SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- A key South Korean presidential aide on national security is visiting the United States for possible talks on inter-Korean relations and the ratification of a free trade agreement between Seoul and Washington, a source said Thursday.Kim Tae-hyo, a senior secretary to President Lee Myung-bak for national security strategy, left for the U.S. on Wednesday, the source added,

CHUNCHEON, South Korea, June 23 (Yonhap) -- Police said Thursday that they have cleared a marathon coach and his athletes of doping allegations, wrapping up their probe two months before South Korea hosts the world athletic championships.The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency said it has examined records from a rehabilitation hospital where 19 athletes were treated, and found no evidence that they h

SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul court ordered compensation for the families of two young Samsung Electronics employees who died of leukemia, recognizing for the first time a link between leukemia and working in a computer chip-making line.The Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of the families, who requested the court annul the Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Services' 2009 decision

SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- The National Assembly on Thursday passed a package of safeguard bills aimed at protecting local industries from cheap imports after a free trade deal with the European Union (EU) takes effect in July. The free trade pact, approved by the parliament in April, will eliminate 98 percent of import duties and other trade barriers in manufactured goods, agricultural products a

Korean-American professor tells story of man who transcended ethnic rivalryChang Tae-han, professor at University of California, Riverside, recalled his last visit to Colonel Kim Young-oak, a highly decorated Korean-American war hero, when he was already in a coma at a hospital in Los Angeles six years ago.“I told him that his biography, written in Korean, had just been published in Korea. He did

A U.S. marine who almost lost his right leg due to a bomb blast in Afghanistan, has become the first to see it grow back, thanks to regenerative medicine that uses a substance from a pig bladder, the Daily Mail reported.Marine Corporal Isaias Hernandez lost 70 percent of his right thigh muscles that would normally require amputation. However, rather than cutting it off, the remaining leg muscles w

Tony Blair (MCT)Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is being criticized for charging £10 ($16) per student joining his son’s end-of-term party at his mansion, the Daily Mail reported.For safety and the privacy of their son, Blair banned parents from driving into their estate, the report said.As an alternative, they reserved coaches to escort the party goers from the school to Buckinghamshire,

A Chinese billionaire, Wang Gongquan, announced that he is eloping with his mistress, on Chinese Social Networking Service Sino Weibo. The renowned investor’s online message to dump his wife to leave with his new love immediately went viral, The Telegraph reported. He posted the message saying, “I am giving up everything and eloping with Wang Qin. I feel ashamed and so am leaving without saying go

Children in Britain are unprotected from sex crimes due to lack of governmental inspection, the Daily Mail reported. The research conducted by Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center said that 2,083 young victims of sexual grooming had been identified since 2008, and that the number was likely the tip of the iceberg. The report said among the victims, 842 were runaway girls.The report arou

Young adults in China are taking serious measures to buy expensive apple products, according to reports.Biznewschina reported that a female jiulinghou, referring to those born during the 90’s, tweeted on Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) that it is her “dream to own a iPhone4 but her father won’t let her get one.” She then decided to sleep with someone in exchange for the mobile device.The Guangd

More than five months have passed since the mystery death of a doctor’s pregnant wife, but the case is still unsolved.The father of the dead woman has had his daughter frozen and postponed the funeral to prove that her doctor husband killed her and her unborn baby. The husband, a medical doctor in Seoul surnamed Baek, is suspected of killing his nine-month-pregnant wife. But a Seoul court has repe

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC speaks during the opening of the Nansen Conference on Climate Change and Displacement in the 21st Century in Oslo Monday June 6. 2011.  (AP-Yonhap News)An U.N. body plans to develop a radical geo-engineering technology to blast aerosol "mirrors" in the space to tackle climate change, the Telegraph reported.The Int

A 15,000-carats raw emerald which weights five pounds, is shown at the 'Minergemas 2011', an international mining and precious stones and metals in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, June 17, 2011. The emerald was found 12 years ago in Muzo, 75 kilometers north of Bogota, and is shown for the first time in Colombia, one of the world's largest emerald producers. (AP-Yonhap News)A massive uncut emerald on ex

MOSCOW, June 21, 2011 (AFP) - Forty-four people were killed and eight badly injured when a plane crashed onto a highway and burst into flames in northern Russia, narrowly missing an inhabited area, officials said Tuesday.The RussAir Tu-134 tried to stage an apparent emergency landing in poor weather conditions just before midnight on a motorway two kilometres (1.25miles) from its destination of Pe

A man allegedly threw a cup of scalding hot water into a barista’s face at Starbucks in San Diego on Thursday morning, Daily Mail reported.Now arrested on suspicion of battery, Dennis Christopher Lee, 58, came into the café and asked for a cup of hot water, which Starbucks provides for free.However, after the female barista served him, Lee started taking items from the condiments table. Since the

SEOUL, June 20 (Yonhap) -- An alleged North Korean police document reported a case of cannibalism, a South Korean missionary group said Monday, a development, if confirmed, that could support what has long been rumored in the North.There have been accounts among some defectors of eating human flesh amid chronic food shortages that culminated in a massive famine in the late 1990s that was estimated

LONDON (AFP) – The meteoric rise to fame of Scottish singer Susan Boyle is to be brought to life in a new stage musical, producers announced on Friday. Actress Elaine C Smith -- best known for playing Mary in long-running Scottish sitcom "Rab C Nesbitt" -- will play Boyle, who was catapulted into the media spotlight in "Britain's Got Talent" in 2009. Boyle, 50, has since sold more than 14 million

SEOUL, June 20 (Yonhap) -- The prosecution and police on Monday agreed to end their long-standing disputes over the rights to open criminal investigations through government arbitration, officials said.According to the compromise agreement announced in the attendance of Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik, both parties agreed to the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code, which calls for granting police

LONDON, June 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korean boy band SHINee put on a showcase at a famed recording studio here Sunday ahead of the release of their first Japanese single this week.In the latest sign of the growing popularity of Korean pop music, or "K-pop," the five-man dance and R&B unit was greeted by hundreds of fans from Britain and other nations around the world at the Abbey Road Studios. The Be

ULSAN, June 19 (Yonhap) -- An internal audit by Hyundai Motor Co. revealed that 97 workers have accessed Internet gambling sites at work, leading the company to discipline them for improper use of company computers, corporate officials said Sunday. The audit was launched in April after the company received a whistle-blower's tip that some employees on production lines were betting online with offi