SPOTLIGHT

• Music

  

  Why K-pop girl groups can’t stand the test of time

  Earlier this month, Sojin of the K-pop girl group Girl’s Day decided she is leaving the Dream T Entertainment label when her contract expires in February. The announcement left fans in shock, with many questioning whether this was a prelude to the disbandment of the 9-year-old four-piece act. Though the agency denied it, other members Yura, Minah and Hyeri are reportedly in contact with other agencies about pursuing individual activities as their contracts are set to expire later this year. But

• Film

  

  ‘Burning’ fails to make Oscar final nominee list

  Korean film “Burning” has failed to make the final list of nominees for the Oscars.The final nominees for the 91st Academy Awards were revealed Tuesday. In December, “Burning” had been shortlisted in the Foreign Language Film category, becoming the first Korean movie to be included. The film was selected by the Korean Film Council to represent Korea at the film event. Last year, “Okja” by Korean director Bong Joon-ho was shortlisted in the Visual Effects category, but it was a Netflix original f

• Social affairs

  

  Seoulites help crack down on over 45,000 illegal prostitution ads

  A Seoul citizen watchdog organization reported over 50,000 illegal online prostitution advertisements in 2018, helping police crack down on illegal establishments and adult entertainment establishments. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Wednesday, the watchdog organization reported 52,677 sex trafficking advertisements online and smartphone applications. Advertisements for dating for pay and on-site massages, widely perceived as a means of prostitution, made up the majority 82.7

• Politics

  

  Moon Jae-in makes Foreign Policy’s list of 100 global thinkers for two consecutive years

  President Moon Jae-in has been named in Foreign Policy’s list of Top 100 Global Thinkers for the second year running. The 100 nominees were split into 10 groups, with Moon grouped under readers’ choice – a category chosen through online readers’ poll. (Foreign Policy)The magazine’s blurb on Moon said “despite repeated setbacks and deadlock,” the South Korean president “relentlessly pushed negotiations forward,” “forg(ing) an opening between the West and North Korea was one of the world’s definin

LATEST NEWS

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  Industry

  New public-private alliance formed for ASEAN market

  Leaders from Korea’s major business associations and the Presidential Committee on New Southern Policy gathered Thursday to form an alliance to help Korean entrepreneurs seek better opportunities in the emerging ASEAN market. The business alliance for ASEAN comprises 21 key business associations, including the Korea International Trade Association, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, the Korea Federation of Banks and the International Contract

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  Social affairs

  Crew of Korean icebreaker help isolated Chinese researchers

  The Araon, South Korea's only icebreaking vessel, has helped evacuate 24 isolated Chinese researchers in the Antarctic region, the country's ocean ministry said Thursday.The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said the icebreaker gave assistance to researchers on Inexpressible Island near South Korea's Jang Bogo Antarctic Research Station in the southernmost continent a day earlier.(Yonhap)While the team originally planned to leave the island on board the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, the vessel hit

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  Finance

  BOK freezes key rate at 1.75% for Jan.

  The South Korean central bank on Thursday held its policy rate steady for January amid rising uncertainties at home and abroad.In the first monetary policy board meeting of the year, the Bank of Korea voted to freeze the base rate at 1.75 percent, following a quarter percentage point hike made in November. (Yonhap)The BOK decided to take a wait-and-see stance from the beginning of the year as a slowdown in the world economy and the on-going US-China trade dispute weighed heavily on Asia's fourth

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  Economy

  Land prices gain 4.6% in 2018

  Land prices in South Korea rose nearly 4.6 percent in 2018 from a year earlier, the fastest clip in 12 years, government data showed Thursday.The country's land prices increased 4.58 percent on-year last year, compared with a 3.88 percent gain in 2017, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.(Yonhap)The figure represents the largest on-year increase since the 5.61 percent expansion recorded in 2006.Land prices in Seoul and the adjacent Gyeonggi Province expanded 5.14 perc

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  Technology

  Korea hosts Drone Show Korea 2019

  The South Korean government on Thursday kicked off Drone Show Korea 2019 in the southern port city of Busan, with some 100 firms showcasing their latest drones and related technologies.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the annual event, which marks the fourth of its kind, is the largest drone-related convention in Asia. It will run for three days through Saturday. (Yonhap)South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. took part in the event, unveiling a new communication service t

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  Industry

  SK hynix Q4 net up 6% in Q4, posts record profit in 2018

  SK hynix Inc. said Thursday its fourth-quarter net rose 6 percent from a year earlier, which fell below the market expectation in the wake of slowing demand for memory chips and falling global sales prices. The net profit for the world's No. 2 memory chip producer came to 3.4 trillion won ($3 billion) in the October-December period, compared with 3.2 trillion won posted a year, the company said in a regulatory filing. (SK hynix)Its sales gained 10 percent on-year to 9.9 trillion won, while opera

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  Industry

  LG Uplus sole winner in number portability this year

  LG Uplus Corp., the smallest of South Korea's three mobile carriers, has emerged as the sole winner in number portability this year on aggressive marketing, industry data showed Thursday.LG Uplus posted a net increase of more than 3,600 new subscribers, who transferred from other carriers, during the first 18 business days of the year, according to the data by the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association. (Yonhap)In contrast, industry leader SK Telecom Co. recorded a net decline of nearly

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  Foreign Policy

  Korea, Britain discuss Brexit emergency measures

  South Korea's industry ministry said Thursday it has reached a consensus with Britain to promptly prepare follow-up measures as London moves to leave the European Union.The Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Energy said Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong met his counterpart Liam Fox, sharing opinions on their post-Brexit relationship, including possibly clinching a separate free trade agreement with London when the departure happens. Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Energy Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong

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  North Korea

  S. Korea's chief nuclear envoy sees 'rapid progress' for future

  South Korea's top nuclear envoy who recently attended working-level consultations between North Korea and the United States in Sweden said Wednesday that there will be "rapid progress" in efforts to stage more talks between Pyongyang and Washington.Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was at a meeting in a suburb of Stockholm where North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and U.S. State Department Special R

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  Social affairs

  Adoptee deported by US sues S. Korea, agency

  Adam Crapser lives in limbo, a stranger in South Korea, the country of his birth. Forcibly separated from his wife, children and friends in America, he is isolated by language and culture, left alone to navigate this sprawling city he's been expelled to four decades after being sent to adoptive parents in Michigan at age 3. Crapser was abused and abandoned by two different sets of adoptive parents in the United States then deported after run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed c

GRAPHIC NEWS

OPINION

• Columnists

  

  Society that invites a Mona Lisa smile

  Leonardo Da Vinci’s monumental painting “Mona Lisa” is one of the most widely discussed paintings of all time because of its subject’s ambiguous smile. People have argued that depending on the viewer’s distance and angle, her smile looks different. Sometimes it looks happy, other times sad. Some people find the smile to be deriding and sarcastic, while others perceive it as a smile of condescension, like someone who knows everything. That is why Mona Lisa’s smile always refers to an enigmatic sm

• Columnists

  

  Tesla doesn’t need to sell cars in China to succeed there

  When Elon Musk broke ground on Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai earlier this month, he wasn’t just thinking about how many Teslas he’ll sell in China. He was thinking about how many he might be able to share.　Musk isn’t alone. Global automobile manufacturers are scrambling to develop services that will allow Chinese car owners to rent out their vehicles when they’re not driving them. According to one recent analysis, such services could hire out as many as 2 million cars in 2020, up from roughly

THE INVESTOR

• Deals

  

  Woori Financial’s asset management arm to buy Smart Savings Bank

  Woori Financial Group’s asset management subsidiary is set to buy Smart Savings Bank, a Korean non-banking lender, which is likely to become the first acquisition after it was recently restructured to a holding company structure, according to industry sources on Jan. 23.“(Woori Private Equity Asset Management) will submit documents for the Financial Supervisory Service approval at the latest by early next week,” the source told The Investor. Woori Bank headquarters in Seoul, Korea

• Blockchain

  

  Korea still has potential to lead blockchain: experts

  Despite the nose-diving value of digital currencies in the past several months, crypto and blockchain industries still have growth potential and are worth paying attention to, according to experts at Chain Plus, a two-day conference being held in Seoul. “The blockchain and crypto industries have faced challenges due to strict regulations, but there is still some room for growth,” said Charles Pyo, member of the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, at a panel

• Bio & Medicine

  

  Yozma, Bio Leaders to set up JV in Israel

  Korean firm Bio Leaders announced on Jan. 23 that it will set up a biotech incubating entity in Israel with venture capital firm Yozma Group.“The official contract to establish the joint venture will be signed in March. We have been negotiating with Yozma since October,” a Bio Leaders official said in a statement.The new JV seeks to develop new drug therapies for cancer based on the know-how of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. The Korean company also plans to use its own pi

• Mobile & Internet

  

  Tinder, not just a dating app in Korea

  Tinder wants to be more than an app for hooking up in Korea. Instead, it is hoping to build a community, according to its chief executive on Jan. 22. “There isn’t just one culture for Tinder,” said CEO Elie Seidman during his first press conference in Korea. “What we see around the world is that the main thing you get is a reflection of the local culture.”  Tinder CEO Elie SeidmanTinderIn Korea, the culture Tinder wants to help mold is based on open communication made possible by

K-POP HERALD

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  Suga’s duet partner Lee So-ra explained

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  Hyun Bin, Son Ye-Jin deny dating rumors

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  Heechul raids office of show producers

HERALD INTERVIEW

• Diplomatic Circuit

  

  Gamelan music, an elixir for monotonous modern life

• Music

  

  A rare glimpse of the ‘factorylike’ K-pop idol training system

• Film

  

  Hip-hop film seeks to show realities of life in the Philippines

• People

  

  Englishmen in Seoul, London and all over YouTube

PHOTO NEWS

• Industry

  

  An afternoon in a hanok

  North European and classic American styles have prevailed among interior design fanatics in South Korea in recent years.But before the invasion of Western culture, it was mostly wooden furniture -- made from either maple or paulownia -- that was favored by aristocrats in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Korea Furniture Museum in Seongbuk-dong, northern Seoul, invites visitors to take a break -- and perhaps, travel back in time -- inside hanok, or traditional Korean houses, where more than 2,500

VIDEO

• Food

  

  Seoul’s sweet rendezvous with chocolate, ‘Salon du Chocolat’

• Music

  

  WJSN sings about complications of love in ‘La La Love’

• Television

  

  GOT7’s ‘Real Thai’ offers adventure, authentic side of Thailand

• Industry

  

  How Imvely became South Korean women’s fashion and beauty icon

FEATURES

• Industry

  

  NPS braces for first test of stewardship code

  The National Pension Service is increasingly under pressure to apply stricter yardsticks on their investments and management at invested firms, with growing risks from owners resulting in revenue and stock price drops. Political debates are also coincidentally brewing over whether the emphasized exercise of voting rights on governance issues would lead to more responsible investment of the state pension operator or to excessive state or social influence in the business realm. In July last year,

• Social affairs

  

  Waste bin-free public restrooms get mixed response

  Japanese exchange student Aoi still remembers the “shocking moment” when she saw a trash bin in a Korean restroom stall for the first time.“As there are no such trash bins in toilets in Japan, I was shocked when I saw the bin overflowing with used toilet paper,” Aoi said.“The stink from the bin and the dirty toilet paper scattered on the ground caused panic immediately. I still have a fear of opening a restroom door, guessing whether it would be clean or not.”Aoi is one of many people who been d

• Automode

  

  Tale of two sports cars in wintery Korea

  GM’s new Camaro SS is a rough diamond to Mercedes-Benz’s refined CLS 400 d 4Matic

• Industry

  

  China, ASEAN countries emerge as biggest consumers of Korean agro-fishery products

  SEJONG -- South Korea’s agro-fishery products are gaining popularity in China and Southeast Asia on the back of their reputation for quality, freshness and safety.According to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, exports of fishery products hit an all-time high of $2.386 billion in 2018, surpassing the former record of $2.383 billion set in 2012.While the largest and second-largest export destinations for marine products were Japan with $760 million and China with $390 million, exports to Japan