The murder trial of South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius turned its focus on Tuesday to whether neighbours could have heard his model girlfriend screaming on the night he shot her dead.   Prosecutors are trying to prove that Reeva Steenkamp screamed and that this showed the star athlete known as the "Blade Runner" knowingly gunned her down in a fit of anger after a row in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year.   The defence claims Pistorius shot the 29-year-old model and law graduate

An Egyptian militant group has claimed responsibility for bomb blasts near the presidential palace that killed two senior police officers and wounded 10 other people.    Ajnad Misr, or Soldiers of Egypt, which has claimed previous attacks on police, said in a statement posted on militant websites hours after Monday's attack that it set a trap for guards at Cairo's Ittihadiya palace using new explosive devices that cannot be detected by ordinary equipment.    The group said its experts spent mont

South Korea reaffirmed its stance Tuesday that Japan should seek explicit consent from Seoul if Tokyo exercises the right to "collective self-defense" in cases of emergency situations related to security on the Korean Peninsula.   The Japanese cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to reinterpret its war-renouncing Constitution that has banned Japan from exercising what is called the right to collective self-defense, a major shift in Japan's postwar security policy. The right would allow Tokyo t

South Korea's newly-appointed defense chief vowed Tuesday to "mercilessly respond" to North Korea in the case of any provocation, instructing troops at the tensely-guarded western sea border to prepare for an effective counterattack.   Defense Minister Han Min-koo made the remarks during a visit to the islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea just south of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean western sea border.   Han, a career soldier and former chief of the Joint C

Prosecutors investigating April's deadly ferry sinking apologized Monday for so far failing to arrest the ferry operator's fugitive owner, vowing to apprehend him as quickly as possible.   A massive manhunt has been under way for weeks for Yoo Byung-eun, who is wanted for a string of corruption charges and irregularities that are believed to have contributed to the April 16 sinking of the Sewol that claimed more than 300 lives.   Police have previously combed through the city of Suncheon, 415 ki

Korea Mobile Internet (KMI) is the sole bidder for the 2.5Ghz frequency bandwidth that can be used for long-term evolution time-division duplex (LTE-TDD) and wireless broadband (WiBro), the government said Monday.   According to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, KMI has been the only bidder in the auction that began on May 2.   The company made up of mobile virtual network firms originally requested a license to become a LTE-TDD operator on Nov. 14 2013, but retracted its request

   Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest automotive conglomerate, said Monday that it has developed a mobile diagnostics system that can quickly determine problems in a car using an ordinary tablet PC.    The new Global Diagnostic System (GDS) is a world first and represents a jump in technology compared to the tools used by Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. since 2006, the conglomerate claimed. The two carmakers are flagships of the conglomerate and the top two manufacturers of au

  South Korea rescued three North Koreans who were drifting at sea and two of them want to stay in the South, officials said Monday, which would likely produce an angry response from Pyongyang.    The men were rescued off the South's eastern coast on Saturday and while two want to stay, one said he wished to return to the North, Seoul's Unification Ministry said in a statement.     Defections are a source of conflict between the Koreas. Seoul returns those who wish to return home but accepts tho

   Overseas construction orders secured by South Korean builders stood at US$31.6 billion in the first five months of this year, up 35 percent compared to 2013, local industry data showed Monday.   The International Contractors Association of Korea (ICAK) said the total is the highest reached for the period since 2010 when the $18.6 billion order for the United Arab Emirate's nuclear reactor project was tallied.   By region, orders from the Middle East accounted for 78 percent of the total, or $

   Daelim Industrial Co., one of South Korea's leading  builders, said Monday it won a 245 billion won (US$239.2 million) contract to build part of a subway line in Singapore.   The company said the contract reached with the city-state's Land Transport Authority is to build 1.42 kilometers of the Thomson Line, which includes one station and some 1.2 kilometers of tunnel.   Construction is expected to take 79 months, with work to be completed in December 2020.   The overall length of the new subw

   Sales by South Korean automakers remained at a standstill last month from a year earlier, mainly due to fewer working days, data showed Monday.   The combined sales of five local car manufacturers, including market leader Hyundai Motor Co., reached 746,978 vehicles in May, up just 80 units from 746,898 units a year ago. The total excludes knockdown kits shipped abroad for assembly.     The total represents a 6.9 percent drop from 802,657 vehicles sold in April.   Carmakers said that the four-

   South Korea rejected North Korea's demand that Seoul hand over all three North Koreans picked up from a fishing boat drifting off South Korea's east coast, an official said Monday, a move that could anger the North amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula.   The three men, who are in their 20s and 30s, were picked up by a South Korean coast guard vessel near Ulleung Island on Saturday after their ship ran adrift.   South Korea said two of the three North Koreans expressed their wish to remain in

Thousands of cheering supporters welcomed India's next prime minister on his arrival in the capital Saturday after leading his party to a staggering victory in national elections.    Standing on the footboard of his SUV, Narendra Modi flashed a victory sign as he drove past jubilant supporters outside the New Delhi airport, heading toward the headquarters of his Bharatiya Janata Party to discuss the formation of a new government.    A new government is likely to be in place by next week, but no

Google and Apple, the two technology titans behind the world's top smartphone platforms, called a truce Friday in a long-running patent war.   "Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies," the companies said in a joint statement.   "Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform."   The companies made it clear that the detente does not include licensing their technology to each other.   Motorol

 Lao military plane carrying top officials including the defence minister crashed on Saturday in the north of the communist country, a Thai official said, without giving details of any casualties.   About 20 people were on board including Defence Minister Douangchay Phichit, the Vientiane governor and other prominent figures, foreign ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee told AFP.   There was no immediate confirmation from Laos's secretive government.   The officials were believed to be travelling

A host of street rallies were scheduled to be held in downtown Seoul late Saturday in protest of the government's poor handling of the sinking of a ferry off South Korea's southwest coast one month ago.   A group of about 500 civic groups, including the Korean Federation of Trade Unions and People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, planned to hold a joint rally around Cheonggye Plaza, downtown Seoul, starting Saturday evening in memory of the more than 300 people killed in the deadly sink

Rescue divers brought out one more body early Saturday morning from a ferry that sank off South Korea's southwest coast last month, bringing the confirmed death toll to 285, government officials said.   The body of one man was retrieved in early morning search operations, according to the officials. The number of those who remain unaccounted for in one of the country's worst maritime disasters dropped to 19.   The 6,825-ton ferry Sewol carrying an estimated 476 passengers capsized and sank off t

A North Korean singer said to be leader Kim Jong-Un's ex-girlfriend and rumoured to have been executed last year has appeared on state television, apparently alive and well.   Pyongyang's state TV showed Hyon Song-Wol, the head of a band known as Moranbong, delivering a speech at a national art workers rally in Pyongyang on Friday.   She expressed gratitude for Kim's leadership and pledged to work harder to "stoke up the flame for art and creative work".   Her appearance came after months of spe

The vending machines at a Vancouver storefront look ordinary -- but instead of spitting out gum or snacks, for a few coins they deliver medical marijuana.   For Can$4 (US$3.70), the brightly lit "gumball" machine drops a plastic ball filled with the so-called "Cotton Candy" variety of the drug. The "Purple Kush" option costs Can$6.   But the really good stuff, said proprietor Chuck Varabioff, is "Pink Kush," available from another machine the size of a fridge that delivers a wide range of mariju

The South Korean stock market is expected to continue its climb next week on the back of a continued foreign buying, although its gains may be capped due to profit-taking, analysts said Saturday.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) finished at 2,013.44 points on Friday, up 2.9 percent from a week earlier.   The main index, backed by massive foreign buying, continued to gather ground through the week, reaching this year's all-time high on Friday.   Analysts said a series of