Three North Korean MiG-19 fighters have crashed this year, leading to the suspension of flight drills involving the aircraft, South Korea's military sources said Wednesday.The supersonic MiG-19 aircraft is a Soviet second-generation fighter developed in 1953. Some 400 MiG variants are still in service in the communist North, accounting for about half of its fighters."At least three of the MiG-19s crashed during training missions -- one earlier this year, the others last month and earlier this mo

South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. saw its market share in the smartphone industry plunge in the second quarter from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday, dented by the rise of Chinese players vying with low-end models.Samsung took up 25.2 percent of the global smartphone market in the April-June period, down 7.1 percentage points from the 32.3 percent posted last year, the data compiled by market researcher IDC Corp. showed. It shipped a combined 74.3 million units of smartphones

South Korea is pushing to ease or lift the current daily limit imposed on stock price movements as part of efforts to stimulate the country's stock market, a local media report said Wednesday.According to the daily JoongAng Ilbo, who cited sources from financial authorities, the government is pushing to phase out the 15 percent daily limit in stock price fluctuations. It said the government could announce its position later this month or in August in a meeting chaired by President Park Geun-hye.

The captain of a Coast Guard patrol boat was arrested on Tuesday to face questioning over the maritime police's botched initial response to April's ferry sinking that claimed more than 300 lives, prosecutors said.The chief of the Mokpo Coast Guard's patrol boat, called the 123, has come under fire for failing to move swiftly to save more lives even though it was the first ship that arrived at the scene after the Sewol ferry sank in waters off the southwestern island of Jindo on April 16. The cap

Leeteuk, a conscripted member of the K-pop boy band Super Junior, was discharged from military service on Tuesday.The 31-year-old singer, whose real name is Park Jeong-su, served for 21 months in an Army unit in Inje, 165 kilometers northeast of Seoul.All able-bodied men should serve roughly two years in the South Korean military, which is still technically at war with North Korea. His fans flocked to the front gate of the military unit in the early morning to see him, but Leeteuk only briefly g

Popular K-pop group Girls' Generation on Tuesday topped Japan's Oricon weekly albums chart with its first compilation album released there, the group's management agency said. The girl group placed first on Oricon's weekly albums chart with "The Best," the compilation album composed of 18 of the group's hit songs, S.M. Entertainment said. It marks the third time for the band to top the chart following its first full-length album "Girls' Generation" (2011) and the third full-length album

South Korea and the United States will relocate the U.S. military headquarters in Seoul to south of the capital as planned because it is "a pledge to the people," Seoul's defense chief said Tuesday. In 2004, the allies agreed to relocate the Yongsan Garrison, the sprawling U.S. military headquarters in central Seoul, and the 2nd Infantry Division north of Seoul to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of the capital, by the end of 2016."The plan to relocate the U.S. bases will b

일본에서 섭씨 40도에 육박하는 기록적인 폭염이 계속되면서 지난 한 주 간 최소 15명이 사망하고, 8000명 이상이 병원으로 이송되는 등 인명피해가 속출했다. 지난 26일 하루에만 일부 지역의 기온이 38도까지 치솟으며 6명이 숨졌다. 일본 전국 927개 관측 지점 중 230여개에서 최고 기온 35도 이상을 기록했다.  (연합)지난 한 주간 약 8,600명 이상이 열사병 추정 증세로 응급실로 이송됐으며 이들 중 절반 이상이 65세 이상이었다. 일본 기상청은 29일 기온이 다시 올라 35도에 육박하겠다고 밝혔다. 지난 해에도 일본은 일부 지역 기온이 41도를 넘어서며 폭염 기록을 다시 세웠다. 수만 명이 병원으로 실려가 열사병 증세에 시달렸다. 이번 폭염은 태평양 고기압이 도호쿠(東北)지역에서 규슈(九州)까지의 일본 전역에 머무르면서 발생했다. 일본 정부는 27일 오키나와(沖繩)에서 혼슈(本州)에 이르는 일본 열도 거의 전역의 태평양쪽 지역에 고온주의보를 발령했다. 국민들에게는 수분

South Korea is considering imposing a travel ban on Libya again as spiraling violence in the African country has raised security concerns, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.Seoul's foreign ministry said it plans to hold a meeting as early as Wednesday to decide whether to raise its travel alert for Libya by one notch to the highest level.Since mid-July, South Korea, which has a four-tier travel advisory system, has strongly recommended that local companies withdraw their staffs or reduce the num

Sweltering summer heat in Japan has left at least 15 people dead over the past week, while more than 8,000 others were rushed to hospital with heatstroke symptoms, official figures showed Tuesday.At least six people died on Saturday alone, when the state weather agency warned temperatures had topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), with dripping humidity in certain parts of the country.Nearly 8,600 people were taken to the emergency room for heat-related symptoms in the week through S

South Korea has no intention of offering another round of talks with North Korea on its planned Asian Games participation as Pyongyang is responsible for the breakdown of the previous meeting, a government official said Tuesday."For now, we have no plan to first propose (talks) since the North Korean side unilaterally declared the failure of the previous meeting and walked out of it," an official at Seoul's unification ministry told reporters.There is no change in the South Korean government's p

Jo Kwon, member of K-pop boy band 2AM, posted a selfie taken with his labelmates on Monday. 　“JYP nation, we are practicing,” the idol wrote on his Instagram. 　In a string of photos, Jo poses with 2PM’s Jang Woo-young, 15&’s Park Ji-min and Baek Ye-rin, Sunmi, Miss A’s Fei, and Got7, all of whom are managed by JYP Entertainment. 　The JYP-affiliated musicians are scheduled to hold a collective concert “2014 JYP Nation - One Mic” starting in Seoul on Aug. 9 to be followed by concerts in Hong Kong

North Korea has denounced allegations that it supplied missiles to Hamas and material support to Hezbollah as "sheer fiction" and a "sinister" effort to link Pyongyang to Middle East disputes.The rebuttal from the foreign ministry was carried in a statement late Monday by the North's official KCNA news agency.It followed a weekend report by Britain's Daily Telegraph, citing Western security sources, that the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas had already made an initial cash down payment to sec

South Korea extended its current account surplus to a 28th consecutive month in June but saw the figure slip from the previous month as the surplus for goods narrowed, central bank data showed Tuesday.The current surplus reached US$7.92 billion last month, compared with a revised $9.08 billion in May, according to the preliminary data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade.With the June data out, South Korea's current account surplus for the

Even as they grapple with an immigration crisis at the Mexican border, White House officials are making plans to act before November's elections to grant work permits to potentially millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, allowing them to stay in the United States without threat of deportation, according to advocates and lawmakers in touch with the administration.Such a large-scale move on immigration could scramble election-year politics and lead some conservative Republicans to p

The deadly Ebola virus can spread like a forest fire, US health authorities said Monday, urging travelers to West Africa to take extra precautions amid the largest outbreak in history.Since March, there have been 1,201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.Two Americans -- one doctor and one healthcare worker -- in Monrovia, Liberia have come down with the virus, characterized by fever, joint pain, diarrhea, vomitin

Conflicts and repression around the world last year triggered the largest displacement of religious communities in recent memory, the United States said Monday, revealing millions had fled their homes."In almost every corner of the globe, millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others representing a range of faiths were forced from their homes on account of their religious beliefs," Washington said in its annual International Religious Freedom Report."Out of fear or by force, entire neighbo

The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday passed a bill calling for strengthening financial sanctions on North Korea and holding officials of the totalitarian nation accountable for human rights abuses.The legislation -- H.R. 1771 or the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act -- was unanimously approved in a plenary session of the House, Congressional officials said. The bill, introduced last year by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House foreign relations committee, won approval from the

U.S. high school textbooks should increase their coverage of the Korean War as it is a great way to look at the Cold War, American teachers said Monday, emphasizing the conflict gets too little coverage compared with the Vietnam War."There is a real tangible gap that the Korean War is roughly one-third of the representation of the Vietnam War," Samantha Fraser, a history teacher at River Ridge High School in the U.S. state of Georgia, said during a press conference.Fraser, 31, a granddaughter of

It was belatedly revealed Monday that Tao from the K-pop boy band EXO-M was injured during the filming of a TV reality show about two weeks ago.　According to Korean news reports, Tao injured his right foot at a coral reef in the Solomon Islands on July 14 during the filming of the SBS reality show “Law of the Jungle.” 　The Chinese member received urgent treatment from a local doctor and stopped over in Singapore for a medical checkup and treatment on the way back to China. 　Fortunately, the woun