Journalist
Park Sae-jin박세진
swatchsjp@ajupress.com
Assistant EditorForeign embassies in Seoul & Geopolitics, Diplomacy, Policy
Experienced journalist and editor at AJU PRESS specializing in multilingual news. I cover international diplomacy, geolpolitics, and policy, consistently delivering highly accurate, compelling reporting for a worldwide audience.
"Reporting the facts. Shaping the narrative. Every second counts."
Latest by Park Sae-jin
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KAIST develops technique to detect fast charging damage SEOUL, August 24 (AJP) - Fast charging can damage an electric vehicle battery in ways that standard capacity measurements do not reveal, researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Monday, after building a three-dimensional virtual replica of the interior of a commercial lithium-ion cell. In a graphite electrode 50 micrometers thick, slightly less than the width of a human hair, shifting the adhesive that binds the electrode together from an even spread to a concentration on one side altered total charging capacity by less than four percent. Lithium metal accumulating near one edge of that same electrode increased by more than 10 percent. Charging capacity is the figure a battery test reports. The degradation the simulation identified was concentrated in a region that figure did not describe. Lee Kang-taek's group in the mechanical engineering department at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) carried out the study with Cho Eun-ae's group in materials science and engineering. A lithium-ion battery stores charge by moving lithium ions into the graphite particles that form its negative electrode. A polymer binder holds those particles in place. Pores, the empty channels running between them, carry the ions to the graphite. During rapid charging, some ions fail to enter the graphite and settle on its surface as metallic lithium, a process known as lithium plating. The deposited lithium no longer carries charge, and repeated plating lowers both performance and battery life. A protective film called the solid electrolyte interphase also forms on the graphite surface during charging. The film is necessary, but an excessively thick or uneven one degrades performance. Graphite particles swell as they absorb lithium, generating mechanical stress inside the electrode. These processes occur simultaneously within a very small volume, which has made them difficult to isolate by experiment. Earlier computer models generally worked from average properties across the whole electrode and could not account for variation by position. The researchers reconstructed the internal structure of a commercial graphite electrode in three dimensions, reproducing the graphite particles, the binder and the pores. They varied electrode thickness, pore volume and binder position, then simulated rapid charging while recording where lithium accumulated, where the protective film formed unevenly and where stress concentrated. Binder concentrated on one side of the electrode reduced the pore space available for ion movement. Lithium plating near the current collector, the metal foil that carries current out of the cell, rose more than 10 percent above the level measured in an electrode with binder distributed evenly. Even distribution produced smoother ion movement and a more uniform protective film. The effect grew with electrode thickness. At 83 micrometers, the capacity difference attributable to binder position widened to about 18 percent. KAIST said the result means electrodes built thicker to hold more energy require control over where materials sit inside them, not only over how much material is used. Pore volume affected mechanical stress in the same way. Sufficient pore space absorbed the expansion of the graphite particles and dispersed the resulting force. Where pore space was insufficient, stress concentrated at particular points. Binder gradients of this kind form during electrode manufacturing and drying rather than being introduced by design. The numbers are computed, not measured. The team validated its model against a real electrode and against test data, but the percentages come out of the simulation. No batteries were cycled to failure, so nothing here shows a battery lasting longer. The work covers the graphite negative electrode alone, not the positive electrode and not a full cell. It names binder and pore distribution as design variables without showing how to control them on a production line. KAIST said the approach allows a range of electrode structures to be examined in simulation before any of them are manufactured. "If the binder and the empty space inside the electrode are placed appropriately, it should help in designing batteries that store a large amount of energy while charging quickly and lasting a long time," Lee said. Kang Ye-jin, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at KAIST, was first author on the paper, which was published in the journal InfoMat and selected as the back cover article on July 7. 2026-08-24 17:33:41 -
Kookmin students win forest management AI contest SEOUL, August 24 (AJP) - A team of students from Kookmin University has won the top prize at South Korea's inaugural forest artificial intelligence contest by developing a tool that helps private landowners predict 30 years of revenue and carbon absorption. The web service, named MOFOM, addresses a longstanding challenge in South Korean forestry by democratizing access to fragmented government data. By simply entering a land parcel number, forest owners can instantly view economic and environmental projections across different management scenarios, turning dense academic models into a practical financial tool. The students took the grand prize in the service creation category at the first Forest Science AI Use Contest, hosted by the National Institute of Forest Science. The competition drew 259 participants from 41 universities and 33 institutions to find technological solutions for regional and national forest management. MOFOM integrates satellite imagery with government datasets, including national forest resource surveys, carbon absorption standards, and mountain weather records, to estimate timber volume and carbon content. It then generates six distinct management scenarios, ranging from immediate logging to long-term thinning and cultivation, calculating expected profits and carbon offset values for each path. To ensure accuracy and reduce the risk of artificial intelligence hallucinations, the system relies on hard-coded calculations for its numerical data. The embedded language model is restricted strictly to explaining the finalized numbers, a feature that earned the team high marks for technical completeness and practical viability during live demonstrations. Led by graduate student Choi Hee-do alongside undergraduates Na Jung-woo, Ha Su-beom, and Kim Min-seok, the team validated their model using actual land data and carbon offset project records from Boeun-gun, North Chungcheong Province. The students handled the entire development process, from satellite image analysis and economic calculations to web service deployment. "It took a lot of time to connect forest data scattered across various institutions into a single service, but it is meaningful that we were evaluated for implementing it in a form that can actually be used," Choi said. "I want to expand the model verified in Boeun nationwide and develop it into a service that forest owners can actually use." 2026-08-24 16:31:36 -
Kazakhstan builds interfaith forum into institution over 2 decades SEOUL, August 24 (AJP) - An idea that surfaced in Astana days after the September 11 attacks has grown into a standing international institution, with a permanent secretariat, its own awards, a 10-year strategy and a place on the United Nations record. The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions has met eight times since 2003, always in the Kazakh capital, and is scheduled to convene again in 2028. The proposal took shape during Pope John Paul II's visit to Kazakhstan from Sept. 22 to 25, 2001, 11 days after the attacks on the United States. Kazakhstan suggested seating the leaders of the world's major faiths at one table at a moment when much of the world was bracing for a religious rupture. The first Congress opened two years later, on Sept. 23, 2003, with 17 delegations from 13 countries. Participants condemned extremism and terrorism as having nothing to do with the substance of religion, and agreed to meet every three years. The scale has widened steadily since. The eighth Congress, held Sept. 17 and 18, 2025, drew more than 100 delegations from around 60 countries, spanning Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism and Shinto. The high-water mark came in 2022, when Pope Francis traveled to Astana for the seventh Congress and appeared alongside Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and the chief rabbis of Israel. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who had been expected, did not attend. Each Congress has left something behind. The first created a permanent Secretariat, the second adopted a set of Principles of Interreligious Dialogue that the forum treats as its founding code, and later meetings added a Council of Religious Leaders, two awards for contributions to interfaith dialogue and, in 2019, a dedicated center that now operates as the International Center for Interfaith and Interreligious Dialogue. The Secretariat meets every year between congresses in the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a pyramid on Tauelsizdik Avenue built for the purpose. Its working agency reports more than 30 memorandums with outside bodies, among them UNESCO, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the Holy See's Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and the Moscow Patriarchate. A development concept commissioned in 2022 and running to 2033 commits the forum to problems well beyond theology, including poverty, inequality, environmental crisis and the protection of religious sites. It also states that Congress bodies may take part in mediation for the peaceful settlement of disputes, an unusual ambition for a dialogue platform. Congress declarations are filed with the UN Secretary-General for registration as official General Assembly documents. The 2022 declaration was transmitted by Kazakhstan's permanent representative and entered the UN record that September. The 2025 Congress went further. Organizers said the forum hosted an official United Nations event on its own platform for the first time, a special session on safeguarding religious sites convened under the UN Alliance of Civilizations and tied to a plan of action developed under Miguel Ángel Moratinos. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev chaired the plenary, and Pope Leo XIV sent a message. Muslim World League Secretary-General Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa attended as guest of honor, using his address to raise the situation in Gaza. The meeting produced the Astana Peace Declaration 2025, a document of 34 points adopted, as the forum's rules provide, by a majority of delegates rather than by consensus. It instructs the Secretariat to prepare a paper on faith and climate change, calls for international norms on artificial intelligence grounded in human rights, and urges the prevention of any use of nuclear weapons. It also endorses Tokayev's call for a new global movement for peace and describes Kazakhstan as a global center for interfaith dialogue. What the Congress can point to is durability. Two decades on, an institution that began as a Kazakh proposal draws the leaders of most of the world's major faiths to the same room every three years. Delegates closed the 2025 session by agreeing to return. The ninth Congress is set for Astana in 2028. 2026-08-24 10:00:44 -
Kazakhs in Seoul vote in first Kurultai election SEOUL, August 23 (AJP) - The first voter reached the Kazakh embassy in Seoul at 7 a.m. Sunday, hours before most of the roughly 300 Kazakh nationals eligible to cast ballots in South Korea would make their way to the compound to help choose their country's new parliament. She was Azhar Karimzhanova, 23, a student at Korea University, according to Rakhymzhan Altynbay, an official at the embassy. By 1:30 p.m., Altynbay said, about 70 people had voted. That is roughly a quarter of the eligible electorate in the country, and they kept arriving through the morning. Some brought children. Some came with family. A few stopped to greet one another at the gate before going in. The Seoul station is one of 79 the Central Election Commission opened at Kazakh diplomatic missions in 61 countries. Voters abroad receive the same ballot as those at home, and there is no postal or online option. At stake are all 145 seats of the Kurultai, the single chamber that replaced the Senate and the Mazhilis when a new constitution took effect July 1. Seven parties are running 545 candidates in one nationwide district. Self-nomination is not allowed. Ulanbek Aueskhan came on his day off with his five-year-old son. He has lived in South Korea for more than 10 years, took his bachelor's degree through his doctorate here, and works as a researcher at Samsung Electronics. He said he brought the boy deliberately. "I wanted to show him," Aueskhan said. "Our country does this. He should see it while he is young, and experience it directly." Voting from abroad, he said, was a way of staying useful to a country he no longer lives in. "We are outside the country, but there is still a contribution to make," he said. "Even from Korea, we can support Kazakhstan." Asked what the new chamber would change, he pointed to the merger itself. "Until now there were the Senate and the Mazhilis," he said. "Now they are combining, so decisions can be made faster." Alisher Saduakas, 28, arrived with him. They are colleagues, both researchers at Samsung Electronics, and Saduakas lives in Suwon. He has been in South Korea for 10 years and had never voted in his life. "I had no plans to vote," he said. "Ulanbek said we should come and do it together. This is the first time, and it feels good." What changed, he said, was that he can now follow what is happening at home. "There was no Kurultai before, and things were complicated," Saduakas said. "Now I can see how it works on social media, what is moving in Kazakhstan. So I thought I could support it too." Kazakhstan's ambassador to South Korea, Asset Issenali, who presented his credentials on July 22, was at the embassy as voters came through. He said the country was in the middle of political and economic transformation, and that the new chamber would let it pass legislation to make economic reform more effective. "This will be a stepping stone," Issenali said. Polls close in Kazakhstan on Sunday evening. The commission has accredited 781 foreign and international observers, among them 39 long-term and 208 short-term monitors sent by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe through its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Aueskhan's son waited beside him while he marked his ballot. "From a young age, here, you have to show them," his father said. 2026-08-23 16:22:04 -
Kazakhstan President Urges Voter Participation Ahead of First Kurultai Election Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on citizens to participate in the upcoming Kurultai election during a national address on August 21, the last day of the official campaign period. Tokayev described the election as a truly historic event and a starting point for reforms under the new constitution that took effect on July 1. "With the enactment of the people's constitution, this election will mark the beginning of new reforms," he said, adding that it would open a new chapter in the history of modern Kazakhstan. The term 'people's constitution' is how Tokayev refers to the new constitution. On August 23, all 145 seats in the Kurultai will be contested. The new constitution, which passed a national referendum on March 15, established a unicameral parliament by abolishing the Senate and the Mazhilis. According to the Central Election Commission, the approval rate for the new constitution was 87.15%, with a voter turnout of 73.12%. Seven political parties have nominated a total of 545 candidates. The entire country serves as a single electoral district, and only parties that receive more than 5% of valid votes will gain seats. Independent candidates are not allowed. There are 12,605,788 registered voters. Tokayev noted that he informed each party of the election schedule in advance to allow for adequate preparation. He praised the campaign as substantive, open, competitive, and mature, reflecting a common perception among the public. Political parties have presented their platforms through voter meetings, media promotions, nationwide television debates, and social media discussions, providing voters with opportunities to compare their proposals. The Adilet party, listed first on the ballot, has nominated 186 candidates, more than double that of any other party. Registered on June 1, this party absorbed the Amanat party following a decision at its party congress that same month. Amanat was the largest party in the Mazhilis, securing 53.9% of the vote in the 2023 general election. In his address, Tokayev did not mention any specific parties or candidates but noted a shift in social agendas. He welcomed the emergence of new figures and ideas, particularly from youth, professional organizations, and entrepreneurs. He characterized this as a sign of political renewal and a result of his reforms aimed at enhancing political culture and broadening public participation in governance. He stated, "The new legislative body should serve as a common platform for constructive views and aspirations," asserting that the Kurultai would accelerate the pace of national modernization. He also referenced unprecedented geopolitical tensions and growing global challenges, emphasizing that Kazakhstan must steadfastly pursue its strategy toward becoming a true developed nation, acknowledging that significant challenges remain before achieving this goal. He added that both domestic and international observers would monitor the election process, with activities planned at polling stations on election day. The Central Election Commission has approved 781 foreign and international observers as of August 17, including 39 long-term and 208 short-term observers sent by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) through its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The campaign period ended at midnight on August 21, with August 22 designated as a day of reflection. The publication of opinion polls and predictive surveys has been prohibited since August 18. Tokayev emphasized that participating in the vote is the highest expression of the people's will, noting that millions around the world are still fighting for their right to vote. He concluded his address by quoting a Kazakh proverb, "Keliship pishken ton kelte bolmas," which means that the decision made together is the wisest.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-08-22 19:52:00 -
President Tokayev urges Kazakhs to vote in first Kurultai election SEOUL, August 22 (AJP) - With one day to go before Kazakhstan chooses a new single-chamber parliament, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on citizens to turn out, casting Sunday's vote as the start of a fresh cycle of reform under a constitution that took effect seven weeks ago. Tokayev issued the appeal in an address to the nation published Aug. 21 (local time), the final day on which campaigning was permitted. He called the election a truly historic event. Voters choose all 145 seats of the Kurultai, the chamber that replaced the Mazhilis and the Senate when the new constitution came into force on July 1. Seven parties are fielding 545 candidates in a single nationwide district. Seats go only to parties that clear five percent of valid votes. Self-nomination is not allowed. The Central Election Commission has registered 12,605,788 voters. The constitution was approved in a referendum on March 15, with the Central Election Commission (CEC) reporting support at 87.15 percent on turnout of 73.12 percent. Tokayev calls it the People's Constitution, and in the address he tied Sunday's vote directly to it. "With the entry into force of the People's Constitution, these elections will become the starting point of new reforms," he said, adding that they would open a new chapter in the country's modern history. He said he had announced the election well in advance so that every party could prepare. The campaign that followed was substantive, open, competitive and civilized, he said, and called that the general view among citizens. Parties set out their programs at voter meetings, in the media, in nationwide televised debates and in arguments on social media, he said, giving people a chance to weigh competing visions of the country's future. Adilet, which holds first place on the ballot, is running 186 candidates, more than double any rival list. The party was registered June 1 and absorbed Amanat, which took 53.9 percent in 2023 and held the largest bloc in the Mazhilis, after congresses of both parties approved the merger that month. Tokayev named no party and endorsed no candidate. He instead pointed to what he called a shift in the public conversation, with new faces and new arguments emerging. He said he was particularly pleased that young people, professional associations and entrepreneurs had joined the debate, describing it as a sign of political renewal and crediting his own program of raising political culture and widening public participation in government. "The new legislative body must become a common platform for constructive views and aspirations," he said, adding that the Kurultai would set a high tempo for the country's modernization. He placed that task against what he called unprecedented geopolitical tension and mounting global challenges. Kazakhstan had to hold to its strategy of becoming a genuinely developed state, he said, and faced difficult work to join the front rank of nations. Domestic and international observers followed the campaign and will be present at polling stations on Sunday, he said. The CEC had accredited 781 foreign and international observers as of Aug. 17. They include 39 long-term and 208 short-term monitors sent by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe through its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The address ran on the last day campaigning was allowed. Aug. 22 is set aside as a day of electoral silence, and publication of opinion polls and forecasts has been barred since Aug. 18. Tokayev closed by calling participation the highest expression of the popular will, and noted that millions of people around the world are still fighting for the right to vote. He ended on a Kazakh proverb, "Kelisip pishken ton kelte bolmas," which he glossed as meaning that a decision taken together is the wisest. 2026-08-22 19:45:06 -
Brazilian artists donate works to Seoul embassy before Biennale SEOUL, August 22 (AJP) - Thirteen Brazilian artists have donated works to the permanent collection of the Brazilian Embassy in Seoul, the embassy announced at a closing reception Friday evening, just over two weeks before their country opens its first national pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale. The pavilion, "Devorações do Amanhã – Brasil em rebento," or "Devouring Tomorrow," opens Sept. 5 at the Gwangju History and Folk Museum and runs through Nov. 15. It brings together 35 Brazilian artists across several generations and regions, under curators Aldones Nino and Bruna Levi. The Gwangju Biennale has hosted national pavilions alongside its main exhibition since 2018. Brazil has never had one until now. The announcement came at Brazil Hall, the embassy's cultural space in Samcheong-dong in central Seoul, where roughly 60 guests gathered on the final night of a three-week artist residency called Tropismo. Diplomats, artists and invited guests moved through a room still holding the work made there over the past three weeks. Aldones Nino, a Brazilian curator based in Spain, told the room that works by Ayla Tavares, Heloisa Hariadne, Isabella Ogêda, Lucas Lugarinho, Manauara Clandestina, Marcos Chaves, Maruan Sipert, Nathan Braga, Patrícia Abbott, Shinji Nagabe, Vicente de Mello, Uýra Capelobo and Vinicius Gerheim would enter the embassy collection. He said the residency was never meant to be a warm-up for the exhibition in Gwangju. "When I first envisioned this program, I wanted to create something that would go beyond serving as a preparatory stage for an exhibition," Nino said. Ambassador Fernando Meirelles de Azevedo Pimentel, who presented his credentials to President Lee Jae Myung on July 22, said the donations matter to how the mission presents Brazil in South Korea. "It is for us critical that the embassy becomes also the face of Brazil," the ambassador said. "We show our people, we show our art, and we cannot do it in a more beautiful way than through the contributions we will be receiving from the artists." He reached for a Korean idea to describe what the residency had done. Tropism, in biology, is the way a plant grows toward light or water. The ambassador said it echoed Cheon-ji-in, an old Korean and East Asian framework that treats heaven, earth and human beings as one connected whole. The three elements are familiar to most Koreans from the alphabet itself, since the vowels of hangeul are built from a dot for heaven, a horizontal line for earth and a vertical line for a standing person. "Tropism and Cheon-Ji-In emerge from different traditions, but they share a simple and profound insight: we do not grow in isolation," he said. The residency ran on almost nothing. According to the organizers' own transparency statement, the embassy lent Brazil Hall free of charge, and there was no budget for airfare, accommodation, production or operating costs. The artists covered those themselves. Vicente de Mello, a photographer who is also among the donors, directed the program day to day. The ambassador said the artists pushed to stay past closing. "The artists kept bugging us to give them more time, leave the studio later. 'We need to work until midnight,'" he said. "We did as much as we could. I'm sure they liked the overtime." Some of the work went well outside a studio. Isabella Ogêda, who works at the meeting point of art and science, spent part of her stay at a nuclear fusion laboratory. "My time in Korea has included research with the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE) and a visit to KSTAR in Daejeon, which has been particularly important for the new work I am developing," she said. KSTAR is South Korea's superconducting fusion research reactor, a machine that holds plasma at temperatures far hotter than the core of the sun in an attempt to reproduce the reaction that powers stars. Speaking after the reception, Nino said the value of a residency shows up later, in how artists work once they are home. "There are artists who made their artwork in a specific form, but after this experience, a lot of artists changed the mode to create their artworks," he said. "I believe this is the strongest point in an artistic residency: the moment the artist goes back to their country and changes the mode to see the world." He said Asia remains largely unexplored territory for Brazilian artists. "In Brazil, it's very common to have connections with Europe and North America, but with the Asian world, the artists don't have the opportunity to investigate," Nino said. He said his hope for the pavilion is that it runs in both directions, with more Brazilian artists showing in South Korea and Korean artists invited to Brazil. The 16th Gwangju Biennale, directed by Ho Tzu Nyen under the title "You Must Change Your Life," opens Sept. 5 and runs to Nov. 15. 2026-08-22 19:21:24 -
Kookmin engineering students exhibit 10 years of car drawings SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - Engineering students at a Seoul university have spent a decade learning to draw the machines they study, and the results are on public view this month and next in two exhibitions outside their own campus. The show is called The Drawing, and it runs at the BODA Gallery at Incheon Academy of Science and Arts through Aug. 27 before moving to the Kyung Hee University Museum of Art, where it stays through Sept. 11. Kookmin University is presenting it as part of its 80th anniversary. The university was founded in September 1946. The exercise behind it began in 2017 as an attempt to put drawing into engineering education. Students in Kookmin's automotive and mobility program observe cars and mechanical systems directly and draw what they see, on the theory that the act of rendering something forces a closer look at it than reading a specification does. The stated aim is to sharpen observation and spatial reasoning rather than to produce artists. Ten editions later it has grown past the classroom. This year's exhibition brings in fine arts students from Kyung Hee University and a group of invited artists, so the drawings hang alongside work made from an entirely different training. The Incheon leg is tied to that school's own 10th anniversary. Incheon Academy of Science and Arts, a state-run school for gifted students that opened in 2016, teaches science and the arts together, which makes it an unusually apt room for the material. The exhibition is organized by Kookmin's program office for future mobility, part of a government-funded scheme that has universities share courses across institutions in priority fields. Shin Sung-hwan heads the office. Lee Dong-heon, the Kookmin professor who has taught the course and prepared the exhibitions, said the drawings are not judged as drawings. "The Drawing is not aimed at drawing well," Lee said. "The meaning is in the process of observing a subject closely and visually expressing the structure and the relationships you have understood." He said the tenth year had widened the show into an exchange among several educational institutions, students from different majors, and working artists. 2026-08-21 16:18:48 -
BOYNEXTDOOR opens 13-show Japan run with new single SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - The Japan leg of K-pop boy band BOYNEXTDOOR's first world tour opens Friday at K-Arena Yokohama, the start of a three-night run that carries the six-member group through 13 shows in six cities into October. Last year, the group played six Japanese cities across 13 dates, but in concert halls seating a few thousand, venues such as Pacifico Yokohama and Fukuoka Sunpalace. Every date sold out. This year, the same city count runs through arenas, starting with K-Arena Yokohama and taking in Osaka-jo Hall in September. After Yokohama, the tour moves to Saga on Aug. 29 and 30, Osaka on Sept. 9 and 10, Miyagi on Sept. 19 and 20, Nagano on Sept. 25 and 26, and Chiba on Oct. 10 and 11. The Saga show on Aug. 29 will be screened live in cinemas worldwide. The Yokohama shows carry the first tour performance of "Boom Boom Boom," the group's second Japanese digital single, released Aug. 18. The song had its first live airing the night before on TBS's music program "CDTV Live! Live!" KOZ Entertainment said the track entered LINE Music's real-time song chart and reached No. 6 on the iTunes Japan top songs chart as of midnight on Aug. 19, and came in at No. 5 on Oricon's daily digital singles ranking dated Aug. 18. Both of the group's Japanese singles have been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. BOYNEXTDOOR, made up of Sungho, Riwoo, Jaehyun, Taesan, Leehan and Woonhak, debuted in May 2023 as the first idol group launched by KOZ Entertainment, the label founded by the rapper Zico, who produces the group himself. KOZ operates under HYBE, the company that also houses BTS. The tour opened in Seoul from July 17 to 19 at KSPO DOME, where the group played to about 31,800 people over three nights, then moved to Busan for three days at Sajik Arena from July 31 to Aug. 2. "We are glad to show how much we have grown," the members said in a statement released through KOZ Entertainment ahead of the Yokohama opening. Between the Japanese dates, the group returns to Korean promotion. A repackaged edition of HOME, its first studio album, released in June, arrives Sept. 28, with domestic activity through October before the Chiba shows close out the Japan leg. Knock On Vol.2 runs 34 shows in 24 cities, including a North American leg from late October and a final Asian stretch, and ends in Bangkok on Jan. 30, 2027. 2026-08-21 16:05:38 -
BIGBANG returns as trio for first stadium tour in 9 years SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - Nine years after its last full tour, BIGBANG opens a 20th anniversary world tour Friday at Goyang Stadium northwest of Seoul, the first concert run in the group's history with three members on stage instead of five. The Goyang shows run three nights through Sunday and are sold out, including seats released later with restricted views. General ticketing drew roughly 210,000 people into the online queue at once, the heaviest demand for any single concert or festival sale in South Korea this year. Domestic tickets were sold exclusively through Coupang Play, which is also the presenting sponsor. BIGBANG debuted on Aug. 19, 2006, and spent the following decade as one of the defining acts of K-pop's second generation, with hits including "Lies," "Haru Haru" and "Bang Bang Bang." The lineup narrowed to three, G-Dragon, Taeyang and Daesung, after the departures of Seungri and T.O.P. The group's last full touring cycle ended with the Last Dance tour in 2017. Friday's show also carries the first live performance of "BiiiG," a digital single released on Aug. 19, the exact date of the group's 20th anniversary. It is BIGBANG's first release in four years and four months, since "Still Life" in April 2022. G-Dragon wrote and composed the track, a high-energy hip-hop song built on a heavy beat and a repeating hook. The set list mixes those older hits with solo segments for each member. All three took part in building the show, working on the song order, the stage design and the direction. The production leans heavily on overseas talent. A live band led by Wow Jones, who has worked with Usher, Post Malone and Rihanna, plays every song. Mike Carson, who directed the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, and Es Devlin, who designed the stage for the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony, both worked on the staging. The centerpiece is a 23-ton moving LED structure that uses multi-motor torque synchronization to shift position during the show. The tour title, "XX : COSMOS," gave the group a theme to build promotions around. BIGBANG filmed a collaboration with a Korean science YouTube channel on the physics of the actual big bang, and the Korea AeroSpace Administration named the three its first honorary ambassadors. A fan event on the Han River, a lighting show around Jamsil and a media exhibition in central Seoul filled out the run-up. G-Dragon announced the tour himself in April, from the stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where BIGBANG performed a roughly hour-long set. After Goyang, the tour moves through 19 cities and 33 shows across North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia, including Auckland, Paris, London, Sydney, Tokyo and Jakarta. YG Entertainment said more dates and locations will be announced, so the final count may grow. Demand outside South Korea has followed a similar pattern, with the Auckland date selling out in 30 minutes and a second show added. "BiiiG" reached No. 1 on iTunes song charts in 24 regions and hit No. 2 on the worldwide song chart, according to YG Entertainment. At home it went to No. 1 on Melon's TOP100 one hour after release, on a chart that combines 24-hour listening data with the most recent hour, and set this year's record on the platform for the most listeners in a song's first hour. 2026-08-21 15:48:38