SPOTLIGHT

• Industry

  

  Complaints grow over social media influencers’ online markets

  Consumers open their wallets despite unverified product quality, less transparent sales channel and even false advertisements

• Social affairs

  

  Jeju murder: How Koh evaded suspicion for 3 days

  Police suspect Koh Yu-jeong killed her former husband, surnamed Kang, at a pension (lodging) on Jeju Island on May 25 and discarded his body parts at around 8 p.m., three days later, as she was leaving on a ferry to a South Jeolla Province island. The victim’s family filed a missing person report on May 27 evening, and many are now wondering how the police handled the case in the intervening days.On Tuesday evening, The Korea Herald met with the chief of the investigative team at Jeju Dong

• Music

  

  Pianist Mikhail Pletnev to perform in Seoul

  Pianist Mikhail Pletnev is to hold a recital in Seoul next week.For the June 27 recital at the Seoul Arts Center, the Russian pianist will perform Beethoven’s Rondo in C Major, Piano Sonata No. 23 “Appassionata” and a series of compositions written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt.  Pletnev, 62, is a multi-faceted musician, who is a pianist, conductor, composer and also a cultural figure.The winner of the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, Pletnev atte

• Music

  

  Mamamoo to hold fan event next month

  Girl group Mamamoo will hold a fan appreciation event next month, agency RBW said Wednesday. The event will be held at Korea University at 5 p.m. on July 13, and will be the band’s first fan event since October 2017.Following the Seoul event, the group will play July 27-28 at the Daegu Exhibition & Convention Center. The concert title is “4season F/W.”  Tickets for the fan event will be available at 8 p.m. on Friday, but members of Mamamoo’s official fan club wil

LATEST NEWS

• National

  Saudi Arabia's crown price to visit S. Korea next week

  Crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud will visit Seoul next week for a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.It will be the first South Korean visit by a Saudi Arabian crown prince since 1998, when then-crown prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud made a visit.  During the two-day visit, Moon and Prince Mohammad, who also serves as deputy prime minister and minister of defense, will hold a meetin

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  Social affairs

  Star YouTubers in hot water over controversial live remarks

  Star YouTubers, including popular soccer commentator Gamst, sparked public outrage over sexual remarks during a livestream. Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday that three star YouTubers with more than 1 million subscribers found themselves in hot water after sharing sexual comments regarding female YouTubers during a live show they streamed online earlier the same day. The comments, deemed to sexually objectify and harass the female YouTubers, became an instant sensation and the three YouTuber

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  Social affairs

  4 teenagers charged in murder of roommate

  The case of four teenagers beating a classmate to death has been transferred to prosecutors, police said Wednesday. Gwangju Bukbu Police Station said the four men in their late teens were sent to the prosecution this morning with charges of murder regarding the death of their 18-year-old roommate. On June 9, the four teenagers took turns in hitting and kicking the victim for about two hours. They conducted CPR when he stopped breathing. The suspects then fled the scene, before turning them thems

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  Foreign Policy

  Seoul offers Tokyo a deal: Create joint fund to compensate victims of wartime forced labor

  South Korea has approached Japan with a proposal to support the Korean victims of wartime forced labor by encouraging companies in both countries to take part in joint fundraising efforts, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.“This idea has been raised that it is desirable to enable reconciliation between the concerned parties by offering compensation to the victims whose lawsuits have concluded, by creating funds voluntarily offered by companies from both countries, including the

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  Automode

  Hamburg on mission to digitalize urban mobility

  From roads to harbor, Germany’s 2nd-largest city tests future mobility, faces challenge for quality of life

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  Technology

  SKT launches app for parking lots using Tmap

  　South Korea’s biggest mobile carrier SK Telecom launched Wednesday a smartphone application aimed at helping address the chronic problem of parking space shortage.　The company said it has released the Tmap Parking app to help users locate parking lots. Based on its navigation app Tmap, the service notifies drivers about available parking spaces nationwide in real time.  　Users can also purchase parking tickets via SKT’s parking app before parking at designated spaces. The servi

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  Arts&Design

  Daegu show sheds light on painter who influenced ’80s Minjung art

  A relatively unknown painter, Park Saeng-kwang, is being highlighted at a Daegu museum in an attempt to reassess the artist. Although the artist’s name is not familiar to most of us, he is considered to have influenced many artists who came after him. Though he did not have any direct ties to Minjung art -- a sociopolitical art movement that emerged in South Korea in the 1980s – he greatly influenced the movement, said the Daegu Art Museum’s chief curator, Lee Jin-myung. Born i

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  Technology

  South Korean government, telecom firms unveil 7-year 5G growth plans

  Korea aims to secure 20 percent 5G network equipment market by 2026

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  Culture

  CCF 2019 to focus on content creator culture

  An upcoming global forum in Seoul from June 30 to July 2 will delve into the internet content market. Culture Communication Forum 2019, an annual event organized by the Corea Image Communication Institute, invites figures from around the world to experience Korean culture and promote their own culture. Twelve “content creator” delegates have been invited this year. They are bestselling author Ito Ogawa from Japan; US pop columnist Jeff Benjamin; film director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy

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  Columnists

  Nation at a crossroads

  As we approach the midpoint in the Moon Jae-in presidency, let us make a brief rundown of the leftist administration’s major policies. First is the denuclearization of North Korea. Moon has chosen a basically reconciliatory stance toward Pyongyang, favoring a step-by-step approach to peace that involves bartering with the North. This approach accepts the phased elimination of the North’s nuclear and rocket programs, rather than President Trump’s instant disarmament deal.Second

GRAPHIC NEWS

OPINION

• Columnists

  

  Nation at a crossroads

  As we approach the midpoint in the Moon Jae-in presidency, let us make a brief rundown of the leftist administration’s major policies. First is the denuclearization of North Korea. Moon has chosen a basically reconciliatory stance toward Pyongyang, favoring a step-by-step approach to peace that involves bartering with the North. This approach accepts the phased elimination of the North’s nuclear and rocket programs, rather than President Trump’s instant disarmament deal.Second

• Columnists

  

  Campaign help from Russia?

   What do Queen Elizabeth II and Vladimir Putin have in common?Well, according to President Donald Trump, there is no difference between having a chat with Britain’s queen and accepting dirt about a political opponent from the Kremlin.When asked, in an astonishing interview with ABC News, whether he would welcome campaign help from an adversary like Russia or China, Trump said, “I’d take it.” He denied this amounted to election interference.More to the dangerous point

THE INVESTOR

• Retail & Consumer

  

  Investors face setback of W200b on YG scandal

  Investors in YG Entertainment including the National Pension Service have suffered losses of around 200 billion won ($169.2 million) over the past six months, according to Korea Exchange data. Broken down, the NPS lost around 20 billion won, while some 20,000 minority shareholders lost about 182 billion wonOn June 18, the scandal-ridden entertainment agency’s share price closed at a low of 28,300 won. Since peaking at 48,950 won on Dec. 26 last year, prices have been plunging, wiping out 6

• Startups & Investors

  

  Bithumb, Yeogi Eottae, HanaTour indicted for data leak

  Seoul Dongbu District Public Prosecutors’ Office said on June 19 that it has indicted three companies and their respective officials on charges of failure to prevent hacking attacks and leakage of private data.Two of three companies are startups, according to the prosecution.Facing court rulings are South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb operator BTC Korea, accommodation app Yeogi Eottae operator With Innovation and travel agency HanaTour. The companies’ respective high-

• Samsung

  

  Samsung Galaxy Fold is now ready for launch: Samsung Display exec

  Samsung Electronics’ first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, will launch soon, as “most” issues linked to the screen have been solved, a Samsung Display executive has revealed. “Most of the display problems have been ironed out, and the Galaxy Fold is ready to hit the market,” said Samsung Display Vice President Kim Seong-cheol in his speech at a conference held by industry organization The Korean Information Display Society on June 18 in Seoul.Samsung Display,

• Finance

  

  KTB Securities Thailand seeks listing on solid profits

  BANGKOK -- After a six-year slump, KTB Securities Thailand jumped back into the black in 2016. And now, as the only South Korean financial subsidiary in Thailand, the brokerage is eyeing a listing in the Southeast Asian nation. The secret behind the recent turnaround is localization efforts carried out by the parent group, South Korea’s KTB Investment & Securities. “In the past, (KTBST) filled the top management with Koreans,” KTBST CEO Win Udomrachtavanich said in a r

K-POP HERALD

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  Holland’s summer/Pride playlist: 8 songs to check out

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  LGBT support growing in K-pop

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  Super Junior’s Kyuhyun would choose Changmin as travel buddy

HERALD INTERVIEW

• Technology

  

  S. Korea's top IP official vows to create user-friendly patent system

• Music

  

  Young composer-conductor excited about Seoul-Paris premiere

• Finance

  

  KIS Vietnam to become first foreign brokerage to launch covered warrants in Vietnam

• North Korea

  

  US-China trade war limits Seoul's ability to advance nuke talks

PHOTO NEWS

• Politics

  

  Cry for democracy still rings out in torture rooms

  Right next to the railroad of Namyeong Station in Seoul stands a tall, dark gray building with peculiar-looking windows -- so narrow only a single beam of light passes through. While one would never know from its exterior view, it carries a portion of the turbulent history of South Korea’s democracy that was earned through sacrifice. Constructed in 1976, the seven-story building was the office for the anti-communism investigation division under the National Police Agency, disguised as

VIDEO

• Social affairs

  

  Partisanship pauses for Lee Hee-ho’s funeral

• Industry

  

  Big buyer NHIS signals real estate market trend shift

• Fashion

  

  At 77, silver model dreams of big show

• Food

  

  Trip back to ’90s: visiting ‘seagull meat alley’ in central Seoul

FEATURES

• Politics

  

  Financial regulator still not in list for Sejong relocation

  SEJONG -- It has been more than six years since the Ministry of Economy and Finance moved from Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, to Sejong Self-Governing City. 　Nonetheless, some former functions of the ministry remained in Seoul after it handed over its financial industry policy authority to the Financial Services Commission in 2008, when the former Lee Myung-bak government took office. Since then, the FSC has been in charge of both supervisory policy and financial industry policy. The commissi

• National

  

  Chinese raids hit North Korean defectors’ ‘Underground Railroad’

  A decade after leaving her family behind to flee North Korea, the defector was overwhelmed with excitement when she spoke to her 22-year-old son on the phone for the first time in May after he too escaped into China.While speaking to him again on the phone days later, however, she listened in horror as the safe house where her son and four other North Korean escapees were hiding was raided by Chinese authorities.“I heard voices, someone saying ‘shut up’ in Chinese,” said

• Foreign Policy

  

  Experts call for cautious approach to Huawei row

  Seoul finds itself pressured by both US and China on Chinese 5G equipment

• Economy

  

  Korea’s household debt-to-income to top 200%

  SEJONG -- The record household debt in South Korea is an Achilles’ heel when it comes to economic growth, as the financial liability of citizens is putting a damper on private consumption.Some market analysts say that Korea’s collective household debt is estimated to have topped 2,000 trillion won ($1.68 trillion). They claim the latest figure of about 1,500 trillion won, released by the Bank of Korea, does not include loans extended to the self-employed.In any case, the outstanding