The French Embassy in Korea committed 100,000 euros to help pay for the maintenance of a recently refurbished war memorial in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, dedicated to French volunteers who fought alongside other United Nations soldiers during the Korean War.The memorial honoring the French military and the support France lent to South Korea during the Korean War was originally built near the place where French troops were stationed during the war in Jangan-gu, on a modest hill close to Yeongdong E

Eleven-year-old Igor and his ornithologist father Peter witness the birth of a crane in the wilds of Russia. Igor christens the young hatchling Karl and vows to watch over him. In director Evheny Ruman’s debut film “Igor and the Cranes’ Journey,” the innocent Igor makes an analogous journey of his own when he and his mother migrate from Russia to Israel. Though his parents are divorced, Igor never imagined he would move so far from his father and the cranes. The Israeli Embassy screened this ten

For Norwegian medical officer Gerd Semb, helping the South during the Korean War was a matter of conscience, and caring for thousands of sick and wounded civilians and soldiers was “a call to serve.”Semb, now 93, and four other Norwegian veterans in their 80s traveled once again from the comfort of home to far away South Korea, but this time to take part in a ceremony on Saturday marking the agreement that ended three years of fighting on the peninsula. It was no peace treaty but secured a tenta

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se honored the 21 countries that fought in the Korean War at an event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the armistice on Wednesday. “We will be ever together,” read the plaque of appreciation that Yun offered the ambassadors and other diplomats from the U.S., Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, Ethiopia and other nations that together sent 2 million troops, supplies and aid as part the U.N. forces.  “They sacrificed their youth to defend a country they never knew a

South Korea and the U.S. opened tough negotiations Wednesday over how to share costs for the upkeep of American troops here as Washington calls for Seoul to increase its financial support amid North Korean threats and U.S. budget cuts. It is the second round of high-level talks to renew the Special Measures Agreement on burden-sharing for the some 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea due to expire at the end of this year. The two-day meeting was led by Hwang Joon-kook, former minister at the South Ko

PANAMA CITY (AP) ― Cuba said military equipment found buried under sacks of sugar on a North Korean ship seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal was obsolete weaponry from the mid-20th century that it had sent to be repaired.Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far they have only examined one of its five container sections. They have requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with Colombia and Britain, said Javier Carballo, Panama’s top nar

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched diplomatic corps, comprising civilians with diverse backgrounds and non-Koreans as part of efforts to strengthen public diplomacy.The corps with five groups as well as 30 individual adolescents and 20 senior citizens plan to push for diverse projects with the government’s support to improve the national image abroad and to help increase its influence on the international arena.The first-ever civilian diplomatic corps is part of the government’s drive fo