BEIJING (AP) – A series of small explosions killed one person and injured eight others Wednesday outside the provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, officials said.Officials gave no word on the target or perpetrators of the blasts, which state media said were caused by homemade bombs. The explosions came during heightened security following a suicide car crash at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing that killed the car's three occupants and two bystand

North Korea accused South Korean President Park Geun-hye of "moral vulgarity" Wednesday after she suggested she was ready to hold a summit with its leader Kim Jong-un at any time.The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea accused Park of talking about a summit with Kim while making provocative remarks against Pyongyang."Park's remark about 'summit talks' does not deserve even a passing note and is just a last resort to tide over the political crisis inside and outside," the st

North Korea has "very serious nuclear capabilities" and it is able to conduct another round of nuclear tests "any time," South Korea's nuclear envoy said Tuesday.The communist country has restarted a nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear center, a provocative move that would provide Pyongyang with enough plutonium to build one atomic bomb a year, according to Seoul's spy agency. Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test in February. "The assessment on North Korea's nuclear capabilities is ver

NEW YORK (Yonhap News) -- South Korea's top central banker on Tuesday stressed the need to build up global financial safety nets to promote financial stability as an absence of such scheme would deepen global imbalances.Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Kim Choong-soo said in a forum hosted by Economic Club of New York that the global financial system "needs an effective backstop for global liquidity shortage," expressing hopes that advanced economies should be more active in creating global financial sa

Google, Apple and other foreign firms should be taxed on profits generated from Korean-made contents, ruling Saenuri Party’s Rep. Nam Kyung-pil claimed Tuesday.Saying that the Broadcasting Communication Development Fund is dwindling due to the drop in terrestrial broadcasters’ advertising revenues, Nam said that Korea should seek out new sources for related revenues citing examples from Europe.According to Nam, the French government has been developing the plans to levy “culture tax” varying fro

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar police said Tuesday a makeshift bomb caused a blast at a luxury Yangon hotel that wounded an American woman, as they questioned several suspects following a series of explosions.Officials voiced fears that the incidents could be aimed at derailing democratic reforms as the country prepares to host a major regional sporting event in December and chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year.The American woman was taken to hospital with wounds to her thi

KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) - The Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday began in Iraq Tuesday with a bomb ripping through a crowd of worshippers as they left a Sunni mosque, killing 12 people.Three children, a policeman and an army officer were among the dead from the blast in the northern city of Kirkuk, which also wounded 26 people, police and a doctor said.Bodies, their clothes covered in blood, were placed in the back of a small police pickup truck to be taken away, an AFP journalist at the scene said.Angry and

South Korea's trade surplus in the industrial parts and materials sector rose to a new high in the first nine months of this year as the growth of its exports outpaced that of imports, the government said Tuesday.In the January-September period, the country's exports of industrial parts and materials came to some US$196 billion, up 3.7 percent from the same period last year, and its imports rose 1.4 percent on-year to reach some $123 billion, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Ener

BEIJING (Yonhap News) – The mother of an American man jailed in North Korea for nearly one year said Tuesday she is "more anxious than ever" to bring her son home after meeting him during her visit to the North. Kenneth Bae, a 45-year-old Korean-American known as a Christian missionary, was arrested in North Korea last November on charges of unspecified anti-government activities. In April, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.His mother, Bae Myung-hee, 68, flew to Pyongyang on Thursday to

Popular South Korean novelist Choi In-ho died of cancer on Wednesday at the age of 68. He started his career by winning a competition sponsored by the local daily Hanguk Ilbo in 1963 with his short novel "Through a Wall Hole."   He wrote a number of bestsellers since the 1970s, including "Whale Hunting," "Winter Wanderer" and "Deep Blue Night," with many of them used as originals for movies and TV dramas. (Yonhap News)

North Korea on Wednesday postponed scheduled talks to enhance communications links and ease access to and from the inter-Korean factory park in Gaesong.The Ministry of Unification in Seoul said Pyongyang called for a delay of the sub-panel meeting without giving a reason or setting up an alternate date. The meeting was set to take place at the Gaesong Industrial Complex on Thursday. Issues on communications links include building infrastructure, allowing Internet access to factories at the North

PARIS (AFP) - France said Wednesday its public debt would hit a record 95.1 percent of GDP in 2014, far higher than previous estimates, as it unveiled next year's draft budget for the embattled euro-zone economy.But the government said debt should fall back in 2015, and reiterated a pledge to meet its EU-mandated deadline to bring the public deficit below three percent that year.The draft budget was presented to the cabinet by Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and Budget Minister Bernard Cazeneu

KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) - Militants attacked local government buildings in north Iraq on Wednesday with suicide bombers and mortar fire and clashed with soldiers, leaving 14 people dead, an army officer said.Seven civilians, three soldiers and four militants were killed in the violence in the town of Hawijah, west of Kirkuk, army Staff Major General Mohammed Khalaf al-Dulaimi said.One suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle near a police station while a second blew up another near a loc

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Dutch police closed two department stores and a restaurant in the city of Haarlem on Wednesday after someone tweeted threats of a "bloodbath.”Armed police were deployed outside V&D shops and a restaurant in the city to the west of Amsterdam after "threatening tweets" were made, police said in a statement.The tweets were made on Tuesday night saying there would be a bloodbath at a V&D shop on Wednesday at 11:50 a.m., with at least 10 dead, Dutch media reported.The author of the

South Korea has reviewed a five-year plan for fostering inter-Korean trust-building and sustainable relations that can achieve small breakthroughs critical for laying the foundation for eventual reunification down the line, the government said Wednesday. The plan, which defines the Park Geun-hye administration's policy towards Pyongyang, focuses on trust and "a small form of unification" as its two main objectives, the Ministry of Unification said.Trust is critical for the two Koreas to expand e

The unionists of the state-run broadcaster KBS on Wednesday pledged to strike, citing an ad hoc parliamentary committee's failure to work out measures to guarantee fair broadcasting and to improve its corporate governance structure. Following a vote on the issue, the union said they plan to walk off the job at 5 a.m., Thursday, and some 2,500 unionists are expected to take part in the strike.The union criticized a special committee on fair broadcasting for failing to make any noticeable headway,

Seoul denounced North Korea’s decision to postpone the cross-border family reunions as “inhumane” on Saturday and warned that Pyongyang had nothing to gain by using the event as a political tool. On Saturday North Korea announced that the family reunions, scheduled to be held at North's mountain resort of Kumgang from Sept. 25-30, are being postponed accusing Seoul of creating an atmosphere of contention. Pyongyang also postponed the planned negotiations with the South, slated for Oct. 2, on how

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan on Saturday released its most senior Afghan Taliban detainee, Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior official of the interior ministry told AFP, in a move Kabul hopes will encourage peace talks with the insurgents."Yes Baradar has been released," Omar Hamid, a spokesman for interior ministry told AFP, without elaborating.Abdul Ghani Baradar, a one-time military chief often described as the insurgents' former second-in-command, was the most high profile detained Taliban commande

BEIRUT (AFP) - Syria's opposition National Coalition on Saturday rejected an Iranian offer to broker talks with the regime, saying the bid was "not serious" and calling Tehran "part of the problem.""The Iranian initiative is not serious and lacks political credibility," the key opposition grouping said in a statement.The comments came after Iranian President Hassan Rowhani said Thursday that his government was willing to "facilitate dialogue" between the Syrian government and opposition fighters

The number of female teachers in kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools rose 36 percent in the last decade that nearly seven out of every 10 teachers are now female, the latest education data showed Saturday.As of April, female teachers numbered 330,696, a 36.2 percent rise from 242,809 in 2003, while the number of their male counterparts fell 6.8 percent from 163,095 to 151,990 during the same period, according to the data.That made the proportion of female teachers rise to 68.5 per