The US military is reportedly in talks with South Korea on the timing of large-scale annual military exercises that always infuriate nuclear-armed Pyongyang and could coincide with next year's Winter Olympics.The Foal Eagle and Key Resolve drills usually start in late February or early March and involve tens of thousands of troops from the two allies, which say they are purely defensive.(Yonhap)The North, though, sees them as rehearsals for invasion, and they always ratchet up the already high t

A new high-quality counterfeit $100 bill has been found in South Korea, bank officials said Tuesday, prompting suggestions the sanctions-hit North might have resumed forging "supernotes".A team of forgery specialists at KEB Hana Bank have confirmed that a $100 note found at a Seoul branch in November was a fake which was almost impossible to distinguish from real banknotes, they said."It was the first of a new kind of supernote ever found in the world," Yi Ho-Joong, head of t

Pregnant women struggling to bag a seat on the famously packed Tokyo subway could find their salvation in a new app connecting them with nearby passengers willing to give up their coveted perch.The digital match-making app being trialled this week on the metro aims to overcome two problems especially prevalent in Japan: passengers generally have their nose buried in their phones and talking is strictly frowned upon.The service allows a pregnant woman to send a message when she wants a seat. (Yon

Charles Jenkins, a US Army deserter who spent four decades in communist North Korea and married a Japanese woman abducted by Pyongyang, has died at the age of 77, officials said on Tuesday.According to the Asahi Shimbun daily, his daughter found him collapsed outside their house on Monday and called the emergency services.He later died of heart problems at a hospital in the northern city of Sado, according to the local government. In this July 18, 2004 file photo, former U.S. Army deserter to No

NEW DELHI (AFP) -- India's opposition Congress party named Rahul Gandhi as its new leader on Monday after years of speculation, calling it a "historic occasion". Rahul Gandhi. AFP-YonhapSenior Congress leader Mullappally Ramachandran said the 47-year-old had stood unopposed for election as the president of the party his family had led for generations."I hereby declare Shri Rahul Gandhi elected as the President of the Indian National Congress," he told reporters outside the Congress headquarters

Demoralized and divided, France’s traditional center-right party is expected to move closer to the far-right on Sunday when it picks a new leader to take on centrist President Emmanuel Macron.The Republicans party, which represents the dominant conservative force in post-war French politics, will almost certainly turn to 42-year-old Laurent Wauquiez as it looks to recover from a disastrous 2017. This combination of file pictures created on Oct. 26 shows the three official candidates for the pres

Setsuko Thurlow, 85, was 13 years old when she was rescued from the ruins of the world’s first atomic bombing in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.On Sunday she receives the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, along with its head Beatrice Fihn.Here is how Thurlow recalled the horrors of that day 72 years ago, in her speech during the ceremony in Oslo: Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, Japanese Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the atomic bombings o

Japanese police on Saturday arrested three North Korean crew members for suspected theft, a spokesman said, amid a fresh wave of North Korean "ghost ship" fishing vessels washing up in Japanese waters.The three were among the 10 North Korean "fishermen" spotted aboard a tiny wooden boat struggling in bad weather off the northern island of Hokkaido late last month.The 45-year-old captain and two other crew members, who all identified themselves as North Korean nationals, were arrested on suspicio

North Korea blamed US "nuclear blackmail" for soaring tensions over its weapons programme in rare meetings with a senior UN official, but agreed to regular communication with the organisation, state media said Saturday.Jeffrey Feltman arrived in Beijing Saturday after wrapping up a five-day visit to Pyongyang aimed at defusing the crisis, just a week after North Korea said it test-fired a new ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.His trip -- the first by a UN diplomat of his ra

Japan plans to purchase offensive air-to-surface missiles to counter North Korea's rising military threat, its defence minister said Friday, a move likely to stir debate over its decades-long pacifist policy.Itsunori Onodera said the ministry intends to request a special budget for the fiscal year starting April 2018 to purchase long-range cruise missiles deployed on fighter jets. (Yonhap)According to local media, the ministry plans to buy JASSM and LRASM long-range, air-to-ground missiles with

Lubaina Himid, 63, on Tuesday became the oldest winner of the Turner Prize, Britain‘s most prestigious yet controversial visual art award, for her works celebrating black creativity.Judges praised the Zanzibar-born artist for the “seriousness of themes she addressed”, paying tribute to the “current vitality of Lubaina’s work as well as the current relevance” of it in three decades past.The winning artist said she felt “like I won it for a lot of people, so that‘s why it means a lot. Artist Lubai

BEIJING - A senior United Nations official arrived in North Korea on Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at defusing soaring tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.Jeffrey Feltman's visit -- the first by a UN diplomat of his rank since 2010 -- comes less than a week after North Korea said it test-fired a new ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.Feltman shook hands with a North Korean foreign ministry official after flying into Pyongyang from Beijing on the North's Air

An airplane crew flying over Japan saw North Korea's missile as it plunged back through the atmosphere last week, their airline said Monday, as South Korea and the US kicked off their largest ever joint air exercise.   Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific released a statement saying the crew of flight CX893 spotted "what is suspected to be the re-entry" of the missile as they flew from San Francisco to the southern Chinese city.   In a separate message to staff, Cathay general manager Mark Hoey said

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his country had achieved its long-cherished goal of full-fledged nuclear statehood after successfully testing a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday.The United States and its allies have always maintained they would never accept a nuclear North Korea, but have been forced to watch from the sidelines as Pyongyang pursued an accelerated weapons drive. (Yonhap)But what did the latest test actually achieve and does the North‘s claim to

 WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday pledged to "take care" of North Korea after its latest ballistic missile launch -- the first after a two-month hiatus -- which his Pentagon chief said was its highest yet, signifying an expanded threat. The ICBM is believed to have flown a relatively modest 1,000 kilometers(620 miles) from North Korea, before splashing down harmlessly in the Sea of Japan. But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the missile went higher than ever before and wa

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held emergency talks Tuesday, weighing their response to a provocative North Korean missile test.Trump White House aide Dan Scavino posted an image on Twitter of Trump speaking to Abe, saying the conversation was “regarding North Korea‘s launch of a intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.”US President Donald Trump (EPA-Yonhap)

Egypt mourned on Saturday as the death toll from a gun and bomb assault on a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula soared above 300, including children, in the deadliest attack the country has witnessed.The army said warplanes had struck militant hideouts in the insurgency-wracked North Sinai in retaliation.According to the state prosecution, up to 30 militants in camouflage flying the Islamic State group's black banner had surrounded the mosque and massacred the worshippers during weekly Friday prayers

A bridge providing the main road link between China and North Korea is to be closed "temporarily" while workers on the North side carry out maintenance, Beijing announced Friday. Some 70 percent of trade between the Asian neighbours is conducted in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, connected to North Korea by the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge."The bridge will be closed temporarily because the DPRK (North Korean) side needs to carry out some repair and maintenance work," Chinese foreign m

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond forcefully after attackers killed at least 235 worshippers in a packed mosque in restive North Sinai province, the country's deadliest attack in recent memory.Al-Sisi declared three days of mourning would begin Saturday, the day after the gun and bomb assault on the Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometers west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish.In a televised speech the president pledged to "respond with brutal force", adding that "the

At least 50 people were killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in northeast Nigeria, police said, in an attack blamed on Boko Haram jihadists.The blast happened during early morning prayers at the Madina mosque in the Unguwar Shuwa area of Mubi, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) by road from the Adamawa state capital Yola.(AP-Yonhap)It was the biggest attack in Adamawa since December 2016, when two female suicide bombers killed 45 people at a crowded market in the town