South Korea has completed building a hospital and two training centers for police and job-seekers inside its base in northern Afghanistan, as part of efforts to help rebuild the war-torn nation, an official said Wednesday. The nation‘s provincial reconstruction team (PRT), comprised of some 90 aid workers and police officers, have facilitated reconstruction and development projects in the city o...

BRUSSELS (AFP) -- The European Union backed on Monday an Arab League call for a UN peacekeeping mission in Syria and urged the UN Security Council to act in order to stop the violence there. "We welcome these bold decisions and the strong and clear commitment and leadership that the Arab League is taking to resolve the crisis in Syria," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Ca...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) _ The Taliban's former defense minister died in a Pakistani jail in 2010, a spokesman for the insurgent group said Monday. Little had been heard of Obaidullah Akhund since he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2007. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Monday that relatives have just recently been informed that Obaidullah died of heart disease in a Karachi pris...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is facing public criticism over its decision to belatedly raise the travel alert for the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt after three Koreans were abducted and later freed by armed tribesmen. However, a ministry official said the government had already released travel warnings for the region through the ministry before the kidnapping occurred. The ministry rais...

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― President Barack Obama should step up efforts to reach out to South Korea’s opposition forces, especially amid the possibility of a power shift there in the year of parliamentary and presidential elections, an American expert said Sunday. David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research ...

A Kashmir solidarity event has been attended by the Pakistani ambassador and members of the Pakistani community in Korea. The Friends of Kashmir Association issued a statement saying that the event in Seoul was held to “express solidarity with the people of Kashmir in their valiant struggle against the repressive occupation of India.” But the Indian ambassador to Korea called the event hostile ...

Korea and Denmark could collaborate on projects to unlock the Arctic’s full potential, the Danish ambassador to Seoul has said. The Scandinavian country ― along with its autonomous regions of Greenland and the Faroe Islands ― last year published an Arctic Strategy up to 2020. The region is thought to contain 30 percent of the world’s unproven gas reserves and 10 percent of the world’s untapped ...

DOHA (Yonhap News) -- Leaders of South Korea and Qatar agreed Thursday to form a top-level cooperation mechanism handling all issues of cooperation between the two countries from oil and energy to science and technology, military and security, and green growth, officials said. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed to the establishment of a “High-level Strategic Cooperation Committee” after...

A little more than 200 Swiss people living here have chosen to make Korea their home, but none have set up house in as unique a way as Swiss artist Gregory Chapuisat. The visiting artist has spent the last few weeks building a “house” from rough-hewn pine planks in the pristine white interior of a gallery in Seoul’s plush Apgujeong. The three-story high instillation is itself housed in the Song...

Azerbaijan, Lithuania and Denmark have agreed to take part in a global summit aimed at bolstering international safeguards and preventing nuclear terrorism to be held in March in South Korea, organizers said Thursday. Their inclusion will bring the number of nations participating in the March 26-27 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul to 50. The Seoul summit will be second since U.S. President Barac...