears when the dermatological criterion comes into play. “There are no miracle creams”: the warning that does not go viral The dermatologist Almudena Nuño, who we have interviewedmakes it clear from the beginning: there are no universal or miraculous products. “The same cosmetic can be wonderful for one person and disastrous for another,” he explains. The difference is not in the price or the virality, but in the type of skin, in habits and in the rest of the products that are being used. In the specific case of this type of masks with clays, Nuño emphasizes that they can work well on combination or oily skin because they help absorb sebum and mattify, but they can be irritating on sensitive skin or skin with previous pathology. “When you see completely opposite opinions – some love it and others it destroys their skin – it is not because the product is good or bad, but because it is being used without criteria.” For the dermatologist, this is one of the big problems of the skincare viral: the promise of an immediate result detached from the context of use. The stick mask is no exception. In recent months, Mercadona has launched facial essences, hydrating mists, products with hyaluronic acid microcapsules and cosmetics that are deliberately placed in concrete steps of the Korean routine —after the toner and before the serum—. They are no longer just selling a cream: they are selling a way to take care of your skin. The problem, according to Nuño, is that they try to replicate a complete ritual with one or two products. “Korean cosmetics work because they are accompanied by habits: strict sun protection, consistency from an early age, careful diet, medical treatments when necessary. Here we want the result without everything else.” However, this phenomenon cannot be understood without the economic and cultural context. Mercadona has perfected what has been called the luxury of hallway: products reminiscent in texture, packaging or effect to high-end cosmetics—Lancôme, Dior, Shiseido—eliminating the price barrier. You don’t just buy a functional product; you buy the feeling of participating in a global trend. This … Read more

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