COPENHAGEN, Nov 22, 2011 (AFP) - A Copenhagen hotel will continue reserving a whole floor for women, despite a recent ruling that doing so is discriminatory and illegal, the hotel director said Tuesday.Last May, the Bella Sky Hotel in central Copenhagen opened a floor dubbed the Bella Donna with 20

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government plans to allow men over 30 to pay 30,000 liras ($16,325) to win exemption from compulsory service in the military, the second-largest force in NATO.The change has been on the ruling party's agenda for nine years a

WASHINGTON, Nov 22, 2011 (AFP) - People who ate canned soup for five days straight saw their urinary levels of the chemical bisphenol A spike 1,200 percent compared to those who ate fresh soup, US researchers said on Tuesday.The randomized study, described as "one of the first to quantify BPA levels

Shares of South Korean automakers, technology firms and textile companies are expected to benefit from the bilateral trade pact between South Korea and the United States, analysts said Wednesday.The projection comes a day after the National Assembly approved the long-pending free trade agreement (FT

SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak instructed the government on Wednesday to take thorough follow-up measures to make the best use of the just-ratified free trade agreement with the United States to boost the economy and minimize any damage to local small businesses.It was Lee's firs

PARIS, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean-born French scholar who contributed to the return of Korea's ancient royal books from France died at a Paris hospital on Tuesday. She was 83.Park Byeng-sen, a Korean historian who studied in France, had been receiving hospital treatment after undergoing surg

France is reeling after a 17-year-old boy raped and murdered a girl at a chic boarding school while conditionally freed on charges of rape a year ago."It's absurd. It could have been avoided with a little less negligence," the dead 13-year-old's mother, Paola Marin, told Europe 1 radio as a nation s

Rep. Kim Sun-dong (center at the podium) of the Democratic Labor Party stands in silent protest after detonating a tear gas grenade and dousing himself with the powder to block the approval of the free trade agreement with the U.S. in the National Assembly on Tuesday (Park Hyun-ku/The Korea Herald)

The National Assembly on Tuesday passed the long-pending Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, with the ruling Grand National Party pressing ahead with the ratification process despite vehement objection from opposition parties.Upbraiding the majority GNP and the government for “unilateral action,” the m

SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co.'s president said Tuesday it is in the final stage of negotiations with Google Inc. to manufacture Internet-connected TVs powered by the U.S. company's software. Yoon Book-keun, president of Samsung's digital media business, said talks between the tw

A significant expansion in access to treatment helped slash the number of AIDS-related deaths in 2010, bringing the number of people living with HIV to a record 34 million, the United Nations said Monday."We are on the verge of a significant breakthrough in the AIDS response," said Michel Sidibe, ex

HTC Corp.’s loss in a patent infringement case against Apple Inc. casts doubt on its decision to spend $300 million to buy S3 Graphics Co. to boost its chances of a licensing deal to end the dispute. The U.S. International Trade Commission said yesterday that S3 Graphics’s patent rights weren’t viol

BEIJING, Nov 22, 2011 (AFP) - Ai Weiwei fans have again rallied behind the outspoken Chinese artist after he revealed he is being investigated on pornography charges -- by posting naked pictures of themselves online.Supporters of Ai -- who disappeared into custody for 81 days earlier this year -- ra

LIMA, Nov 20, 2011 (AFP) - A Peruvian archeologist on Sunday announced the discovery of the remains of 44 infants and young children sacrificed to appease ancient deities in the 14th century at a site in the high Andes near the border with Bolivia.The remains were found near a stone funeral tower --

NEW YORK, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- The human rights panel of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning North Korea's human rights abuses as part of annual move to put pressure on the communist regime, diplomats here said.The Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly

SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- A cargo ship carrying 21 crewmen, including nine South Korean sailors, is presumed to have sunken in the South China Sea earlier in the day, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.According to the ministry, the 15,000-ton ship lost contact after leaving Penang, Malaysia.Hong

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Philip Morris International Inc. served an arbitration notice against the Australian government to claim 'millions of dollars' in damages after the nation passed the world's first plain-packaging law for cigarettes.The passage of the law today violates Australia's Bilateral In

SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- Teenage South Korean students are expected to enjoy visa-free travel to China for short-term school trips beginning early next year, an official at Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.Seoul and Beijing have been in talks to grant visa-waiver status to South Korean element

SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's finance minister said Monday that there is a need to take measures to lessen the fallout from excessive cross-border capital flows in order to help the global economy move forward.Speaking at a forum arranged by the Asian Development Bank and the Institute fo

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi intends to run for parliament in upcoming by-elections.The decision announced Monday was expected after her party decided last week to rejoin mainstream politics in long-isolated Myanmar.Nyan Win, the spokesman of Suu Kyi's National League