South Korea’s decision on Tuesday to pick a European firm for its high-profile project to procure four aerial refueling tankers over a U.S. one has underscored that pragmatism now overrides “alliance factors,” analysts said Wednesday.Seoul picked Airbus’ A330 MRTT for its 1.49 trillion won ($1.34 billion) project to introduce four tankers from 2018-2019, marking the first time for Korea to purchase European military aircraft in more than two decades. Boeing’s KC-46 and Israel Aerospace Industrie

Pyongyang and Moscow appear to be stepping up cooperation with each other amid their international isolation, as a Russian firm is reportedly poised to build wind farms over the next two years to supply electricity to impoverished North Korea.Wind Power Monthly, a British magazine, reported Monday that RAO Energy System of East, the largest supplier of electricity and heating in the Russia’s Far East region, plans to build four wind farms, which total 40 megawatts, on both sides of the Russian-N

For Lee Hee-ho, widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, cross-border tensions are a source of deep frustration as the deadlocked relationship has eclipsed the inter-Korean rapprochement Kim laboriously fostered under his signature “Sunshine Policy.” With a plan to visit the North soon, the 93-year-old former first lady hopes to restore Kim’s legacy of bilateral engagement and cooperation, which has faded amid Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear arms and provocative actions, and Seoul’s hard-line resp

The ongoing session of the World Heritage Committee is drawing keen attention here, as it will determine whether to put Japan’s controversial Meji-era industrial sites, linked to wartime slave labor, on its heritage list later this week.The session opened in Bonn, Germany, Sunday amid talks between Seoul and Tokyo over the latter’s bid to put 23 sites of “Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution” on the World Heritage Sites List. The WHC is expected to make its decision over the listing of the sites

North Korea ratcheted up its provocative rhetoric against South Korea and the U.S. over the weekend, warning of “ruthless punishments” for their role in establishing a U.N. field office in central Seoul to monitor its human rights situation.Mobilizing all state media outlets, the communist state berated Seoul and Washington for “bringing inter-Korean ties to the brink of a collapse,” and attempting to further isolate it and undermine its national dignity.“The inter-Korean relationship has been b

South Korea is expected to pick the winner of its 1.4 trillion won ($1.25 billion) project to procure four in-flight refueling tankers at a session of the National Defense Acquisition Program Committee on Tuesday, a procurement official said Sunday.“Included in the agenda for Tuesday’s session is the issue of determining the winner for the project,” an official at Seoul’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration said on condition of anonymity. “Unless anything else comes in at the last minute,

North Korea's parliamentary speaker returned home Friday from a trip to Russia to deepen bilateral ties, the North's media said. Choe Thae-bok, chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, the North's rubber-stamp parliament, arrived in Pyongyang earlier in the day after wrapping up his five-day trip to Moscow, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. The KCNA did not provide details.During his stay, Choe held talks with Sergey Naryshkin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliam

A group of international personalities calling for an end to nuclear testing visited the inter-Korean border Friday to face the only country that has tested nuclear weapons this century -- North Korea.The Group of Eminent Persons for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was launched in 2013 to promote the treaty's entry into force. Some its members, including Hans Blix, former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Angela Kane, former U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affai

President Park Geun-hye on Friday pledged to transform Jeju into one of the world's best islands in terms of smart-tourism and energy self-sufficiency, during her visit to a new innovation center there.The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning joined forces with Daum Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's most popular messaging app, KakaoTalk, and the Internet portal Daum, to open the 1,924-square-meter Jeju Creative Economy Innovation Center on the southern resort island of Jeju. The

The U.N. human rights chief vowed to “advocate” for the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery Wednesday as he met with three Korean victims in Seoul, who have long demanded that Tokyo take legal responsibility for the atrocities.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra‘ad Al Hussein met Kim Bok-dong, Gil Won-ok and Lee Yong-soo, who were forced by Japan to serve at frontline military brothels during World War II, during his visit to a museum on women’s wartime human rights in central

Experts call on both Koreas to strive harder to restore trust and cooperationSixty-five years after the outbreak of the Korean War, the two Koreas face the daunting task that the armed conflict has left behind -- replacing the current “armistice regime” with a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.In the 1990s and 2000s, Seoul and Pyongyang moved to lay the groundwork for the peace system, but their efforts failed due to the communist state’s nuclear ambitions, and the two sides’ politi

North Korea has sentenced two South Korean nationals to life imprisonment on charges of espionage, its state media reported Tuesday, coinciding with the day the U.N. opened a field office in Seoul to monitor and study the repressive state’s human rights situation.　The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said that the North’s Supreme Court meted out life sentences to Kim Kuk-gi and Choi Chun-gil, who it said were arrested after spying on the regime “under the direction of the U.S. and Sou

The U.N. opened a field office in Seoul on Tuesday to systematically monitor and record North Korea’s human rights situation, in a culmination of the international efforts to shed light on the North’s deep-seated inhumane practices and stop them.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo and other high-profile officials and politicians joined the opening event at the Seoul Global Center building in cent

South Korea on Thursday unveiled four different targets for an emissions reduction by 2030, which critics say would backtrack from its previous commitments. The Ministry of Environment said it would choose one from among the four options before the country submits it to the United Nations later this month. National goals will be evaluated for a new global climate change pact to be adopted at a U.N. conference in Paris in December. Korea‘s new proposals call for a reduction by 14.7 percent, 19.2

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (Yonhap) -- With strong efforts on both ends, South Korea defeated the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 3-0 on Thursday in its final football friendly before the start of the World Cup qualifiers.Former World Cup veteran Yeom Ki-hun, international rookie Lee Yong-jae and rising striker Lee Jeong-hyeop scored a goal apiece at Shah Alam Stadium in Shah Alam, Malaysia, as the 58th-ranked South Korea edged past the 73rd-ranked UAE for the 12th time in 19 meetings. South Korea will trav

President Park Geun-hye met with China's top legislator, Zhang Dejiang, on Thursday over ways to enhance bilateral ties and denuclearize North Korea, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.No details of their conversation were immediately available.Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook said before the meeting that Park was expected to discuss with Zhang on how to deepen relations between the two neighbors as well as how to deal with North Korea's nuclear program.The meeting came as North Kor

(연합)한국 정부가 중동호흡기증후군 공포에 대한 자국민들의 우려를 불식시키고 추가 감염을 막기 위한 노력을 강화하고 있는 가운데, 101만명에 육박하는 국내 체류 외국인의 불안감을 해소하는 데에는 적극적 노력을 펼치지 않아 비난을 사고 있다.메르스와 관련된 뉴스가 연일 쏟아지고 있으나, 외국인들은 자각증상을 느끼거나 불안함을 해소하기 위해 어디에 문의를 해야 할지 전혀 알지 못한다고 고충을 토로했다. 서울에서 영어강사를 하는 미국인 코르도씨는 “한국 정부는 메르스 관련 외국인에게 도움을 주기 위한 어떤 노력도 하지 않았고 영문 자료도 보내준 것이 없다”고 지적하면서 “한국정부는 메르스 관련 외국인 담당 전문 인력과 테스크 포스를 만들 필요가 있다”고 말했다.보건복지부 등 한국 정부가 제공하는 영어로 된 업데이트 자료는 찾기 힘들 뿐 아니라, 6월 6일 외국 체류자를 비롯한 전 국민에게 보내어진 긴급재난문자는 한글로 밖에 제공되지 않았다.8일 개설된 핫라인의 영어 서비스 또한 4일 뒤

North Korea said Saturday there are no human rights problems in the country, denouncing the United States for making unfounded accusations against it.   "If the American-style 'standard of human rights' is universally accepted, the world will turn into a lawless one, tundra of human rights and the one of darkness," the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary.The paper also claimed that human rights issues are "non-existent" in the country.

(AFP) - A Japanese man was arrested Saturday for allegedly flying a small drone with traces of radioactivity onto the roof of the Japanese prime minister's office, police said.Yasuo Yamamoto, 40, turned himself in to local police in Fukui prefecture, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) west of Tokyo, late Friday night with an apparent drone controller, saying he did it to express his anti-nuclear power stance, according to local media.The unemployed man blogged that the drone had carried sand from F

President Park Geun-hye and her Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, agreed Friday to strengthen their countries' partnership by diversifying cooperation."(South Korea and Brazil) can become ideal partners in expanding cooperation in such high value-added areas as infrastructure, smart grids, renewable energy and health care," Park said in a news conference with Rousseff following their summit in Brasilia. Smart grid technology is designed to increase power system efficiency. President Park Ge