ROME -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye met Pope Francis in the Vatican on Friday as she arrived in Rome to reciprocate his visit to South Korea in August. She thanked the pope for his dedication to promoting world peace, and asked for his prayers for peace on the Korean Peninsula, which has been divided for more than 60 years.She was set to meet Italian leaders later in the afternoon to strengthen diplomatic ties and seek broader partnership for the future.Rome was the final destination of

South Korean President Park Geun-hye attended the U.N. Climate Summit held in New York on Tuesday to discuss ways to combat climate change with top global leaders and to reaffirm the nation’s commitment to the global initiative. The climate summit was held to take joint action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a major cause of global warming. South Korea has vowed to take efforts to cut the level of carbon dioxide gas emissions by 30 percent from business-as-usual levels by 2020.Park arrived

   PARIS (AP) _ The killing of an American reporter is galvanizing international anger at Islamic State extremists and fueling fears about the flow of foreign fighters joining their ranks. But governments from the Mideast to Europe and even Washington appear uncertain about how to stop them.    The international police agency Interpol said Thursday it wants a globally coordinated push to stem the tide of international fighters joining the Islamic State group that has swallowed up territory acros

 Unionized workers at South Korea's top carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday that they will hold a partial walkout before this weekend after negotiations with the management stalled on whether to count regular bonuses towards ordinary wages.   The labor union said it plans to wage a four-hour strike from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 10:10 p.m. to 12:10 a.m. on Friday, adding it has also decided to refuse to work overtime this weekend.    "The management did not accept the union's proposals inc

The United States has no objection to South Korea's plan to develop its own missile defense system but hopes that it would be interoperable with the existing U.S. system, a U.S. official said Thursday.   "We want the Korean Air Missile and Defense (KAMD) to be independent and strong," U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O.Work told a news conference at the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek before leaving South Korea.   "What we hope is to have an extremely interoperable system between the United Stat

Two American aid workers infected with Ebola are getting an experimental drug so novel it has never been tested for safety in humans and was only identified as a potential treatment earlier this year, thanks to a research program by the U.S. government and the military.The workers, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly, are improving, although it's impossible to know whether the treatment is the reason or they are recovering on their own, as others who have survived Ebola have done. Brantly is bei

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, two of the world’s biggest smartphone makers, are gearing up for the next big battle with Apple as they are likely to unveil new smartphones before the much-anticipated release of the California-based firm’s iPhone 6 in September.Rumor has it that Samsung Electronics plans to roll out a new smartphone — reportedly named Galaxy S5 F or Galaxy S5 Alpha — sporting a premium metal body, Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa chipset, a 6-mm thick frame and a 4.7-inch Super A

Chinese visitors pose at Shinsegae Centum City in Busan. (Shinsegae Group)Armed with the world’s largest department store, Busan has been drawing Chinese big spenders as one of the most favored shopping destinations in Korea.“A growing number of Chinese visitors are boosting sales of imported luxury goods, made-in-Korea electronics devices and local beauty products,” said an official from the Busan branch of Shinsegae department store. Shinsegae Group, a leading retail giant in Korea, opened Shi

 

The hallways of Seoul Gyeongun School, a polling station in central Seoul, was packed with voters Wednesday afternoon. The majority were senior citizens in their 60s and 70s, some in wheelchairs, as well as young women in their 20s.Among the voters were mothers with their young children, young couples holding hands and a restaurant worker wearing an apron, having just left work. Benches were provided for voters to sit on while waiting. Many fanned themselves with papers, trying to keep cool in t

Early results indicated Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon would score a resounding win against his conservative rival Chung Mong-joon as the ruling Saenuri Party and main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy battled it out in the local elections with seven of the 17 major mayoral and gubernatorial races being contested tightly.Buoyed by the highest-ever early voting rate, this year’s local elections are to see the highest voter participation since the first local elections were held in 1995. A

Putin said Friday at an investment forum that Russia will ``respect the choice of the Ukrainian people.'' He said that Russia wants peace and order to be restored in Ukraine. He added that Russia will be ready to work with the new leadership. At the same time, he voiced hope that Ukraine's new leader will end military actions in eastern Ukraine. (AP)  

EXO-M leader Kris (S.M.Entertainment)While the whereabouts of K-pop boy band EXO-M’s Kris remains unknown, some music watchers reportedly claimed that the idol star had attempted to signal his intention to leave the group before he sued his agency, SM Entertainment.“Kris has broken away from the team before, so the agency‘s staff and fellow members found it difficult to bear,” one source told a local media outlet. The Chinese-born-Canadian allegedly stayed abroad without joining the team for pra

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is preparing to announce first-of-its-kind criminal charges Monday against Chinese military officials in an international cyber-espionage case, a government official said.Attorney General Eric Holder and other federal law enforcement officials were expected to reveal the new indictments later Monday, the official told The Associated Press.The indictments will accuse individuals of participating in cyber-espionage on behalf of a foreign government, said the off

One more body was recovered from the sunken ferry Sewol on Monday, raising the death toll to 287 and lowering the number of those missing to 17, more than a month after the ship sank off South Korea's southwest coast.A joint team of government and civilian divers retrieved the body of a woman wearing a blue long-sleeved hooded shirt and khaki sweatpants from a kitchen on the third deck, officials said.Search operations were halted earlier in the day after a wire connecting an anchor chain to a b

Eleven people were injured Monday after an insulator exploded on a subway train in Gunpo, just south of Seoul, officials said.The explosion occurred around 6:56 p.m. as the train was entering Geumjeong station on Line 4, causing some of the train'swindows to break and wounding eleven people on the platform, police and fire officials said.The wounded were taken to a hospital, they added."It appears that the accident occurred as an insulator connecting the train to the electric supply equipment su

Major banking group KB Financial Group Inc., retail giant Lotte Group, and three others offered their bids to buy LIG Insurance Co., a local non-life insurer which has been on the selling block since late last year, industry sources said Monday.LIG Group, a mid-sized conglomerate, has put up some 21 percent in the country's No. 5 non-life insurer to secure cash to compensate retail investors for losses incurred from its 2011 financial fraud scandal.The price tag for LIG Insurance ranges from 400

BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) -- One of the teenagers who escaped from Islamic extremists who abducted more than 300 schoolgirls said Sunday the kidnapping was “too terrifying for words,” and she is scared to go back to school.  Science student Sarah Lawan, 19, told the Associated Press that more of the girls could have escaped but that they were frightened by their captors' threats to shoot them. Lawan spoke in the Hausa language in a phone interview from Chibok, her home and the site of the mass abduct

German Ambassador to South Korea Rolf Mafael presented two Korean professors with awards in Seoul on Thursday for their efforts in developing cooperation in scientific research and academic scholarship, and for facilitating the study of German language here in South Korea.Shin Yoo-chul, director of the Law Research Institute at Chungnam National University in Daejeon, and Kim Yoon-su, who served as president of Chonnam National University from  2008 to 2012, were each awarded an Order of Merit o

President Park Geun-hye on Friday proposed the establishment of inter-Korean cooperative offices and pledged to expand humanitarian, financial and infrastructure support for the North as part of measures to lay the foundation for an eventual reunification. In an address in the former East German city of Dresden, she laid out a three-point agenda to “break down the barriers” across the border.Just as citizens of the two Germanys were allowed to visit each other before unification, the two Koreas