The septet was announced as the winner of Favorite Duo or Group – Pop/Rock in the 2019 AMA show held at Microsoft Theater in California on Sunday night (US time).

It marks the second consecutive year the band has been awarded at the AMAs, considered one of the three major pop music awards in the US.

Last year, BTS was awarded Favorite Social Artist at the annual award ceremony, becoming the first Korean artists to win an award at the AMAs.

BTS didn’t join the ceremony in the US, but the band expressed its special thanks to fans in a video message.

“We are so honored to receive such an important, meaningful award,” the youngest member Jungkook said.

The team’s leader attributed the band’s feat to its fans, famously known as “ARMY.”

“We couldn’t have really done it without (your) love and support,” RM said, adding that, “We will try our best to live up to it and will try hard and work hard.”

BTS competed with Jonas Brothers and Panic! At The Disco for the 2019 award.

The band has also been nominated again for the Favorite Social Artist and Tour of the Year awards at the 2019 AMAs, with the winners not yet announced. (Yonhap)

An acquaintance of the 28-year-old found her dead at around 6 p.m. at her home in Seoul’s Gangnam Ward and notified the police and firefighters, the police said.

The police said they are currently looking into the exact cause of and reason for the death, keeping the possibility of suicide in consideration.

Goo debuted in 2008 as a member of the female K-pop band, which enjoyed sensational popularity before the band went on hiatus about a decade later.

Goo expanded her K-pop career by going solo, also branching out into acting and reality shows, but she put her entertainment career on hold late last year when she became entangled in a revenge pornography case with her ex-boyfriend.

The former lover, a hairdresser, threatened Goo with releasing an intimate video of her in September last year as the two fought in the wake of a breakup.

The man said he would circulate the video “to end (her) entertainment career” and contacted news outlets over the video, although he eventually did not leak it.

In August, he was given a suspended jail term by a lower court on account of the threat and other criminal behavior.

The case led to intense online rumors and hate comments against Goo, causing her to brave the media on her way to a police interrogation.

In May, She made news headlines after being found unconscious at her home following a suicide attempt.

In an interview with a Japanese magazine later the same month, she said, “I am recovering. … I had been in agony over a number of overlapping issues. … But from now on, I will steel my heart and try to be healthy.”

Goo’s sudden death came less than two months after the death of another young K-pop diva, Sulli. The 25-year-old actress and member of female band f(x) was found dead at her home in mid-October in an apparent suicide, sending a shock wave through the country.

In the years before her death, Sulli had been the subject of intense online hate comments.

The two were known to be close friends, and Goo mourned Sulli’s death by sharing photo images of herself with Sulli on her Instagram account, saying, “Jin-ri (will be able to) to do as she wishes in the world over there.” Jin-ri is Sulli’s legal name.

Goo recently resumed her music career, releasing a Japanese single, “Midnight Queen,” in the Japanese music market on Nov. 13 and staging a concert tour covering four Japanese cities from Nov. 14-19. (Yonhap)

The subway is a wise choice if you wish to bypass the streets near Bexco, the venue for the summit and many of the events.

Traffic around Bexco will be restricted before and during the summit. Centum 3-ro, the road leading to the Bexco entrance, will be restricted from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Tuesday, with the Bexco bus stop being temporarily shut down, and the road leading to Centum City Station from the Bexco entrance will be intermittently restricted until 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

The subway route to Bexco — which sits between Centum City and Bexco stations — would require a transfer to Line No. 2 at Seomyeon Station, which incidentally is among the busiest, booziest streets in Busan. It is also where the 2019 ASEAN-ROK Food Street will be until Wednesday, at the Busan Cultural Complex Center for Youth or Norimaru.

The anticipation for the event was apparent from the packed venue even before any of the booths opened the next morning, with people lining up as early as three hours before the ticket booth opened at 1 p.m., despite the light drizzle.

While the main convention center at Bexco was largely empty, a flock of visitors were headed toward the auditorium, where a long line of people waited to get into ASEAN-ROK Fashion Week. Even though it was two hours before the doors opened, men and women — mostly in their 20s and 30s — had already formed a long line.

The fashion week, which opened Friday, continues through Monday and features collections with various themes, including Korean traditional hanbok, and collaboration between Busan-based designers and young designers based elsewhere. The highlight of ASEAN-ROK Fashion Week is a fashion show featuring designers from Korea and ASEAN member states, which takes place Monday from 1-3 p.m.

Even before the official kickoff of the summit, armed guards and armored trucks were seen patrolling the grounds. The entrance to the Bexco Center 1 was strictly restricted, as the pangovernmental security team — consisting of officials from the Presidential Security Service, the National Police Agency, the National Fire Agency, the Ministry of National Defense, the National Intelligence Service and the Korea Coast Guard — had commenced work Nov. 15.

The team is in charge of ensuring the safety of the delegates from the 10 ASEAN states, dispatching helicopters whenever a top-level figure from one of the participating nations is on the move and sweeping the area with drones and automated reconnaissance vehicles.

Information robots, like those used in 2018 during the PyeongChang Winter Games, were dispatched across the exhibition center to help visitors around Bexco.

“I will do my best, as the mayor of the host city, to make this summit more than just a one-time event. Through the event, Busan can support peace and co-prosperity for Korea and the ASEAN nations,” he added.

While the summit is going on, the government and the host city have many extra cultural activities planned and are inviting the wider public to take part.

“This summit is more than just an event focused on the leaders and attendees of conferences. It is a festival for all Koreans and those from ASEAN nations,” Oh said. “Please, visit Busan!”

Oh also introduced his city as a major venue for various international sports events. The LPGA International Busan was held last month, and the East Asian Football Championship and Ultimate Fighting Championship will take place in Busan in December, followed by the World Table Tennis Championships in March. The city’s next big goal is to host the 2030 Busan World Expo.

“Busan aims to become a maritime hub of Northeast Asia where its people are happy. This is the goal of Busan. It will be more than just the second-largest city in Korea. It will develop as a global city,” he said.

Mentioning the city’s global status, the mayor also touched on the planned expansion of Gimhae International Airport. Years ago, after discussions that began in 2006, the central government decided to expand the airport in response to the growing demand for air travel in the region.

However, a regional joint inspection committee consisting of authorities and experts from Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province deemed the airport expansion “unsuitable.” The committee says a new airport should be built in the southeastern region.

“Launching a new airport in the southeastern region is a necessary step for the advance of Korea’s logistics, transportation and tourism. In case of an emergency, is there a substitutional gateway airport of the Incheon Airport in Korea?”

“By opening a new path in the sky with a southeastern gateway airport, its astounding results will spread across the nation,” he said.

The mayor also addressed the matter of youth employment. The city’s youth population –that is, the population of adults under the age of 35 — is 710,000. In three straight months to October, the city’s total employment rate was 44.6 percent, while the youth unemployment rate was 7.9 percent.

“Youth employment measures require more than just fragmentary support, but rather an endless communication with young people,” the mayor said.

In 2018, around 60,000 young adults left the city. Considering that fact, Oh proclaimed a Youth Policy Road Map in July, setting aside 492.1 billion won to implement 106 measures over the three years till 2022.

“The most important part of the road map is about youth employment. Policies (to benefit) youth should (proceed) in stages: strengthening the employment ability of the unemployed, practically offering (jobs)and connecting employees with jobs, and maintaining employment so that employees can be employed for a long time,” he said.

“A city where young people are happy is a city with opportunities and entertainment. It should also have a balance between residential conditions and a city environment,” Oh said. “To make Busan a place where young people return to and stay, a policy focused on a certain area cannot be enough.”

Oh, who was born in Busan and took office in June 2018, believes the city needs to be a place where young people are happy.

“Based on this idea, I will come up with policies that satisfy young people’s requests, through endless communication with experts and young people themselves, generating a cooperative system of youth policies for the city.”

“ASEAN is the world’s youngest and most dynamic economic community. To transform its infinite potential into sustainable prosperity, it is crucial to increase connectivity in the region and cooperate in high-tech industries,” President Moon Jae-in said in an article he contributed to The Korea Herald last week.

“If we enhance cooperation in transport infrastructure, smart cities and advanced science and technology — Korea’s strengths — we could jointly nurture innovative capabilities to respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

He went on to say, “Using free trade to expand commerce, fostering small and medium-sized enterprises for an inclusive economy, and promoting green growth, such as an eco-friendly bio-industry — these are also areas where Korea and ASEAN can work together.”

Since ASEAN and Korea established diplomatic relations in 1989, the two sides have grown to become key economic partners and their trade volume has steadily increased.

ASEAN is South Korea’s second-largest trade partner, and Korea was ASEAN’s fifth-largest trade partner last year. Also, Southeast Asia is Korea’s third-largest investment destination, as the number of Korean companies advancing into the region has continued to rise. The number of Korean companies setting up business in the bloc stood at 1,292 last year, up from 850 in 2014, according to the Trade Ministry.

Participants pose for a group photo during the third Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Summit in Bangkok on Nov. 4 (Cheong Wa Dae)

Korean tech titan Samsung Electronics has operated the biggest mobile phone factory in Hanoi, Vietnam, since 2009, producing most of the smartphone products that Vietnam exports worldwide.

Another Korean tech giant, LG Electronics, makes television screens in a $1.5 billion factory in the port city of Haiphong, Vietnam. The region has also served as a global production hub for TVs, mobile phones, washing machines and air conditioners.

Automakers are now eyeing Indonesia as one of the largest auto markets in the region, with the world’s fourth-largest population and annual economic growth of more than 5 percent.

In June, Hyundai Motor signed an agreement with Singapore’s major land transport company ComfortDelGro to provide 2,000 Ioniq Hybrid vehicles by 2020, expanding its eco-friendly car models in the nation in cooperation with taxi and car-sharing companies.

As for Korea’s largest steelmaker, Posco has production plants in Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

In March, Posco Chairman Choi Jeong-woo chose Southeast Asia for his first overseas trip since taking office last year. He visited Krakatau Posco, a joint venture between Posco and Indonesian state-owned steelmaker Krakatau Steel. Krakatau Posco — which opened in December 2013 as the first Korean steel mill overseas — is now capable of producing 3 million tons of steel annually.

During the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit in Busan, Korea and the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states will adopt a joint vision statement on coexistence and prosperity.

The statement will suggest directions for cooperation in different fields, such as the development of strategic partnerships between Korea and ASEAN, the establishment of peace in the region, how to strengthen partnerships in social and cultural areas, as well as cooperation on sustainable development.

Connectivity — a keyword for ASEAN due to its diverse demographics and cultures — will be the focus of discussion during the multilateral summits, according to Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.

“ASEAN has this vision of becoming a truly integrated ASEAN community. That means connecting, whether it’s software, hardware, infrastructure, aviation or water resources management,” she said.

Korea expects to explore new horizons in connectivity and share its expertise and experience with the bloc, the minister said.

Seeking to gain momentum on the occasion of the international gathering, Cheong Wa Dae plans to initiate President Moon Jae-in’s New Southern Policy 2.0, which aims to broaden the country’s diplomatic horizons further with the Southeast Asian countries and India.

In November 2017, Moon unveiled the New Southern Policy with the aim of elevating Korea’s relations with ASEAN and India to the level that it enjoys with the four regional powers — the US, China, Japan and Russia.

The government also seeks to expand its economic territory by boosting cooperation with ASEAN and tapping the region’s growth potential.

The ASEAN region is Korea’s second-largest trading partner, right after China. The Korean government expects to increase its trade volume with the bloc to $200 billion by 2020, from $159.7 billion last year.

As part of efforts to strengthen economic coordination and decrease Seoul’s reliance on traditional trading partners, Korea seeks conclude free trade agreements with Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

In October, Korea and Indonesia concluded talks on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which is equivalent to a free trade agreement with a broader focus.

In bilateral summits with ASEAN leaders, Moon will discuss ways to work together in infrastructure sectors including smart cities, water supplies and drainage management. Cooperation on defense, official development aid and job training will also be part of their agendas.

The Korean government expects bilateral meetings to yield substantive results that will enable people in the concerned countries to enjoy closer ties by forging accords such as an “open skies” agreement, which would liberalize the aviation industry, and a double-tax avoidance treaty.

“The potential for cooperation between the two countries is limitless, from ICT, smart city, electronic government and other high-tech industries to defense and defense industry,” Moon said at the meeting, saying that the two countries’ cooperation should expand beyond energy and infrastructure.

“If (Brunei’s) Vision 2035 and our New Southern Policy are carried out in harmony, (the two countries) could expand the scope of cooperation to new industries of the future and achieve shared prosperity.”

Vision 2035 is Brunei’s economic growth strategy, and the New Southern Policy is one of Moon’s main foreign policies that aims to significantly boost Seoul’s economic and political cooperation with ASEAN.

The Bruneian leader echoed Moon, saying that Korea is an important partner of ASEAN and that Brunei will seek ways to expand Seoul’s cooperation with ASEAN and his country.

Following the summit, the two leaders attended the signing ceremony for three memorandums of understanding on Korea-Brunei cooperation.

The two sides agreed to seek closer cooperation on Sunday in the areas of information and communication technology, electronic government systems and fields related to building smart cities.

The Moon administration’s New Southern Policy — whose scope includes India — is central to the ASEAN-Korea summit.

According to Joo Hyung-chul, Moon’s chief economic adviser and head of the New Southern Policy committee, the leaders attending the summit conference will adopt a joint Korea-ASEAN vision that will lay the foundation for future cooperation among the countries.

A day ahead of the Brunei summit, Moon kicked off the series of summits with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The Korea-Singapore summit was also followed by a signing of memorandums on smart city cooperation and pharmaceuticals production and quality control standards. The two sides also signed revised memorandums on cooperating in the fields of cybersecurity and standardization.

In addition to the leaders of Brunei and Singapore, Moon is set to hold bilateral meetings with seven other heads of states attending the ASEAN-Korea and Mekong-Korea summits.

On the sidelines of the ASEAN-Korea summit on Monday and Tuesday, Moon will meet with the leaders of Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines, in Busan.

On Wednesday, Moon and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will hold a summit in Seoul after wrapping up the Mekong-Korea summit in Busan earlier in the day.

The week of ASEAN diplomacy will end Thursday with Moon meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Seoul.

A summit meeting between Moon and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was canceled and replaced with a foreign ministers’ meeting between Seoul’s Kang Kyung-wha and her counterpart, Prak Sokhonn. According to Cheong Wa Dae, the Cambodian prime minister is unable to attend the summit, as his mother-in-law is in a critical condition.

China’s Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian (pic) said the embassy received several reports on tourists who did not respect the sensitivities of Malaysians.

Saying this caused much embarrassment to the Chinese government, he remarked: “The Chinese have a civilisation dating back 5,000 years and we know how to behave properly and not offend others.”

Bai Tian said Chinese tourists spent RM12.3bil over the past year in Malaysia, and so the embassy was extra concerned about such misdemeanours.

He cited an incident in Sabah where tourists from China acted insensitively in front of a mosque, which led to them being ticked off by local tourism officials.

“What the Malaysian authorities did was right. On our part, we will educate our tourists to behave properly in Malaysia, ” said the envoy at a forum on China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI) organised by the Malaysian Youth Council and Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka here yesterday.

Bai Tian spoke on the many job opportunities under the BRI cooperation with Malaysia and how it would be the catalyst for further trade growth between both countries and the world.

On the chaos in Hong Kong, he said the rule of law had been set aside with the so-called pro-democracy protesters turning Hong Kong into an “abyss of chaos”.

On the Muslim Uighur issue, he said one should consider China’s policy of allowing them to have more children and the 15 years of free education which was not offered to others.

China has been under international fire for its alleged persecution of Muslim Uighurs, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

“There are 14 million Muslims in Xinjiang, with 40,000 mosques and 26,000 imams.

“Our Constitution allows for all religions, and freedom not to have a religion.

“Who was heading the 23 countries to criticise us over the Uighurs? The US and its allies.

“Sixty-six countries, including Muslim countries, stood up and refuted the Western accusations, ” said Bai Tian.

The envoy also lambasted the “debt trap” theory against China which gave loans to Asian countries.

“This is all a Western fabrication for their own economic and political agenda, ” he said.

The forum was held in conjunction with the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/11/24/envoy-china-nationals-will-be-taught-how-to-behave-in-msia#BghwZVckDmUHF5Uq.99

The animal, which had been suffering from cancer, died at the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Sabah at 5.35pm yesterday.

“It is with great sadness that the Sabah Wildlife Department announces the death of Iman, the last

Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia, at 1735 hours on Nov 23,2019,” said State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew.

“The death was a natural one and the immediate cause was categorised as shock. “Iman was given the very best care and attention ever since her capture in March 2014 right up to the moment she passed. No one could have done more,” she said.

Liew said Iman had almost died on several occasions due to sudden massive blood loss from her uterine tumours over the past few years. “The team at Tabin provided round-the-clock intensive support and successfully brought her back to good health and egg cell production on several occasions,” she

said.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said Iman’s death came sooner than expected.

“But we knew that she was starting to suffer significant pain from the growing pressure of the tumours into the

bladder,” he added. He said a veterinarian at the sanctuary had only just earlier in the day suggested that they begin using morphine as other painkillers were becoming ineffective. It was hoped that it would still be possible to obtain some egg cells from Iman for the proposed Malaysia-Indonesia collaboration on this species.

But the signing of a memorandum of understanding(MoU) was still pending. To this, Liew said Sabah is still keen to pursue the MoU despite Iman’s death.

“There are still ways in which we can collaborate based on our different experience over the past decade,” she

said. “For Sabah, that includes the management of female Sumatran rhinos with reproductive pathology, safe

harvesting of gametes from living rhinos and cell culture.” She said Iman and Tam, a male rhino that died on May 27 this year due to kidney and liver damage, both lived on as cell cultures in Malaysia.

After months-long unrest in Hong Kong, tensions reached another height over the past week as violent clashes broke out on college campuses, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The ongoing chaos forced university authorities to announce the shortening of the semester due to safety concerns.

As of Monday afternoon, 623 out of 1,021 Taiwan students studying in Hong Kong universities had returned to Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Education.

Against this backdrop, some local universities have launched special programmes to accept them as guest students.

The aforesaid schools include National Taiwan University (NTU), National Chiao Tung University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chengchi University, National Taiwan Normal University and National Sun Yat-sen University, according to local media.

NTU vice president Chou Chia-pei said on Thursday that 562 Hong Kong college students had submitted their application to become guest students so far, including 289 locals, 168 Hongkongers and 105 international students.

Chou said the number of applications from Hongkonger had drastically increased from the day earlier, adding that these students are demanding to study in Taiwan.

The students can start sitting in NTU classrooms as soon as December 2 and stay until the semester ends in January next year, Chou said.

Not only students but professors are looking to teach in Taiwan as well. National Sun Yat-sen University has received 10 applications of visiting students, while at least five professors from Hong Kong colleges have reportedly applied for visiting scholars too.