TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A Taiwanese flight carrying 58 people turned on its side in midair, clipped an elevated roadway and careened into a shallow river Wednesday shortly after taking off from Taipei, killing at least 19 people and leaving 24 missing, officials and media reports said.More than half of the passengers aboard TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 were from China and the death toll was expected to rise as rescue crews cleared the mostly submerged fuselage in the Keelung River. Teams in rub

South Korea's foreign minister plans to hold talks with his U.S. counterpart in Germany this weekend to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program and other bilateral issues, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which kicks off Friday for three days, the ministry said.Yun will fly to Germany on Thursday for a four-day stay, which includes a planned

The prosecution on Monday called for the court to sentence Cho Hyun-ah, former vice president of Korean Air, to three years in prison on charges of obstructing aviation safety and coercing cabin crew staff to make false statements over the so-called “nut-rage” incident.                                              Cho Hyun-ahCho, 40, had caused public uproar by forcing a cabin crew chief to disembark from a flight from New York to Seoul on Dec. 5 after not following the carrier’s protocol on ser

Korean Air Lines Co., South Korea's largest flag carrier, said Tuesday it will sell more than 500 billion won ($455 million) worth of shares to raise money needed to repay debt.The company's board of directors decided to sell 14,164,306 shares at 35,300 won apiece, it said in a regulatory filing.The share offering will increase the number of the company's outstanding shares to 73,950,538.Korean Air said the raised money will be used to repay debts and improve its financial status."This will help

BOSTON (AP) -- Two women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual offenses decades ago have joined a defamation lawsuit, contending the comedian publicly branded them as liars through statements by his representatives.The amended complaint was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, in western Massachusetts, where Cosby has a home in Shelburne Falls.Cosby is the only defendant in the lawsuit, originally filed last month by Tamara Green, who said he drugged and assaulted her in the 1970s. The tw

FRESNO, California (AP) -- California's high-speed rail project reaches a milestone Tuesday as officials mark the start of work on the first U.S. bullet train, which is designed to whisk travelers at 200 mph (320 kph) between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours.The ceremony in Fresno comes amid challenges from Central Valley farmers and communities in the train's path who have sued to block it and from Republican members of Congress who vow to cut funding for the $68 billion p

Prosecutors have decided to deport a Korean-American woman accused of making pro-North Korea remarks at a series of talk shows she hosted in South Korea, prosecution sources said Tuesday.Shin Eun-mi, 54, allegedly made comments sympathetic to Pyongyang alongside her South Korean co-host Hwang Sun at on-stage talk shows they hosted from November to December last year. Local conservative groups filed a complaint with police in November, accusing them violating of Seoul's National Security Law.In S

서울지방경찰청은 최근 금융사고가 발생한 하나대투증권에 대한 내사에 착수했다. 이 증권사 고객의 돈이 타인의 계좌로 무단 이체된 혐의다.11일 경찰과 금융당국에 따르면 하나대투증권 고객 ㄱ씨가 보유한 주식이 본인도 모르는 사이에 전량 매도됐다. 공인인증서가 ㄱ씨의 동의없이 재발급 됐고 해커는 ㄱ씨 몰래 1천만원 상당의 주식을 매도했다.이어 대포통장계좌를 통해 매도 후의 예수금을 인출해간 것으로 알려졌다.하나대투증권은 또 ㄱ씨의 신원확인을 제대로 하지 않은 채 주식을 담보로 대출을 해 준 혐의를 받고 있다. ㄱ씨가 아닌 타인이 대출승인을 받은 것이다.이 증권사는 수사경과 및 금융감독원의 조처를 지켜본 뒤 보상 여부를 검토하겠다는 입장을 밝혔다.<코리아헤럴드 김연세 기자> (kys@heraldcorp.com)

Fifty workers were injured after a lethal chemical was leaked at a plating factory in the southeastern city of Daegu on Wednesday, authorities said.Hypochlorite was leaked at the Yeongnam Metal Co. plating factory at around 12:23 p.m., when some workers mistakenly poured the chemical from a truck into a tank filled with sulfuric acid, which produced toxic gas, according to firefighting authorities and company officials.A total of 50 workers there suffered injuries, and were taken to nearby hospi

The head of South Korea's top mobile messenger operator, Daum Kakao, was questioned Wednesday on charges of allowing massive amounts of child pornography to be shared on its social networking service, Kakao Group, police said.Lee Sirgoo, the co-CEO of Daum Kakao, arrived at the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency in this central city at around 8:30 p.m. to answer allegations that he failed to prevent child pornography from being freely exchanged on Kakao Group, a mobile app designed for messaging

North Korea would possess some 20 nuclear bombs by 2016, and it could conduct several rounds of detonation tests to miniaturize nuclear warheads, a renowned U.S. nuclear scientist said Wednesday."North Korea is presumed to have the capability of producing some four nuclear bombs per year, and it appears that the North will possess some 20 nuclear bombs by 2016," Siegfried Hecker, a research professor at Stanford University who visited the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex in 2010, was quoted as s

Chinese travel firms specializing in tours to North Korea have been bearing the brunt of dwindling revenues as the North continues to ban all foreigners from visiting the country due to fears over the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, according to a Chinese state media report on Saturday.Reclusive North Korea began barring foreign tourists from entering the country on Oct. 23 and required all foreigners visiting the North to be put under quarantine for 21 days as a precaution against the spread

NEW YORK CITY (AP) -  Protesters around the country rallied for a third day over a New York grand jury's decision to not indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man.Protesters rally near LAPD headquarters on Dec. 5 in Los Angeles. The decision follows a similar ruling last week in which white Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson was not indicted in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. Those protests resulted in hundreds of arrest

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles police opened an investigation on Friday into a woman's claims that Bill Cosby molested her when she was 15 years old, a department spokeswoman said.The investigation was opened after Judy Huth, who is suing Cosby for sexual battery, met with Los Angeles police detectives for 90 minutes.Los Angeles Police Officer Jane Kim said the department opened its investigation after the meeting.Huth's civil suit claims Cosby forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom

North Korea has removed the legal limit for wages paid to its workers at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, the North's propaganda site said Saturday, a move that could cause tension with South Korea, which co-runs the industrial park with the reclusive regime.The North revised the Act on Gaeseong Complex laborers late last month, scrapping the upper ceiling for workers' wages, according to Uriminzokkiri, one of the country's major propaganda sites.The site also said that raises will be set every

A soon-to-be-released comedy film about a plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will likely be a "blockbuster" thanks to the strong protests Pyongyang has raised about it, the U.S. human rights envoy said Friday.The North has expressed strong anger about the movie, "The Interview," which tells the story of two Americans journalists who land an interview with the North's leader in Pyongyang but are then recruited by the CIA to kill him."It will probably be a blockbuster when it comes out t

The U.N. Security Council is expected to take up North Korea's human rights problem as early as later this month as 10 council members signed a letter calling for adding the issue to its agenda, the U.S. human rights envoy said Friday.Australia, the United States and South Korea were among the countries that signed the letter to the council's president earlier in the day, one more than the nine countries needed to put an issue on the 15-member council's agenda, Amb. Robert King said during a Woo

A fire occurred at Guryong village in Gaepo district, southern Seoul, at around 2 p.m., causing 139 residents to evacuate.Police said a 71-year-old resident was found dead around 7 p.m.Firefighter were able to contain most of the blaze at about 3:30 p.m., and are continuing to put out the last flames.The fire, which started at a junk shop, burned through some 900 square meters of the town, including some 60 residences in 16 unauthorized housing structures.Most residents evacuated to a nearby mid

BEIRUT (AFP) - More than 1,000 people, mostly jihadists, have been killed in Kobane since the Islamic State group launched an offensive on the Syrian town nearly two months ago, a monitor said Sunday.IS jihadists, who proclaimed a "caliphate" in June straddling territory captured in Iraq and Syria, launched their offensive for the town -- also known as Ain al-Arab -- in mid-September."At least 1,013 people have been killed in fighting in Ain al-Arab from the beginning of the offensive till last

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia opened polling stations on Sunday to hold an informal vote on independence that the central government has called illegal.The regional Catalan government pushed forward with the vote despite Spain's Constitutional Court ordering its suspension on Tuesday after it agreed to hear the Spanish government's challenge that the poll is unconstitutional.“`Despite the enormous impediments, we have been able to get out the ballot boxes and v