SPOTLIGHT

• Culture

  

  Korean guy studying alone creates a huge following on YouTube

  A handsome Korean man is livestreaming what he does all day: study alone. Nothing special, except for the incredible reaction his videos generate among Korean audiences.YouTube creator "Bot-No-Jam" (YouTube)The mysterious YouTube creator, who is said to prepare for a state exam to become a police officer, has been regularly livestreaming footage of him studying since April this year. Sitting on a chair and reading a book, he rarely moves, speaks, or expresses any emotion during the 6-hour live t

• Arts&Design

  

  Amorepacific’s new headquarters building aims to become gateway to central Seoul

  Amorepacific’s newly built headquarters will play a key role in the redevelopment of Yongsan, central Seoul.Yongsan has been undergoing significant changes in the past few years, particularly after the announcement that the US military will be relocating out of Yongsan Garrison, which is to be transformed into a park in the future. Since then, the area has been seeing its old low-rise buildings being replaced by high-rise buildings. Amorepacific‘s new headquarters is located in Yongsan, Seoul ne

• Music

  

  Minseo to return with charismatic ‘Is Who’ Wednesday

  A music video teaser image for Minseo’s upcoming single “Is Who” (Mystic Entertainment)　Minseo, a female vocalist from Mnet’s audition program “Super Star K,” will release the third track of her debut album on Wednesday.According to her agency Mystic Entertainment, the artist’s upcoming song titled “Is Who” will feature a dramatic transformation of the 21-year-old singer. While her previous music has been centered on folk songs and ballads, the charismatic “Is Who” will offer a jazzy gypsy-sound

• Social affairs

  

  Kendo instructor fined for use of corporal punishment on kid

  Jeonju District Court said Sunday that it has fined a 41-year-old kendo instructor 5 million won ($4,500) for allegedly infringing on the Child Welfare Act.The instructor was indicted for hitting an eight-year-old’s forehead and thrusting a bamboo sword to his stomach inside an academy shuttle around 5:30 p.m. on July 5, 2017. (Yonhap)He reportedly even scared the student by saying that he will get one more blow for each question he does not answer.The instructor used violence on the child becau

LATEST NEWS

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  Soccer

  Sweden well prepared for S. Korea‘s various game plans: coach

  Swedish football coach Janne Andersson said Sunday his side is well prepared for the various tactics South Korea have planned for their upcoming match at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.　South Korea and Sweden will open their 2018 World Cup Group F campaign at Nizhny Novgorod Stadium in Nizhny Novgorod, some 425 kilometers east of Moscow, on Monday. Andersson said his team is all set to start the tournament.Sweden national football team head coach Janne Andersson speaks at a press conference at Nizhny N

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  North Korea

  Is Trump going to call Kim Jong-un?

  Trump gave his number to Kim, but two sides don't have official hotline

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  Economy

  Job cuts most serious for 30s and 40s: data

  While South Korea’s employment indexes continued to struggle amid controversies on increased minimum wage, the job decreasing rate turned out to be the most drastic for the primary labor force age clusters in their 30s and 40s, data showed Sunday. The number of newly employed people in their 40s stood at 669.7 million in May, down 88,000 from the same period last year and marking a decline for 31 consecutive months, according to data released by Statistics Korea.This was the longest period of no

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  North Korea

  Invest in North Korea: money pit or golden opportunity?

  PYONGYANG (AFP) - Donald Trump dangled the carrot of foreign investment in front of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their nuclear summit, but analysts say few will want to put money into one of the highest-risk business environments in the world.　The US president showed Kim a movie of bright lights, high-speed trains and soaring tower blocks -- pitching a future that could be possible if Pyongyang gives up its weapons.　Optimists say that with mineral wealth, cheap labour, and a helpful geogra

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  North Korea

  Inter-Korean sports exchanges expected to boost ties

  With the two Koreas set to hold talks on sports Monday, expectations are growing that cross-border sports exchanges would lead to improved inter-Korean ties. Plans surrounding the joint entrance and teams for the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in August are expected to be discussed, as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to jointly participate in the games during the inter-Korean summit on April 27. (Yonhap)“Sports diplomacy” has often been successfu

• 

  Soccer

  South Korea is ranked 57 in FIFA World Cup rankings

  　As the FIFA World Cup started in Russia last week, here is how Asia- Pacific countries are ranked by the global football body.　On the global ranking, Australia is the only country from the Asia-Pacific that ranks in the top 50.　South Korea is ranked 57 and is the only Asian country that has qualified nine times for the world cup. It is also the only Asian country to win the most entertaining team award at 2002 FIFA world Cup. Two players from the team were also voted members of the MasterCard A

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  Social affairs

  Gwangju police to conduct sobriety tests during morning and lunch

  The Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency said Sunday it would start performing random roadside sobriety tests during the morning rush hour, as part of efforts to curb impaired driving in the morning after a night of binge drinking. The agency also plans to set up sobriety checkpoints with the help of local traffic cops and regular officers.  (Yonhap)In addition, police officers will be checking for any suspected impaired driving right after corporate lunch hours in order to prevent workers from dr

• Columnists

  Korean schools need proper writing courses

  Korean students memorize everything to study for exams. Almost no teachers in school teach students how to write creative answers on exam papers. Thus, students feel lost when they are asked to submit papers in university. Nonetheless, university students are expected to write essays and papers in the majority of the classes, with a huge gap of students’ abilities in writing. However, there are not many professors in universities who teach the students how to think critically and write down thei

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  Columnists

  Verdict on Singapore? Better real estate deals than bombing runs

  For a president who normally adheres to his own doctrine of infallibility, Donald Trump displayed a few flickering moments of uncertainty in the aftermath of the Singapore summit.　Asked by George Stephanopoulos in an ABC interview whether he trusts Kim Jong-un to dismantle his nuclear program, Trump replied, “I do trust him, yeah. Now, will I come back to you in a year and you’ll be interviewing and I’ll say, ‘Gee, I made mistake?’ That’s always possible.”　In response to a similar question at hi

• Columnists

  China’s master plan: exporting an ideology

  The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017 is sure to loom large in future accounts of China’s relations with the world. It was then that the party cleared the way for Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely, and when Xi himself advertised China’s global ambitions by declaring that Beijing would now “take center stage” in world affairs. It was also when Xi threw down the gauntlet in an equally consequential way. 　In his three-hour speech to the assembled delegates, Xi extolled the

GRAPHIC NEWS

OPINION

• Columnists

  

  Verdict on Singapore? Better real estate deals than bombing runs

  For a president who normally adheres to his own doctrine of infallibility, Donald Trump displayed a few flickering moments of uncertainty in the aftermath of the Singapore summit.　Asked by George Stephanopoulos in an ABC interview whether he trusts Kim Jong-un to dismantle his nuclear program, Trump replied, “I do trust him, yeah. Now, will I come back to you in a year and you’ll be interviewing and I’ll say, ‘Gee, I made mistake?’ That’s always possible.”　In response to a similar question at hi

• Columnists

  

  Give peace a chance

  The long-ago summer of 1950 was different from previous ones for this elementary school boy. Yes, I played stickball in the sidelot and began learning the artifices of adult card games. But something quite extraordinary captured my imagination and attention: the outbreak of the Korean War, on June 25, 1950.　For this boy, war was something he had read about in the Police Gazette, a barber shop staple in those times. Now, curiously, it became real. I was thoroughly absorbed all summer following th

THE INVESTOR

• Samsung

  

  Samsung’s negative smartphone sales outlook drags down shares

  Samsung Electronics’ shares have been on the downward path in recent days as its earnings in the second quarter are forecast to be lower than expected due to disappointing smartphone sales.After reaching a high of 53,000 won (US$48.47) on May 28, the stock slid to a low of 47,650 won on June 15. It closed down by 1.14 percent at 47,650 won.Koh Dong-jin, the CEO of Samsung Electronics' mobile divisionMarket analysts said the outlook for the firm to record a negative growth during t

• Markets

  

  Prosecution indicts 38 bank officials for hiring misconduct

  The prosecution has indicted 38 officials from Korean commercial and provincial banks, including former and incumbent chiefs, on charges of exerting inappropriate influence on entry-level employment, in the latest development in the local financial sector’s hiring scandal.The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Sunday announced it had sent the officials, including KEB Hana Bank Chief Executive Ham Young-joo and ex-CEO of Woori Bank Lee Kwang-goo, to trial. While Ham and Lee were booked

• Industrials

  

  POSCO’s CEO search narrows to 6 candidates

  The number of candidates vying to be the next chief of Korean steel giant POSCO has narrowed down to six candidates, the firm said on June 15, amid ongoing criticism on the selection process. The firm’s CEO-search council -- consisting of five outside board members -- picked six candidates from 11 in its seventh round of meeting held on June 14. The steelmaker declined to disclose the list, saying it is to enhance fairness and block unnecessary external influences and conflicts wi

• Samsung

  

  Samsung ordered to pay US$400m to KAIST over semiconductor tech patent infringement

  Samsung Electronics has reportedly been ordered to pay US$400 million to the licensing arm of Korea’s top science and research university KAIST over infringing a patent related to key semiconductor technology.　A US federal jury in Texas ruled that the Korean tech giant infringed KAIST’s patent related to FinFet -- a key transistor technology used to produce processors for mobile phones -- and should pay a fine, according to a Bloomberg report on June 16Chipmakers Qualcomm and Glob

K-POP HERALD

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  Cube artists join voices in family concert

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  Key says he fought a lot with Minho

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  Yoon Shi-yoon’s white summer

HERALD INTERVIEW

• Entertainment

  

  KHAN’s silver lining

• Technology

  

  Redefining manufacturing with machine intelligence

• Diplomatic Circuit

  

  International Red Cross ready to aid inter-Korean humanitarian projects

• Music

  

  Ice Cube talks about long-awaited ‘Everythang’s Corrupt’

PHOTO NEWS

• Fashion

  

  Models strut down central Seoul to mark ‘carless street day’

  Models took to the streets of Sejong-daero in Gwanghwamun to celebrate Seoul’s “carless street day” on Sunday. The main avenue of Sejong-no in central Seoul became the runway for models to showcase two separate fashion shows -- one at 2:30 p.m. and another at 4 p.m. -- under the theme of “Fantasy Seoul.”According to a fashion show official, the theme seeks to highlight the beauty of Korean fashion and its rising prominence in the global fashion industry. Photos by Yonhap Written by Catherine Chu

VIDEO

• Soccer

  

  South Korean team trains for World Cup in Russia

• Food

  

  Satisfying sweet tooth with red beans, patbingsu

• Culture

  

  Small bookstores draw book lovers with specialty-driven curation

• Food

  

  Five iced drinks to quench summer thirst

FEATURES

• Industry

  

  'Rise of e-sports, YouTube calls for new approach to copyright'

  The Korea Herald is publishing a series of interviews with experts in the intellectual property sector. This is the 17th installment. -- Ed. In an age of technology convergence and interactive communication, it is inevitable that major content platforms such as YouTube should attempt to deviate from the conventional concept of copyright so as to encourage individual creative activities.Such a flexible approach, however, should never mean lesser recognition or compensation for content creators, e

• North Korea

  

  Xi asked Kim to demand halt to US-South Korea military drills: report

   Chinese leader Xi Jinping had asked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to demand a halt to South Korea-US joint military exercises, a Japanese newspaper reported Sunday, countering US President Trump’s claim that he had been the first to make such a proposal to North Korea. 　Citing a Chinese diplomatic source, Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun reported that Xi proposed the idea to Kim during their summit in Dalian, China, from May 7-8. It was the second time that the two countries’ leaders had met sinc

• Finance

  

  Household debt crisis shows little sign of abating: data

  The increasing pace of household credit in South Korea showed little sign of abating, data showed Sunday, and the lingering debt crisis is likely to affect Korean households‘ finance amid central bank pressure for a key rate hike in tandem with the US Fed hike last week.(Yonhap)Total credit to households as a percentage of gross domestic product came to 94.8 percent as of the fourth quarter of 2017, up 2.2 percentage points from the year prior, according to data by the Bank for International Set

• Industry

  

  US-China trade war may ripple through Korea

  The Korean economy is likely to be hit hard as its two biggest trading partners are on the brink of a trade war following threats to slap each other with hefty tariffs over the weekend. (Yonhap)On Friday, the Trump administration announced it would impose 25 percent tariffs on the Chinese goods worth $50 billion in an effort to protect the US intellectual property and technology. A day later, China responded to the US by announcing 25 percent tariffs on a $34 billion list of the US goods in the