The United States will brief South Korea on the recently announced reforms of the scandal-hit National Security Agency, including a likely ban on eavesdropping on South Korean President Park Geun-hye, a South Korean government official said Sunday.On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to limit the NSA's eavesdropping on leaders of U.S. allies amid international outrage over revelations that the intelligence agency wiretapped the conversations of the leaders of 35 nations.Seoul filed sev

The Cine France film series organized by the French Embassy’s Institut Francais continues this month with Gallic film favorites showing every Tuesday at the Art Nine Theater in southern Seoul.This Tuesday, Cine France screens “The Nun” (2013), in which a young woman is made to believe an illegitimate child must atone for the sin of her mother by becoming a nun, but when her kind hearted abbess dies, she considers breaking her vows.On Jan. 28, Cine France turns to the sci-fi head trip “Vanishing

The Mexican Embassy here brought 39 works of art to Seoul for a six-week exhibition that aims to showcase the nation’s influence on 20th century art.The exhibition, “Outside-In: Mexican Contemporary Art,” begins Thursday at the Seoul National University’s Museum of Art and includes works from such notables of modernism as Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo and Rodolfo Morales, as well as emerging artists like Guillermo Olguin, Amador Montes, Pablo Cotama and Valerie Campos.The exhibition will also

South Korean President Park Geun-hye left for Switzerland on Saturday after a state visit to India, where she sought to lay the groundwork for boosting trade and other economic exchanges with the world's second-most populous nation.Her summit with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh produced an agreement Thursday to revise the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement -- a free trade pact in place since 2010.The revision, if realized, would allow South Korean firms wider access to the massiv

The United States and Japan agreed Friday to strengthen cooperation between their top national security bodies in dealing with North Korea and other pending issues, the White House said.National Security Adviser Susan Rice met with her Japanese counterpart, Shotaro Yachi, at her office."During the meeting, they agreed to frequent regular communications between the two National Security Councils," the White House said in a press release. "They also discussed updating our defense partnership and o

NEW DELHI (Yonhap News) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye held a series of meetings with information technology experts and other business leaders of India on Friday, making a strong case that the two of Asia's biggest economies can be ideal business partners.Park has been in New Delhi for a four-day state visit aimed largely at increasing economic ties with the world's second-most populous nation. On Thursday, Park and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to revise a free trade pac

South Korea on Friday brushed off the North’s offer of reconciliation through the cessation of slander and military drills with the U.S., calling for action toward denuclearization to prove its sincerity. Pyongyang’s powerful National Defense Commission made the “crucial proposals” late Thursday, which also included taking a “mutual practical measure to prevent a nuclear holocaust.” Such steps would help resolve inter-Korean issues such as reunions of separated families, it said. Seoul’s Unifica

NEW DELHI (AFP) -- Indian premier Manmohan Singh Thursday said a mega steel plant being built by South Korean multinational Posco would become operational in the coming weeks, allaying fears of further delays in the project.Singh gave his assurances on the $12-billion plant, India's biggest foreign investment project, to visiting South Korean President Park Geun-hye during their meeting in New Delhi."I conveyed to President Park our hope that this project will confirm that economic growth and en