A career diplomat well versed in relations with the United States will be named as President Park Geun-hye's foreign affairs secretary, presidential sources said Monday.The selection of Kim Hyoung-zhin, who served as director general at the foreign ministry's North American affairs bureau in 2010, is seen as a move by Park to reaffirm her commitment to strengthening the alliance with Washington, they said.Kim, 52, will work under senior foreign affairs and security secretary Ju Chul-ki.The presi

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday that Japan should face its history and take measures to cure the deep scars it inflicted on the hearts of Koreans during its colonial rule here if the two countries are to establish a genuine friendship, sources said.Park made the remark during a meeting with Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, saying that it is regrettable that historical issues related to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule are still preventing relations between the two countries

Choi Phil-lip, a confidant of former President Park Chung-hee, resigned Monday as head of a controversial scholarship foundation set up by the late head of state.Choi had been under pressure to leave his post at the Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation, after local media reports last October alleged the foundation of trying to sell its stakes in media companies to use the proceeds to woo voters in a region considered a stronghold for the ruling Saenuri Party during the presidential campaign.President

BEIJING (AFP) -- Energy consumption by China, the world's leading emitter of C02, rose 3.9 percent in 2012 from the previous year but fell by 3.6 percent per unit of gross domestic product, the government said.The country used the equivalent of 3.62 billion tonnes of coal, the National Bureaus of Statistics reported in a paper on the state of the economy published Friday.Coal represents 66.4 percent of the total energy consumed, with oil and natural gas accounting for 18.9 percent and 5.5 percen

CHICAGO (AFP) -- The central United States was digging out from a massive winter storm Friday while East Coast residents were preparing for a whopper set to strike over the weekend.The weakened storm was nonetheless still packing a punch, snarling traffic and cancelling hundreds of flights as it hovered over the Great Lakes region.A United Airlines plane slid off a runway in Cleveland Friday morning, but officials said nobody was hurt.The National Weather Service warned that parts of New England

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit against disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong that alleges the former seven-time Tour de France champion concealed his use of performance-enhancing drugs and defrauded his longtime sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service.The lawsuit alleges that riders on the postal service-sponsored team, including Armstrong, knowingly violated their postal service agreements by regularly using banned substances and methods to enhance their performance."Lance

North Korea said Saturday it sent a message to the top American military commander in South Korea, warning that upcoming joint military exercises between South Korea and the U.S. would amount to "igniting a war" on the divided Korean Peninsula.Pak Rim-su, the North Korean military's representative at the truce village of Panmunjom, sent the telephone message to Gen. James Thurman, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, saying the peninsula is facing "a grave situation where a war may break out any

The rival parties remained locked in a standoff Saturday over President-elect Park Geun-hye's government reorganization proposal amid concern the new government won't be able to operate effectively for many days with her inauguration just two days away.The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party held a series of talks the previous day but failed to reach a compromise on the proposal that calls for creating new ministries and reorganizing duties among existing ministr

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It was an extra starry, musical day at the Dolby Theatre as Adele took the stage first Friday, followed by the cast of "Les Miserables,'' singing together of the first time.Oscar nominees Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, along with co-stars Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham-Carter, Sasha Baron-Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit and Samantha Barks rehearsed their performances on the Oscar stage. They were backed by members of the musical's stage productions from Lon

TORONTO (AP) -- The Canadian former ambassador to Iran who protected Americans at great personal risk during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis says it will reflect poorly on Ben Affleck if he doesn't say a few words about Canada's role if the director's film "Argo'' wins the Oscar for best picture Sunday.But Ken Taylor -- who said he feels slighted by the movie because it makes Canada look like a meek observer to CIA heroics in the rescue of six U.S. citizens caught in the crisis -- is not expecting

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The Barack Obama administration took another step toward institutionalizing gay marriage, formally asking the US Supreme Court to strike down a 1996 law defining marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman.The request was contained in a legal brief filed Friday with the US court, whose nine justices will next month review whether or not to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bans marriage between homosexuals.The document marks the first time

DAMASCUS (AFP) -- Syria's opposition National Coalition said it was pulling out of several international meetings to protest at the "international silence" despite the slaughter of civilians in the conflict.The announcement came after the coalition had said it would form a government to run "liberated areas" of Syria, and as international condemnation mounted against Thursday's devastating attacks in Damascus that left around 100 people dead.In further violence Friday, monitors said more than 12

BEIJING  (AFP) -- A man in southwestern China has died of bird flu, health authorities said Saturday, becoming the second fatality from the H5N1 virus this year.The 31-year-old died in hospital in the city of Guiyang on Friday, the Guizhou province health department said in a statement, adding that no other human cases of avian flu had been reported in the province.Another city resident, a 21-year-old woman, died from the virus earlier this month.The Xinhua news agency said both of them had come

TOKYO (AFP) -- Japanese engineers probing problems with Boeing's Dreamliners have identified the cause of fuel leaks but are still investigating more serious issues with the aircraft's batteries, the transport ministry said.Last month, a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 due to fly to Tokyo was grounded in Boston following a fuel spill, while the airline also found a similar problem with another of the next-generation jets in Tokyo.The transport ministry said Friday that the leaks were caused by defecti

Flights at major airports in cities including New York, Chicago and San Francisco could be delayed as long as 90 minutes if automatic U.S. spending cuts take effect on March 1, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.The Federal Aviation Administration will furlough air- traffic controllers beginning April 1, LaHood said yesterday. More than 230 towers at smaller airports, including some with regional-airline flights, may be closed, according to a posting on the FAA website.LaHood outlined the

South Korean stocks are expected to trade higher next week on the back of rising hopes for the country's economy following the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Park Geun-hye, analysts said Saturday.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed up 37.71 points, or 1.9 percent, to 2,018.89 on Friday from the previous week.Earlier this week, the KOSPI moved up as the investor sentiment was heightened by a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers, where officials raised

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. envoy to Congo warned Friday that large-scale conflict could erupt again without warning as 11 nations prepare to sign a peace agreement aimed at ending nearly two decades of unending fighting in the mineral-rich African nation.Roger Meece told the U.N. Security Council that the security situation in the eastern Congo continues to deteriorate amid increasing fears that the rebel group known as M23, which captured the key city of Goma in November, will resume major

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boeing attempted a major step Friday toward getting its 787 Dreamliners flying again, proposing a fix for the plane's troubled batteries that could allow the flights to resume as early as April, congressional officials said.The next question is whether the Federal Aviation Administration will agree to let the planes fly even though the root cause of a battery fire in one plane and a smoking battery in another is still unknown.A Boeing team led by CEO Ray Conner presented the p

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- U.S. prosecutors are investigating Johnson & Johnson's practices in marketing a line of hip replacements recalled in 2010 because many had to be replaced within a few years -- part of a string of more than 30 product recalls by the health care giant in the last 3 1/2 years.The U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts and the Civil Division of the U.S. Justice Department last August sent Johnson & Johnson an "informal request'' for information about its ASR hip replacem

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- Oscar Pistorius walked out of court Friday -- free at least for now -- after a South African magistrate released him on bail, capping four days of often startling testimony that foreshadowed a dramatic trial in the Valentine's Day slaying of his girlfriend.But as he was driven away, chased by photographers and cameramen, questions continued to hound the double-amputee Olympian about what actually happened the night he gunned down Reeva Steenkamp inside a locked bat