Smoke billows after a Libyan jet bomber crashed after being shut down in Benghazi on Saturday as Libya's rebel stronghold came under attack, with at least two air strikes and sustained shelling of the city's south sending thick smoke into the sky. (AFP-Yonhap News)   BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) _ Libyan rebels shot down a warplane that was bombing their eastern stronghold Saturday as the opposition accus

   CAIRO (AP) _ Eager for their first taste of a free vote in decades, Egyptians formed long lines outside polling centers on Saturday to cast their ballots on a package of constitutional amendments sponsored by the ruling military.   The nationwide referendum is the first major test of the country's transition to democracy after a popular uprising overthrew President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian

   LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A student who posted an Internet video of her tirade against the Asian population at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday night that she is leaving the school, despite the university's decision not to discipline her.   In a statement to the Daily Bruin campus newspaper, Alexandra Wallace said she has chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA because of what

Rescue workers search through debris in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture on Friday. AFP-Yonhap News   OSAKA, Japan (AFP) - A man thought to have survived for eight days in the rubble of Japan's earthquake and tsunami zone was actually an evacuee who had returned to his house, a military spokesman said Saturday.   Troops had found the man -- aged in his 20s, apparently in shock and unable to speak

   FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- Emergency workers racing to cool dangerously overheated uranium fuel scrambled Saturday to connect Japan's crippled reactors to a new power line, with electricians fighting tsunami-shattered equipment to restart the complex's cooling systems.   Though the power line reached the complex Friday, making the final link without setting off a spark and potentially an explosio

   Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's top automaker, recalled 190,000 vehicles sold in the U.S. market on airbag-related defects, a U.S. government agency said on Saturday.   According to the Web site for the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Hyundai issued an recall of about 190,000 Elantra sedans sold between 2006 and 2008 in the U.S. to repair a defect in airbag sensors

   HONG KONG (Yonhap) -- Taiwan was struck by a 4.5-magnitude earthquake early Saturday, but no casualties or damage have reported, according to the Taiwanese government.    The quake shook the northeastern county of Yilan at 5:56 a.m. with the epicenter located in coastal waters about 26 kilometers south of Yilan, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.    The tremor only lasted for 0.02 second, it

 The temperatures in the spent fuel pool of the No. 5 reactor at the Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, are falling, Kyodo News reported, citing Tokyo Electric Power Co.    As of 9 a.m. today, the temperature had fallen to 67.6 degrees Celsius from 68.8 degrees four hours earlier, Kyodo said. (Bloomberg)

   OSAKA (AFP) - The operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant on Saturday said engineers bored three holes in each of the roofs of the buildings of reactors 5 and 6 to avoid a potential gas explosion.

  SEOUL/NIIGATA (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government has pulled all members of its rescue team sent to quake-stricken Japan out of the ravaged city of Sendai due to concerns about the workers' possible exposure to radiation, a senior government official said Saturday.   "Some members of the team who had remained in Sendai are moving to Niigata, where the main force is staying," said the officia

   OSAKA, Japan (AFP) - Electricity is expected to be restored to four reactors at a stricken Japanese atomic plant on Saturday to power cooling systems, the nuclear and safety agency said.

   SEOSAN (Yonhap) -- A South Korean forestry helicopter crashed into a reservoir Sunday, leaving one crew member dead while two others were rescued, authorities said.   The Korea Forest Service (KFS) chopper carrying three crew members crashed into a reservoir in Seosan, some 277 kilometers south of Seoul, at 6:47 a.m., a few minutes after taking off for an extinguishing operation in the nearby M

   WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Samsung SDI Co. has agreed to pay US$32 million in fines for trying to fix the prices of color display tubes used for computer monitors, the Justice Department said Friday.   "Samsung SDI Company Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $32 million criminal fine for its role in a global conspiracy to fix prices, reduce output and allocate market shares o

   South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan left for quake-ravaged Japan on Saturday for annual three-way cooperation talks with his Japanese and Chinese counterparts that were overshadowed by deepening fears of a potential nuclear disaster following the already-devastating earthquake and tsunami.   The one-day meeting among Kim, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Chinese Foreign M

   SEOUL/TOKYO (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak paid a visit to the Japanese embassy in Seoul Friday to convey a message of condolences for the victims of last week's massive earthquake and tsunami.   Lee signed a condolence book, writing, "All of our people offer condolences for the victims. (We) are confident that Japan will quickly recover (from damage) and the Republic of Korea will be with

   JEJU ISLAND (Yonhap) -- South Korea promised Friday its full support to help its southern resort island win global recognition as an awe-inspiring natural site.   Jeju Island has been vying against 27 other natural sites to become one of the "New7Wonders of Nature," a project initiated by the New7Wonders Foundation, a Switzerland-based nonprofit organization, in 2007.   The finalists include th

Several South Korean firms are considering evacuating their Japan-based employees or moving their operations to southern Japan amid growing concern over a nuclear crisis there, company officials said Thursday.   Japan is battling to minimize nuclear disaster following Friday's devastating 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami that claimed thousands of lives and crippled a nuclear plant 240 kilometers no

 The global governing body of gymnastics has opened disciplinary proceedings against a Chinese judge for altering scores to help a Chinese athlete share a gold medal with a South Korean gymnast at last year's Asian Games. The South Korean flag is projected on giant screens during the closing ceremony of the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. The South Korean city of Inc

 Sales at the nation's major discount outlets fell sharply in February mainly due to a drop in consumer demand following the Lunar New Year's holiday, a government report showed Thursday.E-Mart (The Korea Herald)   Total sales at the three leading discount outlets contracted 10.9 percent on-year last month, compared with a 21.4 percent surge reported in the previous month, the Ministry of Knowledg

After the devastation of the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, some news outlets have been lambasted for the way they portrayed the tragic developments.Some Korean national newspapers are under fire for using a provocative headline; in contrast, a British paper sent a much-needed message of hope encouraging the Japanese to keep going, a move that prompted unanimous public praise. A growing nu