South Korean health authorities confirmed Wednesday the country's first West Nile virus case involving a patient who contracted the disease while traveling in Africa.According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the patient, whose identity was withheld for privacy reasons, traveled to Guinea from January to June and returned to the country after developing symptoms of W

People who work in the creative professions are treated more often than the general population for mental illness, researchers in Sweden say.Simon Kyaga of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm said the findings give cause to reconsider approaches to mental illness.Kyaga and the research team tracked almost 1.2 million patients and their relatives, identified down to second-cousin level. The resu

The head of the state weather agency was indicted Tuesday on charges of abusing his power and taking bribes in return for business favors, police said.Cho Seok-joon, the chief of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), is suspected of helping a particular business win a bid for supplying a new weather instrument by fabricating official documents and leaking relevant bidding information for

Archaeologists and one hopeful relative are anxiously waiting to see if a skeleton dug up from a hole in a car park in the English city of Leicester is the remains of the much-maligned King Richard III.More than five centuries after he was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field by the armies of Henry Tudor, who later became King Henry VII, scientists believe they are close to making an identification.Michael Ibsen, 55, a 17th generation nephew of the king, will have his DNA tested against the re

Japanese military officials said they were keeping a close eye on seven Chinese warships spotted in waters off a southern island Tuesday. It was unclear whether the ship movements were related to a territorial dispute that has prompted both countries to show off their maritime muscles. The Chinese ships were sighted about 49 kilometers (30 miles) from the island of Yonaguni, in Japan's Okinawa pre

A special prosecutor investigating suspicions over a retirement home project of President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday asked the Justice Ministry to ban Lee's only son from leaving the country, officials said.The office of special counsel Lee Kwang-bum has sought an exit ban for Lee Si-hyung, the 34-year-old son of President Lee, and 10 others, including former presidential security service chief Kim

Scarlett Johansson (AP)Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson has ended her year-long romance with advertising executive Nate Naylor, UsMagazine.com said Monday.The couple broke up within the last week, the celebrity news website said without giving a reason.Johansson divorced actor Ryan Reynolds in late 2011 after nearly three years of marriage.Reynolds wed actress Blake Lively last month after les

The United States is "not neutral" about Japan's move to resolve its territorial tensions with South Korea through arbitration at an international court, a top American official said."Our position is not neutral with regard to the focus on dialogue and finding diplomatic means to address these issues,"Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, on a visit to Tokyo, told reporters Monday (local time),

Costco Wholesale Korea, an affiliate of U.S. retail giant Costco Wholesale Corp., has filed a lawsuit against three of Seoul's autonomous districts, claiming that their ordinance for mandatory Sunday closure and restrictions on operating hours are invalid, judicial officials said Monday.In the lawsuit filed with the Seoul Administrative Court against heads of Seocho-gu, Jungnang-gu and Yeongdeungp

South Korean stocks started higher on Tuesday as foreign investors scooped up local shares, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) increased 0.73 percent, or 14.13 points, to 1939.72 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Shares gathered ground across the board, with market bellwether Samsung Electronics rising 1.31 percent and flat panel giant LG Display gaining 2.59 pe

A Korean celebrity couple expected to tie the knot next month has been saddened by the death of the bride-to-be’s father on Monday. The father of singer Kim Go-eun, better known as Byul, passed away a month ahead of her wedding to 32-year-old comedian Ha Dong-hoon, known by his stage name Haha. Kim’s father had struggled with paralysis after an accident in 2002.The couple reportedly completed regi

Apple's iOS 6 app on the left, the Swiss Federal Railways SBB clock on the right. (UPI)Apple, which has spent a fair amount of time in courts over copyright issues, says it will pay up rather than contest a claim it copied an iconic Swiss clock.Swiss railway operator SBB took the California company to task last month for allegedly copying its famously accurate rail station clocks for the design of

South Korea's defense minister issued a public apology Monday over the undetected defection early this month of a North Korean soldier through the heavily armed border and announced disciplinary measures against those responsible for the incident. "I acknowledge that the North Korean soldier's defection apparently shows the failure of security and flaws in the emergency reporting system. I sincere

An employee at a California seafood plant died after he was cooked in an oven in an industrial accident, authorities said.Jose Melena, a 6-year employee of Bumble Bee Foods, died Thursday when he somehow became stuck in an industrial cooker, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, Calif., reported.The initial investigation of the incident found that, "he was fatally injured when he was cooked

Some 4,000 North Koreans are estimated to be working at major construction sites in a suburb of the Kuwaiti capital and living in military-style camps run by the North's government, a Seoul diplomat said Monday. Impoverished North Korea has recruited its people to work abroad and reportedly kept most of their earnings, one of the few sources of hard currency for the isolated regime. Along with Chi

The U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) said Sunday that South Korea's improved missile range will bolster its "defensive capability" to counter North Korea's ballistic missile threat.It emphasized the communist nation poses the most urgent threat to its area of jurisdiction -- the Pacific Ocean."This improved range distance will provide a defensive capability that will allow the ROK and allies to defend

South Korea's top central banker said Friday that the country's potential growth rate is estimated at around 3.8 percent following the global financial crisis and the eurozone debt crisis.South Korea's potential growth rate, or the maximum possible rate at which an economy can grow without triggering inflation, reached around 6.1 percent between 1991 and 2000 and has largely continued to decline,

The North Korean soldier who crossed the heavily armed border to defect to South Korea last week has stated that he ran away for fear of retaliation after assaulting his superior, a South Korean lawmaker said Friday.Jo Seong-jik, commander of the front-line unit where the defector first showed up after crossing the border on Oct. 2, quoted the soldier as saying that, Rep. Kim Jin-pyo of the main o

A photo taken on March 22, 2006 shows European flags at the EU headquarters in Brussels . The crisis-torn European Union will win this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the usually well-informed Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported an hour before the widely anticipated announcement on October 12, 2012. (AFP-Yonhap News)The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to promote

Brain scans can predict children‘s reading ability and the finding may eventually influence the way pre-elementary children learn to read, U.S. researchers say.Scientists at Stanford University scanned the brain anatomy of 39 children once a year for three consecutive years. The students then took standardized tests to gauge their cognitive, language and reading skills.In each case the rate of dev