Some seven out of 10 Japanese people regard South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as their territory, with 90 percent being aware of a diplomatic row between the two countries over it, a survey showed Thursday.According to the survey of 440 Japanese citizens and students on the Dokdo issue, 91 percent said they have heard of Japan's diplomatic tension with South Korea over Dokdo, the rocky outcroppings in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.Of the respondents, 67 percent

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday the deaths of five South Koreans in a tour bus crash in the U.S. that killed four others and injured a dozen more. The charter bus was carrying about 40 people from Las Vegas to Vancouver, Canada, when it lost control on an icy highway and crashed around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, in a rural area of eastern Oregon. Most of the passengers aboard the bus were reportedly Korean nationals or naturalized U.S. or Canadian citizens born in South Korea because the comp

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India's capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman's body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.The traged

North Korea's possible nuclear test and a "post-Gangnam" era are among stories that will draw keen global media attention in the year ahead, CNN said Sunday.Releasing a list of 13 things to closely watch in 2013, the U.S. cable news channel said North Korea may step into the global media spotlight with another nuclear test."On the subject of nuclear states that the U.S.-wishes-were-not, the succession in North Korea has provided no sign that the regime is ready to restrain its ambitious program

An Indian woman who was gang-raped and beaten on a bus in New Delhi died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protection for women from sexual violence that impacts thousands of them every day. IIndian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was aware of the emotions the attack has generated and it was up to all Indians to ensure that the young woman's death will not have been in vain.The victim "passed away peacefully'' with her family and offici

A Hong Kong-registered merchant ship has rescued all of the 17 South Korean and Myanmarese seamen from a sunken South Korean vessel early Sunday, South Korean maritime police said.All the 17 crewmen of the 2,518-ton South Korean vessel were moved to a lifeboat late Saturday when the vessel sank in waters 185 miles northeast of the Philippines, a maritime police spokesman said.Upon getting a distress report, a South Korean patrol plane rushed to the scene and asked for help from the Hong Kong fre

China published a plan to reduce the world’s largest population of smokers as part of a 2005 treaty, without implementing recommendations such as warning labels that include photos of rotten teeth and diseased lungs. China plans to cut the number of smokers to 25 percent of the population by 2015 from 28.1 percent in 2010, according to the plan published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology yesterday, seven years after the country signed the treaty that recommends the graphic w

BEIJING (AFP) ― Dozens of frustrated parents crowded into a Beijing office, surrounding an education official and brandishing copies of the constitution to demand their children be allowed to take an exam.Mothers and fathers around the world fight to send their children to the best schools they can, in the hopes of drastically improving their futures.But China’s migrant families are victims of a decade-old residency system that denies urban incomers equal access to advantages from jobs and healt

South Korea held talks with China Monday to discuss ways to prevent illegal Chinese fishing in South Korean waters, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday. The talks, the second of their kind since the first one in Beijing last year, were held in Seoul. During the talks, South Korea called on China to take aggressive actions to ban illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea close to South Korea, the ministry said in a news release.Illegal Chinese fishing in South Korean waters has long been a serious issue

On China's economic front line with North Korea, rocket launches are far from traders' minds and few worry about sanctions impeding the flow of cars -- or pianos.China is by far North Korea's biggest trading partner and most of the business passes through its northeastern city of Dandong, where lorries piled high with tyres and sacks were being processed on Friday at a customs post.Some travelers waiting to cross to the North through an immigration checkpoint were carrying wreaths, apparently to