The ruling and opposition parties reached an agreement Tuesday on a package of measures to reform South Korea's main intelligence agency, including a tougher punishment for agents involved in meddling in domestic politics under the pretext of psychological warfare against North Korea.   The ranking members of the rival parties on the special parliamentary committee on reforming the National Intelligence Service (NIS) worked out the revision to the NIS Act and other related laws in one-on-one neg

Unionists of the state-run railway operator KORAIL on Tuesday ended a 22-day walkout and returned to their workplaces.However, they vowed to continue their struggle against the government's approval of the establishment of a KORAIL affiliate, which will run the new bullet train route out of Suseo in southwestern Seoul from as early as 2015."All union members returned and resumed their work as of 11 a.m. We will go back to our normal duties before the strike," said Choi Eun-cheol, spokesman of th

   A Seoul court acquitted an American soldier of raping his South Korean fiancee in 2011, court officials said Tuesday.      The sergeant major of the U.S. Army, whose identity has been withheld, was indicted on charges of raping and assaulting his fiancee, whose identity remains anonymous, officials said.   The Seoul Central District Court delivered a not-guilty verdict, citing lack of evidence, they added.   "The court does not take credibility in the plaintiff's statement as well as other ev

   YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar's reformist president granted a pardon Monday to people convicted of or charged with a variety of political offenses, an apparent effort to fulfill his pledge to free all political prisoners by the end of this year.   It wasn't immediately clear how many people are covered by President Thein Sein's pardon, which was announced on state television.   The pardon covers people convicted of or charged with unlawful association, high treason, contempt of government an

  Two provincial banking firms won the bid Tuesday to each buy a regional bank unit of Woori Finance Holdings Co., giving a hand to the government's long-pending sale of South Korea's largest banking group, ank and regulatory sources said.   The state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC), the controlling shareholder of Woori Finance, picked Busan-based BS Financial Group Inc. as the preferred bidder for Kyongnam Bank, and JB Financial Group Co., based in the southern  city of Gwangju, for Kw

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Friday issued a license for the state-run rail operator to establish an affiliate to run a new branch of the KTX line, despite fierce opposition from labor unions and others.The issuance is expected to increase pressure on the 27 percent of KORAIL’s 20,443 employees who have been on strike since Dec. 9 against what they claim to be a move to privatize the railroads.“The Daejeon District Court on Friday evening approved the registration of the

  BEIRUT (AP) _ A powerful bombing rocked a central business district of central Beirut Friday, setting cars ablaze and killing five people, including a senior aide to former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, officials said.   The National News Agency said Mohammed Chatah and his driver were both killed in the explosion, which wounded more than 70 others.   Lebanon has seen a wave of bombings over the past months as tensions rise over Syria's civil war. Hariri heads the main, Western-backed c

Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, arrived here Sunday for talks with South Korean officials.King's trip comes as Kenneth Bae, a Christian missionary, remains detained in the communist North since he was caught nearly a year ago.The Korean-American has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor by a North Korean court for committing an unspecified crime against the state.Ambassador King had hoped to visit Pyongyang for talks on Bae's possible release in August on

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) _ Georgia on Sunday inaugurated a new president, 44-year-old philosopher and former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili, who pledged to strengthen the former Soviet republic's ties with the West and maintain its commitment to NATO. His inauguration brings to an end the nearly decade-long presidency of Mikhail Saakashvili, who aligned this Black Sea nation with the United States and put it on the path toward integration with the European Union.The new president has littl

Investment banking giant JPMorgan Chase said Thursday it has sold all of its exposure to short-term U.S. government debt out of its money market funds, following a similar move by other money market mutual fund managers.The announcement comes a day after Fidelity Investments, the largest U.S. manager of money market mutual funds, said it no longer holds any U.S. government debt that comes due around the time the nation could hit its borrowing limit.In a statement Thursday, JPMorgan said its mone

   WHO WON?    The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international panel formed in 1997 to enforce a treaty banning the use of chemical weapons.    FOR WHAT?    Behind-the-scenes work in identifying whether all 190 nations that have signed the treaty adhere fully to terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. That treaty outlaws the production or use of chemical weapons; authorizes OPCW staff to decommission chemical-weapons production plants; and gives them power to in

A Syrian official says awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the global chemical watchdog underscores ``the credibility'' of the Damascus government and its intentions to destroy its toxic arsenal.Fayez Sayegh, a lawmaker and member of President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party, says the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should work to rid the entire Middle East _ including Israel _ of weapons of mass destruction.Sayegh told The Associated Press shortly after the Nobel announceme

Finland's minister in charge of oversight of state-owned companies has resigned after her ministry persuaded a state-owned shipping company not to press criminal charges against Greenpeace activists who boarded two icebreakers last year.Heidi Hautala acknowledged on Friday that both her assistant and a high-ranking ministry official had urged Arctia Shipping to drop charges against the environmental activists and urged the company to work out differences instead.Green Party-member Hautala is kno

Korea’s economy is showing signs of recovery as various market indicators have shown improvements, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said on Tuesday.Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw its industrial production increase 1.8 percent in August this year from the month before, the highest growth in nine months.Its housing data showed that apartment prices have been picking up over the last four weeks following the Aug. 28 follow-up measures aimed at revitalizing the real estate market.Other data s

President Park Geun-hye spoke briefly with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the second time the two leaders have held such an encounter amid frayed relations between their countries.The dialogue took place when Park and Abe attended a gala dinner Monday, along with other Pacific Rim leaders after the opening session of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Indonesia's resort island of Bali, an aide to Park said Tuesday.The official declined to provide any specifics.It was the second

British scientist Peter Higgs said he was "overwhelmed" after he and his Belgian colleague Francois Englert were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their work on the Higgs Boson particle."I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy," Higgs, 84, said in a statement released by Edinburgh University, where he is emeritus professor of theoretical physics."I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this ne

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology _ all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength _ American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileag

European lawmakers have approved sweeping new regulations to curb smoking, including limits on electronic cigarettes, bigger warnings on cigarette packs and a ban on menthol.The European Parliament vote in Strasbourg on Tuesday came after months of bitter debate.The parliament voted to impose warning labels covering 65 percent of cigarette packs, rejecting a measure for blank packaging instead. Legislators also put new limits on advertising for electronic cigarettes, but stopped short of restric

 Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass.Their theories were confirmed last year by the discovery of the so-called Higgs particle at a laboratory in Geneva, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.The announcement, which was widely expected, was delayed by one hour, which is highly unusual. The academy gave no immediate reason, other than saying on

North Korea on Wednesday lambasted South Korea's large-scale Armed Forces Day parade as evidence of Seoul's hostility against it and said such provocations "will get them nowhere."South Korea's military mobilized some 11,000 troops, 190 pieces of various equipment and 120 aircraft for the ceremony held at an airbase south of the capital city on Tuesday. The event, which was the largest organized in a decade, also included a parade by troops and military hardware through the center of Seoul."The