Woman dies of heart attack -- at her funeralA Russian woman who was wrongly declared dead by doctors died of heart attack at her own funeral.Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, started screaming upon finding out that she was in a coffin while the bereaved prepared burial. She had collapsed after suffering a heart attack at home earlier.“Her eyes fluttered and we immediately rushed her back to the hospital

South Korean activists sent five anti-North Korean propaganda balloons across the inter-Korean border on Saturday from a western border resort in commemoration of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, their representatives said.About 10 activists, mostly North Korean defectors, released the propaganda balloons in Paju, north of Seoul, Saturday morning. The balloons carried about 100,000 leaflets

U.S. President Barack Obama has formally nominated Sung Kim, a career diplomat with expertise in Korean affairs, as his new ambassador to Seoul, the White House announced Friday.If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, Kim, 51, will replace Kathleen Stephens and become the first person of Korean origin to serve as U.S. ambassador to Seoul. Kim immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s and obtained

PARIS (AFP) ― Farm ministers from the world’s top economies agreed on action on Thursday to tame the speculative trading blamed for the food price spikes that have hit consumers’ pockets and sparked unrest.“Today is a great day. We have reached an historic accord,” France’s minister for agriculture Bruno Le Maire declared after the Paris meeting, organized as part of the French presidency of the G

NEW YORK (AP) ― The United States and other nations that depend on oil imports will release and sell 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks in an effort to ease the strain of high oil prices on the global economy.The release by the International Energy Agency, a group of more than two dozen countries, covers only what the world uses roughly every 16 hours. But it was enough to send oil

Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronic Co. Friday, accusing the South Koran company of infringing its patented technologies used in making its iconic smartphone, the iPhone.   In a complaint filed with the Seoul Central District Court, Apple requested that Samsung Electronics be stopped from selling a line of its touch screen smartphones and a tablet PC that hit the local and global

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The United States hit two pillars of the Iranian economy with sanctions Thursday, targeting the Islamic republic’s national airline carrier and a major port company on charges that they facilitate illegal weapons trade and help the mighty Revolutionary Guard corps in destabilizing activity in Iran and nearby countries.The Treasury Department’s action blocks any assets in the Unit

The Samhwa Mutual Savings Bank, one of the local banks troubled with capital shortages, was declared bankrupt Friday.The savings bank filed for bankruptcy on May 19. In January, the Financial Services Commission suspended the bank for six months during moves to weed out unviable banks that failed to meet regulatory capital requirements.The ill-fated bank has been criticized for its allegedly illic

Medication passes safety, quality testsKorea will approve the world’s first stem-cell medication as early as this month, the Korea Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The state-run drug regulator said Friday that Hearticellgram-AMI, a stem-cell medication for treating heart attack victims, passed all the required safety and quality tests early this week. It will be the world’s first therapeu

The feud between parliamentarians and some of the nation’s corporate leaders escalated Thursday, as politicians threatened legal action if the businessmen defied their request to testify before parliament next week. Members of the National Assembly’s Knowledge Economy Committee decided to call to a public hearing it is organizing three of the nation’s major business organizations’ chiefs ― Huh Cha

North Korea may have developed a “super-EMP” weapon capable of emitting more gamma radiation than a 25-megaton nuclear weapon, a former CIA nuclear weapons analyst was quoted as saying by a U.S.-funded radio station Friday. Peter Vincent Pry told the Voice of America that a group of Russian nuclear weapons scientists approached him in 2004 to warn the U.S. that the technology to make the electroma

Through the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s reconciliatory ideals, Seoul and Washington should work together on achieving a reunified, peaceful Korean Peninsula, U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens said during a recent Memorial Day ceremony. Stephens published on her weblog the speech she gave at a national park in Jindo on June 6 Memorial Day. “On this Memorial Day … we honor the memory

Refuse to reinvestigate illegal deposit withdrawal, say found nothing to look intoThe prosecution seemed to refuse Friday to reinvestigate suspected illegal deposit withdrawals from a corruption-ridden savings bank despite demands from the ruling Grand National Party. “If we have dug up a mine and found nothing, we have to move to another mine. That’s the position of the prosecutor-general and the