U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Thursday that North Korea is apparently planning for another nuclear test but there is no indication of any imminent action."We always get intelligence that they continue to make plans for this, but I have not seen, at least intelligence that I've noted, that indicates that it's imminent," the secretary told reporters.After talks with Panetta in Washington on Wednesday, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said the secretive and unpredictable com

President Lee Myung-bak's only son was allowed to return home Friday after around 14 hours of questioning by special prosecutors over alleged wrongdoing in a land deal for his father's retirement home project."I explained as much as I can," weary-looking Lee Si-hyung told reporters, emerging from the Seoul office of the independent counsel probing into suspicions that the 34-year-old attempted to misuse taxpayers' money through the now-scrapped land deal.He came out of the building at half past

Ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgraded three French banks on Thursday, including giant BNP Paribas, and placed 10 others on negative outlook including Credit Agricole and Societe Generale."In our view, the economic risks under which French banks operate are increasing, leaving French banks moderately more exposed to the potential of a more protracted recession in the eurozone," S&P said in a statement explaining its action.In its decision, S&P lowered its long-term rating on BNP Paribas t

Samsung Electronics said Friday that it logged a record-breaking operating profit of 8.12 trillion won for the third quarter, boosted by its strong sales of mobile devices and display panels.The world’s top smartphone maker also achieved 52.18 trillion won in revenue, an increase of 26 percent year-on-year. Net profit also posted at 6.56 trillion won from July-September.The figures were similar to those released in its earnings guidance earlier this month which said the company’s consolidated re

The South Korean economy grew at the slowest pace in nearly three years in the third quarter in the face of the global economic downturn, the central bank said Friday, giving weight to the bank‘s recent rate cut.Korea’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic performance, grew 0.2 percent in the July-September period from three months earlier, slowing from a 0.3 percent on-quarter gain tallied in the second quarter, according to an advance estimate by the Bank of Korea.The third

Five officials of a minor progressive party have been arrested on court-issued warrants in connection with fraud by the party ahead of the most recent parliamentary elections in April, prosecutors said Thursday.The five officials of the United Progressive Party (UPP) are suspected of taking a leading role in manipulating the party's internal race to nominate candidates for proportional representation seats, including enabling multiple voting by some members friendly to the then party leadership,

South Korea's top 10 conglomerates' unlisted companies pay about half of their net profit as dividends to their shareholders, mostly owners' family members, an analysis showed Thursday.The dividend payout ratio of 499 unlisted companies affiliated with the conglomerates, known as chaebol here, stood at 41.2 percent over the past two years, according to the analysis by Yonhap News Agency and conglomerate tracker Chaebul.com. The ratio refers to the percentage of income a company spends on its div

Guatemala's Mayan people accused the government and tour groups on Wednesday of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain."We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles," charged Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.Several films and documentaries have promoted the idea that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts

The European Commission said Wednesday that there is no accord yet between Greece's international creditors and Athens on extending the terms of its debt rescue, but that substantial progress has been made."Substantial progress has been made in talks with Greece but a few outstanding issues remain before a staff level agreement can be reached," a spokesman for European economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said in a tweeted message after reports from Athens that a deal had been reached.Greek F

Korea’s state-run archive has restored a map made by the Japanese government in the 1930s with Dokdo marked as Korean territory, which it said would help counter the former occupier’s decades-long claim over the islets in the East Sea. The state-run National Archives of Korea said Wednesday it has completed the five-month reconstruction of the 1936 map by using preservation films and ultrasonic waves. The Independence Hall of Korea, which commissioned the work, plans to exhibit it at its history

 A European spacecraft orbiting Mars has captured new images of one of the solar system's most dramatic geological features, scientists say.Valles Marineris on Mars is a chasm 125 miles wide, more than 6 miles deep and stretching for almost 2,500 miles, making it the largest canyon in the solar system.It is 10 times longer and five times deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon, a release from the Paris headquarters of the European Space Agency said Monday.The latest image of Valles Marineris, in near-t

Journalism is no longer a job for Superman.His alter ego Clark Kent is quitting the Daily Planet, the Metropolis newspaper where he's worked since the first Superman comics were published in the 1940s, the USA Today newspaper said Monday.The plot twist -- prompted by the Daily Planet's takeover by a media conglomerate -- is one of many to appear in the new edition of Superman that goes on sale Wednesday in both digital and hard-copy forms.‘Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the pla

A U.S. federal court has approved the extradition of an American suspect in the 1997 murder of a South Korean college student in Seoul, court and Justice Ministry officials here said Tuesday.Arthur Patterson, 33, is accused of stabbing the victim to death inside a bathroom at a Burger King outlet in the foreigners' hub of Itaewon in April 1997.He has been held in custody in Los Angeles since May 2011 after South Korea's Justice Ministry requested his extradition in connection with the case.On Mo

These are the principal features, pricing and availability of the new iPad mini tablet computer unveiled by Apple on Tuesday:-- the iPad mini has a 7.9-inch (20.06-centimeter) touchscreen when measured diagonally, smaller than the 9.7-inch (24.6-cm) display on the original iPad-- the iPad mini weighs 0.68 pounds, 53 percent lighter than Apple's third generation iPad-- it is 7.2 millimeters (0.28 inches) thick, 23 percent thinner than the original iPad and thinner than a pencil-- the iPad mini ha

Apple Inc.'s pencil-thin, smaller iPad will cost much more than its competitors, signaling the company isn't going to get into a mini-tablet price war.The company debuted the iPad Mini Tuesday, with a screen two-thirds smaller than the full model, and half the weight. Customers can begin ordering the new model on Friday. In a surprise, Apple also revamped its flagship, full-sized iPad just six months after the launch of the latest model.Apple's late founder Steve Jobs once ridiculed a small tabl

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it found five people died in the past three years after downing the popular energy drink Monster Energy.The New York Times reported Monday the information does not prove a link between Monster Energy and the deaths or any health problems. The newspaper said the mother of a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died in December after drinking large cans of Monster Energy two days in a row obtained the FDA records recently under the Freedom of Information Act. Th

It could be the muffled sound of singing in the shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets' Swedish Chef.Surprisingly, scientists said the audio they captured was a whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human that divers initially thought it was a human voice.Handlers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego heard mumbling in 1984 coming from a tank containing whales and dolphins that sounded like two people chatting far away.In a mor

Six Italian scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in jail on Monday for multiple manslaughter in a watershed ruling that found them guilty of underestimating the risks of a killer earthquake in 2009.They were also ordered to pay?more than nine million euros (almost $12 million) in damages to survivors in the devastated medieval town of L'Aquila in a case that has sparked outrage in the international science community.Seismologists in Italy and beyond were horrified by

The United Nations is already planning for a peacekeeping force in Syria should a cease-fire in that country take hold and pending a Security Council mandate, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Monday.Herve Ladsous said, however, it was still too early to say how many peacekeepers might be deployed in such an eventual force.“I would confirm that, of course, we are giving a lot of thought to what would happen if and when a political solution or at least a cease-fire would emerge,” Ladsous told repo

LG Chem Ltd., the world's largest battery maker, on Monday denied reports by U.S. media outlets that it has delayed starting commercial operation of its American lithium-ion battery plant, thus failing to create jobs and leaving about 200 workers idle. U.S. media outlets including Fox News and Wood TV have reported the factory built using US$150 million of taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced. "The report is not true," LG Chem said in a statemen