The average arson arrest rate for forest fires over the past five years was 42 percent, according to Korea Forest Service data Monday. Seven hundred people arrested for arson received criminal penalties, with the highest sentence meted out being a four-year jail term, according to the forest service agency. A mountainside village in Toseong-myeon, about 5.6 km away from where Korea`s worst wild...

GOSEONG, Gangwon Province – A tiny village in Yongchon-ri, about 5 kilometers from where the fire first started, sat in a state of near annihilation, save for two houses and the community center. Ashes and shattered glass covered the ground and smoke hung in the air, stinging the eyes and nose. Nam Jung-ae, 65, said she lost the home she grew up in to the fire. “That over there is my parents’ pl...

Tucked deep into Seoul’s central district of Jongno lies Ikseon-dong, the latest hip hangout place in a city where fashion wears fast. At a glance, it is easy to see why the neighborhood’s photogenic cluster of modernized 20th century hanok, or traditional Korean houses, would appeal to the Instagram generation. Crowded on weekdays and weekends alike, Ikseon-dong is imbued with the fashionable a...

Korea saw an increased participation in this year’s Earth Hour, the annual global lights-out campaign for raising energy conservation awareness. On the last Saturday of March every year, lights are turned off in major cities around the world simultaneously for an hour. Held on March 31, over 60 landmarks, 500 companies and 100 public institutions joined the hourlong campaign this year in Korea, ...

ASAP Rocky is stopping by Seoul on Friday as part of his 2019 “Injured Generation” world tour. The American rapper kicked off the trek in January in promotion of his third studio album, “Testing,” which was released in May last year. ASAP Rocky (ASAP Rocky`s official Facebook page) In his Friday show to be held at Jamsil Arena at 8 p.m., Rocky will showcase live performances of tracks from his...

Lights went out for an hour at the Herald Corp. headquarters Saturday as the company observed Earth Hour, an annual global lights-out event. Every year on the last Saturday of March, lights are switched off simultaneously around the world for an hour to raise awareness about climate change and sustainability. Around 18,000 landmarks in 188 countries joined the effort this year, including Korea’s...

K-pop speaks Korean -- for the most part -- but not all its fans. In addition to K-pop’s nonverbal appeal, the language barrier is being broken down by a network of fans who translate Korean content into other languages in real-time. BTS performs at MBC Plus x Genie Music Awards 2018 (Park Hyun-koo, The Korea Herald) Jessica Cuadros Marquez, who manages the BTS fan organization of Peru, said S...

The South Korean government on Tuesday passed a revised school health act to improve quality of air and safety at preschools and primary and secondary schools. The revised law was one of five fine dust-related legislations that passed the same day. The revised law requires the installation of air-cleaning systems and air quality sensors in classrooms and allows the use of state funds to cover t...

In 2017, less than a year after a historic match between the Korean Go master Lee Se-dol and Google’s AlphaGo, human translators and machine translators were pitted against each other in a separate contest in South Korea. While the showdown ended in a victory for humans against translation engines developed by Google, Naver and Systran, many of the ensuing headlines highlighted the possibility th...

Hanjin Group on Wednesday opposed Korea Corporate Governance Improvement’s qualification to exercise shareholder rights, in a move to counter its recent string of criticisms and demands on corporate governance and transparency. The Korean conglomerate, which operates the country’s leading air carrier Korean Air, claimed that KCGI was only a minority shareholder and had no grounds to make such de...

Advertising expenditure on digital platforms rose to over 4 trillion won ($3.55 billion) in 2018, surpassing the amount spent on broadcast ads for the first time, data showed Tuesday. Samsung-owned advertising agency Cheil Worldwide’s data on Tuesday showed that the total advertising spending in Korea marked an on-year growth of 4.6 percent to 11.18 trillion won in 2018. Analysts credited intern...

Lotte Duty Free, Korea’s largest duty-free operator, saw a solid sales growth last month led by Chinese shoppers despite Beijing’s introduction of a new e-commerce law, according to latest data on Feb. 18. The law targets Chinese traders known as “daigou,” who make overseas purchases for resale in the mainland. Chinese authorities are clamping down on the practice of proxy purchasing, subjecting...

KT is launching a mobile application that tracks fine dust levels over the Korean Peninsula, where worsening air quality in recent years has become a national emergency. The app, called Air Map Korea, allows users to access a real-time big data analysis of fine dust concentrations for a particular region, the South Korean telecom firm said Monday. (Yonhap) Other features include instant update...

While Twitter is headquartered in San Francisco, the social media giant’s K-pop capital is its office in Seoul. At the helm of the K-pop hub is Kim Yeonjeong, the head of global content partnerships at Twitter Korea. “It’s been a while since K-pop took off in Asia, and it’s safe to say it has now expanded its reach to a wider audience worldwide -- BTS being one example,” Kim said, adding she is ...

Infinite is gearing up to release a new song in February, marking the boyband’s return from a yearlong hiatus since its third full-length album “Top Seed” in January 2018. (Woollim Entertainment) The new single, titled “Clock,” has been unveiled prior to official release at a fan meeting dubbed “Forever,” which was held in December last year. Performing the song, Infinite explained that the lyr...