Gianni Infantino made his name as UEFA‘s master of ceremonies until scandal forced his boss Michel Platini out of the race for the FIFA presidency. On Friday, after a remarkable journey, the shaven-headed Swiss-Italian lawyer ascended to the job that Platini coveted so much -- the most powerful man in world football. Since becoming UEFA general secretary in 2009, the 45-year-old Infantino becam...

Republicans are refusing to hold a vote or hearings on any candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court nominated by President Barack Obama, complicating his efforts to seek a replacement for deceased conservative Antonin Scalia. And though Obama insists he‘ll put forward an “outstanding candidate” no matter what the Republican Party says, the White House is hard-pressed to offer a convincing scenario i...

As soon as the National Assembly speaker put a controversial antiterrorism bill to a vote late Tuesday, Rep. Kim Kwang-jin of The Minjoo Party of Korea stole the limelight, cracking the record for the longest filibuster, going five hours and 32 minutes. At 34, the 19th National Assembly’s youngest member took the podium at around 7:07 p.m., criticizing the bill at length before stepping down ...

U.S. activist investor Paul Elliott Singer’s Samsung saga may not be over yet. Korea’s financial authorities are moving to seek a prosecutorial investigation into Elliott Associates, a $27 billion hedge fund run by Singer, for a suspected breach of a local disclosure rule regarding its purchase last year of a stake in Samsung Group’s construction unit. Through a 7.12 percent stake in Samsung C&...

With the season for annual shareholders meetings of the nation’s conglomerates approaching, the limelight is on SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won once again. Two months ago, the business tycoon suffered a public backlash with his confession about an extramarital affair and a love child. This time, attention is being paid not to his personal life but to his return to the executive board of key affi...

Five years ago Christine Lagarde smashed through the glass ceiling at one of the world’s leading institutions, becoming the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund. Some had questioned her lack of credentials as an economist. But, as she plunged into the Greece crisis to prevent a meltdown of the eurozone, doubts were quickly swept aside. On Friday the French lawyer and former finan...

Prosecutors on Friday raided the local unit of Volkswagen’s office over allegations that the global automaker had not properly executed the recall orders on its emissions-rigged cars. The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said it confiscated computer hard drives and documents from Volkswagen Korea’s headquarters in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, as well as from the houses of high-ranking c...

WASHINGTON -- Apple‘s challenge of a court order to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers opens up a new front in the long-running battle between technology companies and the government over encryption. The standoff brings the sensitive issue, which has been at a stalemate in Congress, into the courts, and has abruptly shifted the policy debate on encryption. A California m...

Like other chaebol daughters in South Korea, Chung Yu-kyung has stayed under the shadow of her elder brother Chung Yong-jin, heir apparent of the Shinsegae Group. Leading trendy but smaller units like hotel and bakery businesses for years, the only daughter of group chairwoman Lee Myung-hee has been standing out in the succession race for a long time. A recent promotion that placed her on the to...

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (AFP) -- Pope Francis reached out to Mexico’s long-marginalized indigenous population on Monday, asking for forgiveness over their exclusion as he celebrated an open-air mass in native languages in impoverished Chiapas state. While Chiapas is the country’s least Catholic state, tens of thousands of people packed into a sports field for the mass held under a pap...

Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo came under fire Monday after reversing his claim that the government possesses documents to corroborate North Korea’s suspected rerouting of income from a joint industrial park for military uses. The diversion allegation served as the primary grounds for Seoul’s decision to pull out from the Gaeseong factory complex last Wednesday. Since the district’s establis...

President Park Geun-hye will deliver a special speech to the nation at the National Assembly on Tuesday, calling for unity amid heightening inter-Korean strife following military provocations by the North. Having come under fire from progressive critics for her hard-line policies, Park is expected to blame the parliament, urging the parties to expedite the passage of key bills. “President Park ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- During the three decades he spent on the bench, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia embodied the values conservative America holds most dear, from defending the traditional family, to religion and patriotism. The longest-serving justice on the current court, and its first ever Italian-American, Scalia was eulogized after his passing Saturday, aged 79, as a towering figure of...

Escalating tensions between the two Koreas is adding more pressure on North Korea-related business operator Hyundai Group, which is already struggling to save its shipping unit from a deepening liquidity crisis. In response to a recent nuclear test and rocket launch by the North, South Korea on Thursday announced its withdrawal from the Gaeseong industrial park, the last remaining symbol of econ...

One hundred-twenty four South Korean companies that have been producing garments, shoes and watches in North Korea’s border city have become casualties of the unfinished Cold War on the Korean Peninsula, as renewed tensions between the two sides led to a sudden shutdown of a factory complex. North Korea on Thursday said that it was freezing all South Korean assets in Gaeseong Industrial Park and...