A plan to seize up to 10 percent of savings accounts in Cyprus to help pay for a (euro) 15.8 billion ($20.4 billion) financial bailout was met with fury Monday, and the government shut down banks until later this week while lawmakers wrangled over how to keep the island nation from bankruptcy.Though the euro and stock prices of European banks fell, global financial markets largely remained calm, and there was little sense that bank account holders elsewhere across the continent faced similar ris

한국에 대한 혐오감을 유포시키는 혐한(嫌韓)운동에 반대하는 시위대가 일본 도쿄에 등장했다.17일 오후 도쿄 신오쿠보의 한인타운에서는 혐한 시위에 반대하는 사람들의 ‘맞불 시위’가 진행됐다. 100여명으로 구성된 이들은 ‘재일특권을 허용하지 않는 시민의 모임’ 등에 소속된 혐한 시위대 수백명이 거리를 행진하자 혐한 활동을 그만두라는 구호를 외쳤다. ‘친한’ 시위대는 “친하게 지내요” “차별 반대” 등의 글귀가 적힌 피켓을 들기도 했다. 이들 두 시위대 사이에 몸싸움이 벌어지면서 경찰이 진압에 나서기도 했다.최근 일본에서는 한국인을 주된 표적으로 삼는 배외주의 흐름에 반대하는 움직임이 가시화되고 있다. 지난 14일에는 아리타 요시후 민주당 의원과 히라야마 마코토 녹색바람당 의원 등의 주최로 참의원 의원회관에서 ‘배외주의•인종모멸 시위에 항의하는 국회 집회’가 열리기도 했다. <관련 영문 기사>Japanese step up against anti-Korea demonstrations　As

A 48-year-old former veterinarian in Australia has chanced a career change to become a pole dance instructor, according to News Local.After working as a vet for 20 years, Sarah Thompson was inspired to take a different career path after watching a pole dancing performance video of a nurse colleague. Thompson started to reach out to other young women who wanted to learn pole dancing. A group of eight students, most of whom were her friends, soon grew to an average of 250 students a term.Thompson’

Two members of a celebrated local high school football team were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl, and Ohio's attorney general warned the case isn't over, saying he is investigating whether coaches, parents and other students broke the law, too.Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in a case that has rocked this Midwestern U.S. city of 18,000 and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High team,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed on Sunday a hard-line former military chief as the country's new defense minister.Moshe Yaalon, a former army commando, has said Iran's suspect nuclear program is Israel's top security concern, though he has been vague about whether Israel might carry out a military strike on Iran. He also has voiced skepticism about the chances for reaching peace with the Palestinians.Yaalon, widely known by his nickname “Bogie,” was Israel's military chief fr

Cyprus' president said Sunday that he is trying to amend a key provision of an unpopular eurozone bailout plan that would tax deposits in the country's banks to reduce its effect on small savers. But in a nationally televised speech, President Nicos Anastasiades also urged lawmakers to approve the tax in a vote Monday, saying it is essential to save the country from bankruptcy.About 25 lawmakers from the communist-rooted AKEL party, the socialist EDEK and the Greens said they won't vote for the

South Korea's producer prices grew at a faster pace in February than the previous month as oil prices picked up and the local currency depreciated to the dollar, the central bank said Monday.The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, grew 0.7 percent in February from the previous month, after rising 0.2 percent on-month in January, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).The data marked the fastest gain since a 0.7 percent on-month gain in February 2012.Last month, prices o

South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor Co. sold 52,000 vehicles in the United States in February, up 2 percent from a year ago, industry data showed Monday. The data showed that Hyundai's market share in the U.S. remained unchanged at 4.4 percent.Hyundai's smaller sister company, Kia Motors Corp., sold 41,500 units in the U.S., down 8 percent from a year ago. Its market share stood at 3.5 percent last month, down 0.44 percentage points from a year earlier.Hyundai and Kia ranked seventh in ter

North Korea's recent military threats are worrisome especially as the "stability" of North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-un remains uncertain, a senior U.S. lawmaker said Sunday.Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said North Korea has the capability to carry out its verbal threats."They certainly have a ballistic missile that can reach U.S. shores," he said, appearing on a CNN program. The Michigan republican did not specify whether he meant the U.S. mainland or c

Police in South Carolina said a man who watched a wedding with his genitals pressed against a window was charged with indecent exposure.Investigators said Samuel James Dengel, 20, of Chalfont, Pa., was staying at the DoubleTree Hotel in Charleston and his room was overlooking the courtyard where a wedding took place Saturday, the Philadelphia Daily News reported Wednesday.Wedding guests said Dengel was watching the wedding with his genitals pressed against the window and he "placed his buttocks

A Chinese zoo recently tried an unusual method to encourage its giant pandas to mate: showing them a panda version of a porn video.The zoo -- which is located in Chengdu -- managed to get the pandas to mate after showing them a video of other panda’s copulating, according to the English edition of Chinese daily Global Times.Zoo officials said every time male panda Yongyong tried to mate with his companion KeLin, she would fight him off. Since the mating period for a panda is relatively short, Ke

President Park Geun-hye named the heads of 18 government offices Friday including the most powerful agencies of the prosecution, police and tax service.Senior prosecutor Chae Dong-wook was nominated for the public prosecutor general and Kim Duk-joong, chief of the Jungbu Regional Tax Office, to head the National Tax Service. Busan police chief Lee Sung-han, was named to lead the National Police Agency. The three are subjected to go through a parliamentary confirmation hearing.Chae, 54, now head

A Bulgarian man has won the British lottery for the second time media reported Thursday.George Traykov, a 45-year-old Bulgarian property developer currently residing in Britain, recently won a 160,873-pounds (270 million won) prize in the “EuroMillions,” to add to his 1 million pounds “Millionaire Raffle” winnings from September 2011.Traykov said his incredible fortune could have been even bigger, as he missed the EuroMillions jackpot prize of 12 million pounds by one number. He added that he mi

Shareholders of Hana Financial Group Inc. and its affiliate Korea Exchange Bank approved Friday the group's move to take full control of KEB through swapping shares, bank officials said. At an annual meeting, shareholders of Hana Financial voted for the share swap plan with 98.34 percent approval, the group said. It will raise its stake in KEB to 100 percent from the current 60 percent by swapping each of its shares for 5.28 KEB shares. KEB shareholders, in contrast, passed the plan after three

유럽입자물리연구소(CERN)는 14일(현지시간) 지난해 대형강입자충돌기(LHC)에서 검출된 소립자가 '힉스 입자'임이 확실시된다고 밝혔다.BBC와 AP 등에 따르면 CERN 조 인칸델라 연구팀장은 "어떤 종류의 힉스 입자인지 알아내려면 아직 갈 길이 멀지만 개인적으로 지금 갖고 있는 것이 힉스 입자라는 점은 명확하다"고 말했다.그는 이탈리아 라투일레에서 열린 연례 물리학회에서 CERN의 분석 결과 지난해 7월 LHC에서 검출된 입자의 '스핀'이 힉스 입자의 특성과 일치한다는 추론에 도달했다고 밝혔다. CERN 아틀라스 연구팀의 데이브 찰튼 대변인도 "검출된 입자의 스핀 값이 표준모형의 힉스 입자와 같은 것으로 나타나 힉스 입자 단위에서 측정 작업을 진행하고 있다"고 설명했다.스핀은 입자의 고유한 각(角)운동량으로 힉스 입자는 이 스핀이 제로(0)라야 한다.이날 AP통신은 CERN 연구팀의 발언을 인용해 힉스 입자 발견이 확실하다고 보도 했지만 다른 외신들은 가능성이 좀 더 커졌다며

North Korea is likely to launch a provocative attack on South Korea this year, a top analyst said Thursday at the launch of his think tank's annual report on the world's military capabilities.The International Institute for Strategic Studies said North Korea's "military first" doctrine remained clearly intact under youthful leader Kim Jong-Un.Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the London-based IISS's non-proliferation and disarmament program, said world powers were increasingly concerned about the th

It helps solve one of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.7 billion years ago.In what could go down as one of the great Eureka! moments in physics _ and win somebody the Nobel Prize _ scientists said Thursday that after a half-century quest, they are confident they have found a Higgs boson, the elusive subatomic speck sometimes called the “God particle.”The existence of the particle was theorized in 1964 by the British physicist Pete

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to South Korea next month as part of his Northeast Asia tour, his department announced Thursday.It will mark his first trip to the region since he took office in February.  Following the G-8 meetings in London from April 10-11, Kerry plans to visit South Korea, Japan and China, according to department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland."The secretary will meet with counterparts and discuss the full range of bilateral, multilateral and regional issues as we

Expectations of a significant change in China's approach toward North Korea are growing among U.S. officials and experts, especially with the election of Beijing's new president, Xi Jinping. U.S. President Barack Obama openly said China is "recalculating" its policy on the troublesome communist neighbor."You're starting to see them recalculate and say, 'You know what? this is starting to get out of hand," Obama said in an interview with ABC News earlier this week."And, so, we may slowly be in a

Samsung Electronics is kicking up its competition with Apple with its new Galaxy S4 smartphone, which has a larger, sharper screen than its predecessor, the best-selling S III.Samsung trumpeted the much-anticipated phone's arrival Thursday at an event accompanied by a live orchestra while an audience of thousands watched the onstage theatrics. The Galaxy S4, which crams a 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) screen into body slightly smaller than the S III's, will go sale globally in the April to June perio