SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Yonhap) -- Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang arrived Wednesday in South Korea for a two-day visit that is expected to focus on efforts to revive the stalled six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programs and expansion of the bilateral currency swap deal, officials said. Li, widely expected to succeed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao next year, was to meet President Lee Myung-bak and ...

The top U.S. envoy on North Korea has reported some progress after the first day of talks over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the second direct encounter between both sides in less than three months. Speaking to reporters and TV cameras Monday night as he re-entered his lakeside hotel after their first meeting at the United States’ U.N. mission in Geneva, Stephen Bosworth called himself “neither o...

No South Korean casualties have so far been reported in Turkey where a massive earthquake struck its southeastern region killing at least 100 people, the Foreign Ministry here said Monday. A 7.2-magnitude quake hit the Turkish province of Van on Sunday, killing some 140 people and injuring another 350, according to overseas news reports that quoted Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. T...

Enrollment in the upcoming New Zealand general elections and referendum are under way with the elections set for Nov. 26. Eligible New Zealanders overseas can vote in the lead-up to Election Day but must be enrolled first. To be eligible to vote, the person voting must be a New Zealand citizen and have visited New Zealand within the last three years, or a permanent resident of New Zealand and h...

Gumi City and the Netherlands Embassy have teamed up for a special concert by the Gumi City Choir as part of celebrations of 50 years of diplomatic relations. This choral concert is part of a tour starting in Seoul on Nov. 1 before continuing to Breda, Rotterdam and Eindhoven in the Netherlands on Nov. 3, 4 and 5, respectively. The Seoul concert will be held at the Hyehwa Catholic Church from 8 ...

This year’s Canada Education Fairs 2011will take place on Oct. 30 at COEX, southern Seoul. Organized by the Embassy of Canada, the event showcases 64 Canadian institutions including public school districts, private schools, colleges, universities and private language training institutions all ready to meet prospective students and parents with interests in studying in Canada. “The fair will be ...

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik met with his French counterpart Francois Fillon on Friday and agreed to support expanded cooperation between corporations, especially small- and medium-sized ones, from the two countries, Kim's office said. Fillon, the first French prime minister to visit South Korea in 20 years, arrived in Seoul early in the day for a two-day visit. In the meeting, the...

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang will visit South Korea next week for talks on bilateral relations and Korean Peninsula issues, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. Li is the seventh-ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China and is expected to rise to premiership in the next meeting of the National People’s Congress next year. His two-day trip starting...

Japan is expected to return part of the Korean royal archives it took during its decades-long colonial rule during Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s visit to Seoul this week, according to officials here. Noda, who will arrive in Seoul on Tuesday, is expected to discuss the return of the ancient books, the Dokdo islets, North Korea’s nuclear program and a free trade pact during his summit talks wit...

North Korea and the United States will hold a second round of bilateral talks next week in Geneva to discuss the stalled six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear weapons programs, a diplomatic source in Seoul said Monday. “I have learned that a high-level dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. will be held in Geneva,” the source told Yonhap News Agency on the condition of anonymity, adding tha...