South Korea and the United States on Friday conducted a joint air force drill to enhance their coordination in search and rescue for pilots stranded after an emergency bailout on enemy soil, officials said.The drill, held in South Korea's southwestern Jeolla province, is the largest of its kind, mobilizing a pair of HH-60 helicopters, four KF-16, four F-4 and F-5 fighter jets, and six anti-tank A-

Life expectancy in Seocho district, the most affluent in southern Seoul, was 83.1. South Koreans living in the more affluent central southern part of Seoul tend to live longer than those in the north, a study said Thursday, a reflection of widening disparities in the quality of life among the residents of the 10-million-strong capital.According to the study conducted by Cho Young-tae, a public hea

A 26-year-old South Korean man died on Thursday when an explosive he had apparently bought on the Internet and tied to his body exploded, police said.The man identified only by his surname, Oh, had complained of his personal woes for four hours at a local police stand earlier in the morning while claiming he was carrying an explosive, according to the police in this eastern port city of Pohang.The

  Part of a road between Lyttelton and Sumner is damaged by Tuesday's earthquake on the outskirts of Christchurch, New Zealand, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011. The magnitude-6.3 temblor collapsed buildings, caused extensive other damage and killed dozens of people in the city. (AP-Yonhap)Fifteen-year-old Kent Manning, left, and his sister Libby, 18, react with their father, who asked not to identified, a

A 114-year-old woman in Guri, currently the oldest living person in South Korea, has asked the national recordkeeping agency to help her seek the world's oldest living person title in the Guinness Book of World Records, alocal government said Thursday.According to the city of Guri, some 15 kilometers east of Seoul, Kim Eom-gok, born on Nov. 7 1897, has reported her identity to the Korea Record Ins

South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. will release Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4 in the local market next month, ending the exclusive distribution by its rival wireless operator, an industry source said Thursday. SK Telecom Co. will release Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4  (Bloomberg)"Negotiations between SK Telecom and Apple are in the final stage," said the source who is familiar with the matter. "As th

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Severe food shortages are forcing some North Koreans to forage for wild grasses and herbs and causing alarming malnutrition among children, U.S.-based aid groups who recently visited the reclusive country reported Wednesday.Heavy rains and flooding in summer reduced vegetable crops by more than 50 percent in some areas, and a bitter winter has frozen up to 50 percent of wheat and

 South Korea is expected to send a charter flight to Libya as early as Thursday to evacuate its nationals from escalating anti-government unrest, an official said Wednesday, as a growing number of Koreans sought to exit the turmoil-laden nation. Anti-government protesters in Libya. (AP-Yonhap)The government has been negotiating with Egypt Airlines to charter a flight to bring South Koreans out of

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) -- A powerful earthquake struck one of New Zealand's biggest cities Tuesday at the height of a busy workday, toppling tall buildings and churches, crushing buses and killing at least 65 people in one of the country's worst natural disasters. A building in Christchurch, New Zealand, is destroyed after an earthquake struck Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011. The 6.3-magnitude quak

North Korean soldiers are increasingly plagued by malnutrition and human rights abuses amid the communist state's worsening food shortage, according to testimonies made here Monday by a number of former North Korean soldiers who defected to South Korea."I was 155 centimeters high and weighed 42 kilograms when I entered the military, but my weight was reduced to 31 kilograms in two years," Paek Hwa

Indonesia has officially asked for verification of reports that South Korean intelligence officers broke into a visiting delegation's hotel room last week to steal classified information on planned arms trade between the two countries, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday."Indonesia asked us to verify the exact facts," the ministry's spokesman, Cho Byung-jae, said during a regular press briefing.

A group of South Korean researchers said Monday that they found a way to use drugs to fight brain tumors that are currently treated with only surgery and chemotherapy.The researchers, led by POSTEC chemistry professor Chung Sung-kee, discovered a way to breach the "blood-brain barrier" to permit anti-tumor drugs to work.The natural barrier protects the brain from contaminated blood, but it also ma

South Korea may face the threat of homegrown terrorism if its ethnic minorities end up expressing their frustration over discrimination through acts of terrorism, a research paper showed Monday."There is a possibility that the discrimination, scorn and frustration felt by migrant workers, multicultural children and North Korean defectors may erupt in acts of terrorism," Howon University Professor

Hundreds of Libyan people, some of them armed with knives and guns, raided a South Korean-run construction site in the capital city of Tripoli, sparking a clash that left three Korean workers and two others wounded, the foreign ministry said Monday.The rioters first stormed the construction site around 11 p.m. (local time) before leaving the site and then coming back again in a few hours, a minist

An American artist has become an Internet celebrity after posting her animal-lipstick creations on her website, Daily Mail reported. Paige Thompson, 21, from Texas, spends half an hour in front of a mirror to paint each animal-lipstick creation. She has so far created a number of animals including a fox, panda, chameleon, crab, hippo and bumblebee, using colors of white, red, blue, yellow, green,

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 2 semiconductor maker, said Monday that it has developed a new memory chip for mobile gadgets that can transfer data at a speed eight times faster than previous devices.The WIDE IO mobile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip can transfer data at a speed of 12.8 gigabyte per second, compared with 1.6 gigabyte per second of previous devices, the company s

Korean actor Bin Hyun and South Korean actress Soo-jung Lim arrive for a press conference for the film "Come Rain, Come Shine" on February 17, in Berlin. The sole Asian contender for the Berlin film festival's Golden Bear top prize, the minimalist South Korean breakup drama met with jeers from critics.(Photo: AFP)BERLIN (AFP) – The sole Asian contender for the Berlin film festival's Golden Bear to

In this photo released by Japanese robot maker Vstone Co., robots wait for the start to demonstration a race during a press conference Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Vstone Co.)TOKYO (AP) – A technology company is organizing the world's first marathon for robots in Japan, a country known for its love of gizmos.So far, five robots have entered the event, expected to last four days next week. O

 A South Korean sailor from a fishing vessel freed recently from Somali pirates was found dead in Kenya on Thursday after apparently falling from his hotel room, a foreign ministry official said.Kim Yong-hyun, 68, one of the 43 crew members of the Keummi 305 released last week after four months in the hands of Somali pirates, died at 2:25 a.m. (local time) after apparently falling from the veranda

Seven excess passengers were found hiding in the trunk of a coach on Yongjin Expressway in East China's Zhejiang provinnce, Feb 13, 2011.Photo: Qianjiang Evening NewsSeven people were found hiding in the luggage compartment of a passenger bus on the Yongjin Expressway in Jinhua city, East China's Zhejiang province on Feb 13, 2011, the Qianjiang Evening News reported Tuesday.The bus, with 43 seats,