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Busan’s 16 local governments operate under the same fiscal system, but they are paying for very different cities. Fiscal records and service data show how population decline, rapid growth, inherited infrastructure and earlier commitments narrow the choices left in the next budget.
Busan’s factories, exporters and consumers are showing signs of recovery. Beneath those gains, fewer new businesses are entering the market, more established operators are leaving, and a shrinking, aging city is changing the commercial conditions confronting those that remain.
South Korea’s large-format restaurants are scaling into a difficult market, revealing how franchising can accelerate expansion while placing the physical investment behind each new dining room on very different balance sheets.
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What began as a joint U.S.-Israeli strike campaign against Iran has widened into a conflict over missile power, Gulf energy infrastructure, maritime chokepoints and the political limits of U.S. war control.
Open dossier file
Reporting and analysis from the Busan news desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
Reporting and analysis from the National News desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
South Korea treated more than 173,000 American patients in 2025. Their numbers are rising faster than the data can explain, as private facilitators sell cash-pay screenings outside U.S. insurance networks and Seoul consolidates its lead over cities such as Busan.
Reporting and analysis from the Opinion desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
South Korea has spent more than two decades building smart cities around digital infrastructure, public transport, environmental systems and urban data. As the country enters the K-AI City era, Songdo, Sejong and western Busan show why the hardest urban problems begin where project boundaries end.
Reporting and analysis from the Politics desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
The June 3 local elections show a conservative party burdened by martial law and past presidents, a Democratic Party expanding into the center, and a political system that still gives voters too few exits from hostile camps.
Reporting and analysis from the Economy desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
Only about 7 per cent of Seoul homes were within reach of a median-income family in 2025. The tax plan may change which owners sell and how much they pay, while access to the capital continues to depend heavily on wealth accumulated before the purchase.
Mortgage restrictions can reduce bank lending without removing the money supporting expensive homes. Property gains, jeonse deposits, family capital, public guarantees and private credit increasingly determine who can still buy—and where the risk ultimately resides.
Reporting and analysis from the Business desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
Busan proved that people would travel for a new kind of cafe. As the market contracts and sales concentrate among fewer operators, the harder test is whether destination cafes can survive after the view, the building and the bakery are no longer new.
Reporting and analysis from the Sustainability desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
Reporting and analysis from the Technology desk in the Breeze in Busan file.
Nvidia needs more than chips and data centres to make physical AI work. Korea’s factories offer the industrial data, machinery and engineering needed to close the gap between simulation and reality—but the long-term value will depend on who controls the models and software built there.
Reading and writing were cultural technologies long before they became school skills. Print multiplied external memory, smartphones made it constantly reachable, and AI is now moving into the middle of thought itself.
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