WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top nuclear envoy arrived in Washington on Monday for talks with his U.S. counterpart on ways to resume the long-stalled six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.Hwang Joon-kook, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, is scheduled to meet with his counterpart, Glyn Davies, special representative for North Korea policy, on Tuesday. The trip comes only about three months after he last visited W

Some 510 stocks on South Korea's main bourse have hit 52-week highs so far this year, more than half of them in the second half, exchange data showed Tuesday.The tech-heavy secondary bourse also rallied, pushed by foreign investors, according to the data.Domestic consumption, services and real estate-related shares led the rise on the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index in the period between Jan. 3 and Sept. 3 this year, with 510 stocks reaching their highest in 52 weeks, the data showed

Chinese have been bringing a large amount of money into South Korea in search of high returns, increasing their investment in the Korean equity market by 44 times in the last five years, data showed Tuesday. The value of local securities and bond accounts held by Chinese snowballed to 20.8 trillion won ($20.2 billion) as of end-2013, compared to 471.1 billion at end-2008, according to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service. Chinese have additionally brought in 2.5 trillion won du

TORONTO (AFP) -- Reese Witherspoon, who won an Oscar in 2006, is generating critical buzz again, appearing at the Toronto film festival Monday in two based-on-true-life films."You never set out to make a film that's going to get awards," Witherspoon commented about the talk surrounding her performances in "The Good Lie," about an American woman who takes in Sudanese refugees, and "Wild," based on author Cheryl Strayed's best-selling memoir."I don't even think about it," she said. "If a movie can

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's Imperial Household Agency has compiled a 61-volume biography of former Emperor Hirohito that portrays him as being distressed that he could not stop his country from going to war, according to Japan's Kyodo News agency.The 12,000-page record says he complained in July 1939 to Army Minister Seishiro Itagaki about the military's "predisposition'' as it strengthened its relationship with Germany, Kyodo reported. He also warned against the navy's call for war with the United St

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kei Nishikori didn't have enough left in his legs to make more history.Trying to become the first man from Asia to win a Grand Slam singles championship, Nishikori's run ended Monday in the final of the U.S. Open. Marin Cilic of Croatia, also playing in his first major title match, won 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.The 24-year-old Nishikori defeated three of the top five seeds. He beat No. 5 Milos Raonic and No. 3 Stan Wawrinka in five sets in back-to-back matches totaling more than 8 1/2 hours

GOYANG (Yonhap) -- With its new head coach looking on from the stands, South Korea fell to Uruguay 1-0 in their football friendly on Monday.Uli Stielike, an ex-German international appointed as the South Korea boss last week, watched the 59th-ranked Asian side fall to the sixth-ranked visitors before the sellout 38,000 fans at Goyang Stadium in Goyang, just west of Seoul.Defender Jose Gimenez foiled the South Koreans' bid to make a strong first impression on their new coach, heading in the winne

South Korea is pushing to resume long-suspended security consultations with Japan later this year to discuss North Korea and regional security issues, a government source said Tuesday. The security consultations, involving senior foreign affairs and defense officials, were held regularly under an agreement signed between the two countries in 1997, but have been suspended since 2009 due to tensions over historical and territorial issues. The Asian neighbors had sought the security meeting last ye

Apple Inc.’s prospects seem a lot brighter than they were the last time Tim Cook introduced an iPhone. When Chief Executive Officer Cook unveiled two new smartphone models 12 months ago, Apple’s stock was slumping and the company was losing market share to Samsung Electronics Co. and low-cost manufacturers such as Xiaomi Corp. Questions abounded about whether Apple could keep innovating without co-founder Steve Jobs. Fast forward to a year later and the company’s stock is flirting with a record

Vodafone Group Plc and Telefonica SA used a technology conference in Spain today to call for the European Union to focus less on new rules for phone companies and more on Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. to reduce their dominance. The carriers are battling so-called network neutrality proposals, championed by Internet companies, that they say will hurt business and discourage new products such as driverless cars. The proposals are meant to prevent carriers from blocking access to some websites or s

GENEVA (AFP) -- The UN Human Rights Council on Monday debated whether to send an emergency mission to Iraq to investigate suspected "crimes against humanity" by the Islamic State, as Baghdad called the jihadists an "imminent threat" to the world."This terrorist organisation must be criminalised and its acts must be criminalised because they are equivalent to genocide and crimes against humanity," Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told the council.The special session was called

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russia launched construction Monday of a 770 billion ruble ($20.8 bn) gas pipeline that will help bring gas from the far east of the country to China."We are today starting the biggest construction project in the world," President Vladimir Putin said at the ceremonial joining of the first sections of the 3,968-kilometre (2,466-mile) Siberian Strength pipeline outside the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk."But it is not about records, it is the fact that it is an extremely importan

TOKYO (AFP) -- Conservative soulmates Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe declared Monday ties between India and Japan were moving to a "new level", during a summit pregnant with promise for a relationship they hope will offer a counterweight to China.Modi's first foreign visit outside the Indian sub-continent has been a relaxed display of personal chemistry between the leaders of countries that bookend an ever-more assertive Beijing, and which both have prickly relations with their giant neighbour.Des

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the EU on Monday to show "common sense" and not to engage in mutually destructive sanctions, in his first reaction to the threat of additional punitive measures over Ukraine."I hope that common sense will prevail, ... that we will work together normally and that we and our partners will not cause harm by poking at one another," Putin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies during a visit to the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk.The rema

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Up to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine over the past two months, and at least several hundred have apparently died in combat there, rights groups exposing army abuses told AFP on Monday.Moscow denies that it has deployed regular troops to Ukraine to prop up separatists battling Kiev forces, but multiple indications have emerged over the past weeks that Russian soldiers are on the ground in Ukraine.Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, t

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- North Korea gave foreign media access on Monday to three detained Americans who said they have been able to contact their families and -- watched by officials as they spoke -- called for Washington to send a high-ranking representative to negotiate for their freedom.Jeffrey Fowle and Mathew Miller said they expect to face trial within a month. But they said they do not know what punishment they could face or what the specific charges against them are. Kenneth Bae,

Hundreds of unionized workers at a major university hospital in Seoul reached an agreement with management on Monday to end a six-day strike aimed at protesting what they call a government move to privatize medical services.In a joint statement, the Seoul National University Hospital and the hospital's labor union announced they have agreed to end the strike and resume work starting 5 a.m. on Tuesday.The two sides said they have reached a consensus on issues such as wage, employee dispatches to

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has yet to campaign alongside a Democrat at risk of losing in the midterm congressional elections, and the president will be largely sidelined in nearly all of the races that will determine November's biggest prize: control of the Senate for the remainder of his presidency.Hampered by low approval ratings and an unfriendly electoral map, Obama is seen as a liability to some vulnerable Democrats and a target for Republicans trying to fire up conservatives

HONG KONG (AP) -- China's Communist leaders have pulled out their usual playbook to suppress resistance to their plans to tightly limit the first direct election of Hong Kong's leader, but are likely to find that the results are quite different. Beijing is blaming radicals and foreigners and showing off its military might, all things unlikely to go down well in the freewheeling capitalist bastion where a sizeable middle class accustomed to freedom of speech and the rule of law plans to push back

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- A day of militia fighting over control of the international airport in Libya's capital killed 22 people, the country's interim government said Sunday, part of the worsening chaos gripping the country.  Libya is seeing its worst violence since the 2011 civil war that toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi, as militias made up of the rebels who overthrew him largely run wild in the country, armed with heavy weaponry that outguns its poorly organized security forces.Saturday's deat