US-based K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin and renowned jazz vocalist Nah Youn-sun, the two winners of the Korea Image Awards given by the Corea Image Communication Institute, said Tuesday that global attention to Korean music is expanding beyond K-pop as the country boasts the world’s sixth-largest music industry. “It is really special to think how much Korean music has grown for the 10 years,” sai...

83 percent of foreign survey respondents associate Korea with conglomerates, 85 percent cite synchronized dance as top reason for K-pop’s popularity

LOS ANGELES -- A Korean American doctor has been included in the list of 11 new astronauts who will take part in the upcoming Moon and Mars exploration program, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration Sunday. Jonny Kim will be joining the Artemis project, which aims to send people to the Moon by 2024. The program will use the knowhow and experience learned to place astr...

MONTREAL (AFP) -- Pop super star Justin Bieber announced Wednesday that he has Lyme disease. In a post on Instagram, Bieber said he will address his struggle with the illness, which is contracted through a tick bite, in a YouTube documentary. "It's been a rough couple years but getting the right treatment that will help treat this so far incurable disease and I will be back and better than ever...

Many Koreans are willing to spend money to achieve their New Year’s goal to read more books. Around 12.25 percent of Koreans said that their top New Year’s goal is to achieve personal development, mainly through reading books, according to online survey platform Now N Survey. Buying a house, at 17 percent, topped the list of responses in the survey conducted among 1,420 people from Dec. 10 to Ja...

Korea’s prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award postponed its announcement of this year’s winners on Monday after three writers refused to accept their awards. “We decided to delay the awards due to writers’ refusals,” a representative of Munhaksasang, the awards’ organizer, said Monday. The Korean publishing company added that a revised schedule for the 44th Yi Sang Literary Award had not been decid...

The Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI) announced on Monday this year’s Korea Image Awards winners -- SK Telecom, K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin and jazz vocalist Nah Youn-sun. SK Telecom was awarded the Korea Image Stepping Stone Award for its efforts to commercialize 5G technology worldwide as the nation’s top mobile carrier. SKT CEO Park Jung-ho will be given the award on behalf of the ...

The Literature Translation Institute of Korea announced on Monday the winners of its translation awards this year, recognizing their contributions to the promotion of Korean literature worldwide. The 17th LTI Korea Translation Awards went to Yoon Sun-me, who translated Han Kang’s novel “Human Acts” into Spanish as “Actos Humanos”; Sora Kim-Russel, who translated Kim Un-su’s novel “The Plotters” ...

Police have referred BTS' youngest member Jungkook to prosecutors for a potential legal indictment over a car accident in October, police officials said Tuesday. Yongsan Police Station in charge of Jungkook's case said it has sent the case to the prosecution, advising it to lay formal charges of violating the Road Traffic Act and related laws against the K-pop star. A sedan driven by the 22-yea...

W-Foundation Chairman Lee Wook speaks at the UN Climate Change Conference COP25 in Madrid on Monday, explaining the eco-friendly HOOXI project, which includes the HOOXI app, designed to help preserve nature, and paper-packaged HOOXI Water. Established in 2012, W-Foundation is a nonprofit environmental organization spearheading nature conservation projects in partnership with state institutions an...

Former Daewoo Group Chairman Kim Woo-choong, once touted as one of the most successful businessmen in South Korea, died late Monday at age 82, an organization affiliated with the now-defunct conglomerate said. Kim, the founder of the trading-to-automobile conglomerate, died of a chronic disease at a local hospital late Monday night, according to Daewoosky Institute, which represents former emplo...

A 210-centimeter-tall penguin walks into a room for an audition at Educational Broadcasting System, insisting he wants to be a star creator. The penguin, who has a strand of seaweed and a seashell on its head, explains that he swam all the way from the South Pole. The 10-year-old’s ultimate goal is to become as popular as BTS. Speaking in a cute -- sometimes husky -- voice, Pengsoo raps, breakda...

Fitness guru says people can celebrate life through Zumba

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rene Auberjonois, a prolific actor best known for his roles on the television shows "Benson'' and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' and his part in the 1970 film "M.A.S.H.'' playing Father Mulcahy, has died. He was 79. The actor died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles of metastatic lung cancer, his son Remy-Luc Auberjonois told The Associated Press. Rene Auberjonois worked consta...

Dr. Kim Jong-hwan, a South Korean plastic surgeon who has devoted 26 years to developing facial rejuvenation procedures, says he has made the search for beauty his life’s mission. Dr. Kim is founder and president of Gold Happy Mirae Aesthetic Clinic, located in Gangnam, southern Seoul. “I was an orthopedic surgeon, but I abandoned the field because personally, I felt there was no ‘beauty’ there...