Nelson Mandela's health has deteriorated and he is now in critical condition, the South African government said Sunday.The office of President Jacob Zuma said in a statement that he had visited the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader at a hospital Sunday evening and was informed by the medical team that Mandela's condition had become critical in the past 24 hours.“The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well-looked after and is comf

PeopleJune 24, 2013

In the history of music, certain artists always will be twined with certain venues: Charlie Parker and Birdland, the Apollo Theater and Ella Fitzgerald, James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera House.The number of performers who’ve played the Hollywood Bowl is so long and venerable that no single name could dominate its legacy, not even that of the Fab Four. But over the last eight years, since he made his Bowl debut as a 24-year-old conducting Silvestre Revueltas’ “La Noche de los Mayas” and Tch

PerformanceJune 23, 2013

The man said he would show some moves. In a blink of an eye, his body spun a couple of times with just his hands touching the floor. Thanks to his relatively long legs ― and taekwondo training in his early teens ― the spins performed by break dancer VERO are larger and more dramatic than average Korean b-boys, but somehow lighter and very well controlled. With his signature spins, the 27-year-old dancer became a household name in the b-boy circle. VERO, whose real name is Jang Ji-kwang, won the

PerformanceJune 23, 2013

“The Defector,” a documentary film directed and produced by a Canadian-Korean director, will have a free screening in Toronto next month, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Saturday.The film by award-winning director Ann Shin will be screened at Innis Town Hall of the University of Toronto on July 4, the Washington-based radio station said.The film takes the Toronto-based director on an arduous journey with two North Korean defectors, who have high hopes of gaining a better life in South Korea, from

FilmJune 23, 2013

An overweight 20-year-old man with breasts and “unattractive facial features,” as well as a 30-year-old woman suffering from excessive hair growth due to a hormonal malfunction boasted that they have found a second life. They each went under the knife and were strongly driven to shed the weight. And when they walked out into the “world” with vulnerable hearts, hundreds of thousands of people gave them the “victory” sign and applauded them for looking “unbelievably great.” These were the lucky tw

CultureJune 23, 2013

Herald Corp. chairman Jungwook Hong gives a lecture on leadership to about 100 members of the Future CEO Academy at Novotel Ambassador Gangnam in Seoul on Thursday. The academy is an association of alumni of a Korea Management Association program for second- and third-generation chief executives. (Lee Sang-sub/The Korea Herald)

PeopleJune 23, 2013

Larry Kinard’s Korean War memories come back to him with a vivid clarity, which makes him shudder at the recollection of being so close to death.One of them is of an incident that took place in 1952, three years after he became a U.S. Army second lieutenant to serve in the 3rd Infantry Division on the front-line. He was 22. Looking out at the enemy territory over the Imjin River, an artillery shell exploded just 22 meters in front of a four-member observation team. “It literally blew us out of t

PeopleJune 23, 2013

Cherry tomatoes, still green, soak in the summer sun, taking their sweet time to ripen. Romaine lettuce blooms in long, emerald stalks. The roof garden at Garosu-gil-based cafe Able is a pastoral scene of rustic charm, a scene that seems to be in tune with today’s “healing” and “well-being” trends. “We felt the need to not waste anything, to use everything,” Able co-owner Cha Eun-young said on how the garden came into being when the flower shop-cafe opened in Seoul last summer. “We decided we co

FoodJune 21, 2013

Theater“A Tale of Two Cities”: “A Tale of Two Cities,” a musical based on the novel of the same title by Charles Dickens, is being restaged in Seoul after its first run in the city last year. The piece is set against the conflicts between the rebels and aristocracy during the French revolution and its parallel world in 18th-century London. It tells the story of Sydney Carton, a shrewd young English lawyer who develops a strong, unrequited love for Lucie Manette, a young, loving French woman who

CultureJune 21, 2013

Cold Eyes, Opening July 4Crime. Action. Directed by Joh Ui-seok and Kim Byeong-seo. In a remake of the 2007 Hong Kong film “Eye in the Sky,” rookie detective Ha Yoon-ju (Han Hyo-joo) joins a special crime unit within the police department that specializes in surveillance of high profile criminals. Soon, a bank is robbed by armed men. Detective Ha teams up with Hwang Won-jin (Sol Kyung-gu), the veteran leader of the unit, and tries to track down the criminal organization led by cold-hearted leade

FilmJune 21, 2013

Tyrell pays tribute to Cahn on new albumSteve Tyrell“It‘s Magic: The Songs of Sammy Cahn”(Concord)Late blooming crooner Steve Tyrell burnishes his reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the Great American Songbook with this tribute marking the centennial of the birth of Sammy Cahn, the lyricist who gave voice to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in the early 1960s.Tyrell’s rough-hewn baritone - with the slight twang of his native Texas - gives him the swagger to put his own stamp on such C

PerformanceJune 21, 2013

It’s been a dozen years since the release of Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.,” but it didn’t take much for Billy Crystal to get back into the spirit to voice Mike Wazowski for the follow-up film “Monsters University.” He’s seen “Monsters, Inc.” many times with his grandchildren. What was important to him was that he wanted to do a movie suitable for all grandchildren.Crystal’s sad there aren’t a lot of movies in theaters that he considers true family films.“We are seeing the disintegration of the family

FilmJune 21, 2013

BAENGNYEONGDO ISLAND ― Baengnyeongdo Island is approximately 226 km off the coast of Incheon, in Ongjin County and stands as the northernmost territory of South Korea. Located near the Northern Limit Line ― a demarcation line in the Yellow Sea separating the South and the North ― the remote island is actually north of the Demarcation Line and at its closest, is only a mere 13 km from North Korea’s mainland.On an island where the general population is outnumbered by the number of military station

TravelJune 21, 2013