WEEKLY NEWS HIGHLIGHTS (2023.10.14)

Welcome to Weekly News Highlights where we wrap up your week with a glimpse back into what went on over the past week. I'm Kim Dami in Seoul. We're a week into the armed conflict between the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinian militant group Hamas. The U.S. continues to seek approval for additional funding and aid to Israel. The International Monetary Fund believes the world economy is still limping not sprinting. The financial agency slashed its outlook to 2.9% and also lowered South Korea's forecast. Robot vacuums, robot lawnmowers, and robot servers living with robots is nothing new. Robot World 2023 took place this week, introducing more futuristic robots. It's been a week since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. The United States is actively stepping up to back Israel through all means and sources. In fact, the U.S. and Qatar decided not to release the six billion dollars of Iranian funds as part of a U.S. prisoner swap amid speculation over Iran's role in backing Hamas. Our Moon Hye-ryeon tells us more. Things appear to be nowhere near being settled in the Middle East. One area hit by Hamas' surprise attack was a music festival in southern Israel which suffered hundreds of civilian casualties and kidnappings. Our Choi Soo-hyung spoke to one of the survivors of the horrific incident. The United States has decided to allow exports of its chip manufacturing equipment to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix factories in China without a separate approval process. And South Korea's top office sees this as an extension of a solid Seoul-Washington alliance. Our correspondent Oh Soo-young has the details. The IMF outlook for next year has worsened for the 'limping' world economy. It warns the world economy has lost momentum due to the impact of higher interest rates, the Ukraine crisis, and widening geopolitical rifts. Moon Hye-ryeon tells us more. Samsung Electronics is projecting an improvement in its performance for the third quarter of this year. Analysts expect that a loss by its semiconductor unit was offset by a strong performance from its mobile and display divisions thanks to its Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5 smartphone models. The South Korean tech giant on Wednesday reported estimated operating profits of 2-point-4 trillion Korean won or around 1-point-8 billion U.S. dollars. That's down almost 78 percent from a year earlier. But it’s a distinct improvement from the previous quarters of this year with its operating profits skyrocketing nearly threefold compared to the second quarter. Estimated sales for the third quarter plunged by more than 12 percent on-year, but they rose by over 11 percent from the previous quarter to around 50 billion dollars. South Korea's LG Electronics posted its second-highest operating profit ever for the third quarter this year, despite the sluggish economy and weak consumer demand. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, LG Electronics said that its operating profit surged more than 33 percent from the previous year to 9-hundred-67-point-7 trillion won or around 7-hundred-40 million U.S. dollars during the July to September period. Although sales fell slightly more than 2 percent compared to a year earlier to around 15-point-3 billion dollars, it was still the second-highest sales figure recorded for the third quarter with the highest being from the previous year. This was largely owed to the company expanding its B2B operations in its auto parts and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning businesses as well as the strong performance from its home appliance sector. LEGO plastic bricks could be small but they often spark big and imaginative creations for children and adults alike. And here's an artist who's using them to reinterpret traditional Korean culture. Song Yoo-jin has this story. Robot vacuums keeping the house nice and clean are nothing new. But how about a cleaning robot that responds to human gestures? Our Moon Hye-ryeon has more from Robot World 2023. The twin baby pandas that were born this July in South Korea, finally got their names on Thursday after a public contest. Our Lee Eun-hee introduces Rui Bao and Hui Bao. We thank you for watching Weekly News Highlight. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. #Israel #Hamas #Gaza_Strip #War #LEGO #Block #Exhibition #Korean_cultural_heritage #Weekly_News #Highlight #Arirang_News 📣 Facebook :   / arirangtvnews   📣 Twitter :   / arirangtvnews   📣 Homepage : https://v2.arirang.com/ 2023-10-14, 12:00 (KST)