Producer-CEO Bang Si-hyuk of Big Hit Entertainment, the label of K-pop boy band BTS, is to receive a Presidential Citation for his contribution to cultural exchange, the Korea Creative Content Agency announced Monday. Bang is being recognized for spreading Korean culture through BTS, who became the first Korean artist to rank 7th in the Billboard top 200 and win top social artist at the Billbo...

Jenny Kim, 24, won the title of Miss Supranational 2017 on Friday in Poland, marking the first time a Korean has won the major international pageant. (Supranational Webpage) Kim is a student of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, where she is pursuing a double major. In January, she represented Korea in the Miss Universe pageant 2017. (Instagram) (Instagram) (Instagram) By Im Eun-byel (silver...

A pet dog stayed with its deceased owner for at least two weeks. Local media outlets reported Tuesday that actress Lee Mi-ji, 58, was found dead at her home more than two weeks after she passed away. (Yonhap) The police revealed Wednesday that Lee’s pet dog stayed with her after her death. The dog did not bark when the police and the firefighters entered the house. “The dog was very thin. How...

South Korean actor Jung Woo-sung will visit refugee camps for Rohingya people in Bangladesh early next month in the capacity of a national goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said Artist Co., the actor’s agency, on Wednesday. The actor’s destination is Cox’s Bazar, a city near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, where approximately 307,500 people sought asylum af...

Model Han Hyun-min was pictured with two of the Congo’s “royal brothers.” Nigerian-Korean fashion model Han uploaded the photo to his social media account last Saturday. In the photo, Han posed with the two brothers from Congo, Rabbi and Jonathan. He captioned the photo as “With Congo’s princes.” (Han Hyun-min`s Instagram) The two brothers have amassed a large following for their YouTube video...

Actor Yoo Ah-in attempted to wrap up his lengthy online battles with fans concerning one of the most sensitive issues in Korea: gender bashing. On Sunday, he posted a lengthy letter on his Instagram page, through which he said that he has always been a feminist. It appeared to be his way of denying accusations of misogyny by some netizens. “I am a feminist. Although I do not know which authorit...

World Wide Fund for Nature International has named Pavan Sukhdev, an environmental economist and former head of the UN Environment Program’s Green Economy Initiative, as the new president of its board. Pavan Sukhdev, the new president of the board for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) The announcement came during a board meeting Sunday attended by Sukhdev. He will succeed Yolanda Kakabadse, ...

A celebrity couple, with a 17-year age difference, carried out an interview on their love story with a local magazine. Both Mina and Ryu Philip -- 45 and 27 years old respectively -- are singers in Korea, who have been in a romantic relationship with each other for more than two and a half years. The couple admitted that were dating in April 2015. (bnt) The couple did a photo shoot with local ...

Michelin Guide Seoul edition gives nod to Korean cuisine

Lee Soo-man, founder and head producer of K-pop behemoth S.M. Entertainment, and CJ E&M Pictures CEO Jeong Tae-sung were selected among the top 500 most influential business leaders in the international entertainment industry by Variety on Wednesday. The two names are included in the annual “Variety 500” index, which lists the most influential business leaders in the global entertainment scene...

Korean artist Kim Hun-kyu won this year’s Chadwell Award in early October. The Chadwell Award, established by Andrew Post and Mary Aylmer in 2010, names an artist every year among the recent fine art master‘s degree graduates from Royal College of Art, Royal Academy Schools or Slade School of Fine Art. “Don‘t Be Afraid My Love,” by Kim Hun-kyu Kim, known for his use of traditional Korean paint...

Police said Tuesday they have found no traces of alcohol or drugs in late actor Kim Joo-hyuk's body, reaffirming the preliminary conclusion that he died of a severe head injury inflicted in the tragic car accident late last month. Police released the autopsy and biopsy results on the veteran actor's system conducted by the National Forensic Service, which indicated he was neither under the influ...

Fashion model Soo Joo starred as a guest on “Live Talk Show Taxi” on tvN, Wednesday night, to share her story. (Instagram) The model revealed she had graduated from the department of architecture at University of California, Berkeley. She was later cast as a model while shopping at a vintage shop in nearby San Francisco when she was in her early 20s. (The Cut) “I used to work at a company in ...

The funeral ceremony of actor Kim Joo-hyuk, who passed away in a car accident Monday, took place Thursday at the Asan Medical Center in southeastern Seoul. The private ceremony was held at 10 a.m. and was attended by Kim’s surviving family, close friends and staff at the actor’s longtime management agency Namoo Actors. A video clip featuring snippets of the late Kim was shown, according to rep...

Stars of “Descendants of the Sun” Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo’s private wedding on Tuesday grabbed the attention of many, but especially their fans in China, where the TV drama was a big hit, with the event dominating headlines of various Chinese media outlets. On Tuesday evening, the event headlined Chinese online media outlets including Baidu, ifeng and Tencent, while the couple’s wedding t...