2019 was yet another year filled with large-scale accidents and challenges. This week, as a
year-end special, Korea Now looked into South Korea’s 7 biggest news stories of 2019.
BTS wrapped up their first stadium tour with a bang. They met with more than 1 million
fans through 20 concerts in 10 cities around the world since early May through the end
of October. BTS, in particular, became the first Korean singer to perform and sell out
two days of their shows at Wembley Stadium in June. The venue is famous for its live-aid
performances by legendary band Queen. In October, They also grabbed the title of the first foreign
singer to hold a solo concert at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held their second summit
talks in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February, but the talks ended without an agreement. They
also had a historic face-to-face encounter at the inter-Korean border truce village of
Panmunjom. However, the two sides failed to narrow differences over how much the North
would dismantle its nuclear weapons programs and what concessions the United States would
give in return. Pyongyang is now threatening to take a new way in protest against Washington's
refusal to make concessions in their nuclear talks.
Relations between South Korea and Japan dipped to the lowest point in years after Tokyo announced
tighter export controls for three industrial materials vital to Seoul's semiconductor and
display industries in July. The move was seen as retaliatory measures for South Korean Supreme
Court rulings in late 2018 that ordered Japanese firms to pay compensation for Korean victims
of forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 rule of the Korean Peninsula. In response, South
Korea decided to end a bilateral military intelligence-sharing pact, known as the General
Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). However, Seoul eventually postponed
the decision and conditionally renewed GSOMIA. The Burning Sun scandal escalated into a massive
entertainment and sex scandal in early 2019, disgracing a number of K-pop singers, celebrities,
and police officials. The nightclub named Burning Sun affiliated with boy band BIGBANG’s
former member Seungri drew an outpouring of suspicions as a hotbed of drug trafficking
and other illegalities. The controversy over the scandal then spiraled out of control when
it was disclosed that Jung Joon-young, a singer and TV personality, secretly filmed himself
having sex with women and shared the footage with friends on mobile chats. Jung and Choi
Jong-hoon, a former member of boy band FT Island were arrested in this case.
In September, police identified a 56-year-old man Lee Chun-jae, as the prime suspect in
the country's worst serial killings for the first time after 33 years. Lee, now in jail
for a separate murder case, is alleged to have killed at least five out of 10 women
in a rural village of Hwaseong, south of Seoul, between 1986 and 1991. An advancement in DNA
analysis technology contributed to identifying the suspect in one of the country's worst
cold cases. South Korean film director Bong Joon-ho was
awarded the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival for his seventh feature "Parasite."
It was the first time that a Korean-made film won the Cannes' highest honor in the country's
100-year film history. "Parasite" is a story of two families, one rich and one poor, who
become entangled, leading to a series of unexpected violent mishaps. Bong depicts the entrenched
social class system through his signature black humor and fine-tuned suspense and horror.
A sightseeing boat, the Hableany, carrying 33 South Korean tourists and two Hungarian
crew members, sank after colliding with a larger Swiss cruise ship, Viking Sygin, in
the Danube River in central Budapest on May 29. The accident left 25 Koreans dead and
one unaccounted for. So these were the 7 top news of the year 2019
we chose. What other news do you think should make it on the list? Please let me know in
the comments below and thank you for watching Korea Now.