South Korea confirmed additional cases of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) Saturday at three pig farms in cities just outside of Seoul, indicating a failure of nationwide quarantine efforts to contain the highly contagious animal disease.The additional cases now brought to 102 the number of confirmed FMD cases in the country that reported the first confirmed case in the latest outbreak on Nov. 29.The

North Korea on Saturday renewed its call for an early resumption of dialogue between the divided Koreas, proposing to hold such talks at least within a month.The North earlier proposed "unconditional and early" resumption of talks between the two Koreas to defuse tension that arose after the North's sinking of a South Korean warship in March and then its bombing of a populated South Korean island

North Korea's Twitter account was apparently hacked with a string of messages derogatory of leader Kim Jong-il and his heir Kim Jong-un on Saturday, the birthday of the hereditary successor.The five most recent tweets posted in the morning accused the Kims of exploiting their people to enjoy sumptuous lives, and develop nuclear arms and missiles. One tweet called for an uprising to slay the Kims "

A senior U.S. official will travel to China early next week to discuss North Korea and other agenda items with Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington scheduled for later this month, the State Department said Friday."Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt M. Campbell will travel to Beijing, China January 9-11, 2011," the department said in a statement. "Assista

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan  (AFP) - A suicide bomber killed 17 people and wounded another 21 in assassinating a police commander at a public bath in a southern Afghan town on the border with Pakistan, the local government said.A nine-year Taliban insurgency is concentrated in southern Afghanistan, but suicide attacks targeting civilians in public places are relatively rare."A suicide bomber blew up explosives strapped to his chest at a public bath in Spin Boldak," border police official General Abdul

Lee Kyung-joon is concerned about the slowing speed of production at his manufacturing factory in Gyeonggi Province. A factory manager has already been staying at home for days after he was diagnosed with the influenza A(H1N1) virus, while there are more workers who show flu symptoms. “If more workers become ill from the virus and have to rest at home, it would greatly affect the factory’s product

Skype, the leading internet calls operator, said Friday that it updated its software for enterprises with Group Video Calling which enables the participation of a maximum of 10 people.The business version of Skype intends to become a communication platform that could have individuals interact in real-time over high quality audio and video, conference calling and instant messages, according to Skyp

South Korea with Africa should forge a win-win cooperation model where they maximize the use of Africa’s abundant resources and Korea’s technology and development experience, a senior government official said Friday. “Korea needs to start seeing Africa as a major emerging market for the country to achieve an annual trade volume of $1 trillion,” Second Vice Minister of Knowledge Economy Park Young-