The United States will put more pressure on South Korea to improve ties with Japan amid budding signs of a thaw in their relations, a U.S. congressional source said Tuesday.The U.S. has sought to strengthen trilateral ties with its two Asian allies in part to keep a rising China in check. It has often urged the two countries to put their shared history behind and look toward the future, drawing angry reactions among South Koreans who view the U.S. as siding with Japan.Relations between South Kor

What was billed as a landmark diplomatic victory for both South Korea and Japan has turned out to be a reminder of the wide gap between the neighbors over their perceptions of shared history.On Saturday, two dozen old industrial facilities were given UNESCO-designated world heritage status after Japan accepted South Korea's demand to acknowledge that Koreans were forced to work at seven of the sites during World War II. The South Korean government put the number of workers at around 57,000."Ther

The bodies of 10 South Korean officials killed in a bus crash in the northeastern Chinese city of Jian last week arrived here Monday.They arrived at Incheon International Airport along with 37 bereaved family members and 10 government officials who responded to the mishap in China. The bodies will then be transferred to hospitals in the regions of the local governments they belonged to, a government official said.The bus carrying 26 South Korean public servants and two Chinese people plunged off

Japan has reaffirmed that it has no legal responsibility left for the wartime forced labor of Koreans despite its acknowledgment of such history at UNESCO, media here said Monday.Having two dozen old industrial locales listed as world heritages, Japan openly said, "There was a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites."It avoided the more straightforward expression of "forced labor" in the st

South Korea and Australia held working-level defense talks Friday to discuss the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region as well as ways to beef up bilateral cooperation in the defense segment, the Defense Ministry said.   In the 16th round of the South Korea-Australia defense policy working-level meeting held earlier in the day, Director-General of International Policy Yoon Soon-ku and his Australian counterpart Scott Dewar discussed current regional security issues as well as how to enha

With the final call just a day away, uncertainties persist over how South Korea and Japan will settle their dispute over Tokyo's bid to turn a set of industrial facilities linked to wartime Korean slave labor into world heritage sites, officials said Friday.  Last month, the two sides appeared to have reached an agreement on the issue after Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida met in Tokyo on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of bilater

A senior U.S. official will visit South Korea next week for talks on missile defense and other security issues, the State Department announced Thursday.Frank A. Rose, assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance, plans to arrive here Thursday for a two-day stay.It's part of his regional trip that will also take him to China, Japan and Vietnam.He will be engaged in "meetings and external events on space security, missile defense, arms control, and other bilateral and multilat

China said Thursday that it had "no information" on a media report that Beijing has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to an event in September marking the end of World War II.  Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying gave the response, when asked about the report by the Wall Street Journal that Kim has been invited to the Sept. 3 military parade to be hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.   "I have no information on that," Hua said, without elaborating further.   China is sched

Ten South Korean government employees and one Chinese person have been killed in a bus plunge in northeastern China, officials said Thursday.   The accident occurred at around 3:30 p.m. (local time) Wednesday, with the bus plunging 15 meters off the bridge in the northeastern Chinese city of Jian. The Korean passengers were on a training program organized by the South Korean government.  The cause of the accident was not immediately clear and the Chinese driver of the bus was pronounced dead ear

A South Korean victim of Japan's wartime sexual slavery staged a rally in Washington on Wednesday to demand Tokyo's apology and reparations.  Kim Bok-dong, an 89-year-old 'comfort woman,' joined a group of South Korean activists and supporters at the event held in front of the Japanese Embassy.   She is among the 49 surviving victims in South Korea of Japan's atrocity during World War II. More than 200,000 Korean and other Asian women were coerced into sexual servitude for Japanese troops at tha

The South Korean home affairs minister apologized Thursday for a bus accident in China that killed 10 South Koreans, mostly government officials.   The bus, carrying 26 South Koreans, veered off a bridge in the northeastern Chinese city of Jian and fell into a river about 15 meters below on Wednesday as it was heading to the border city of Dandong.   The victims were part of a 140-person delegation of mainly government employees. The victims, nine of them public servants, were traveling in China

The Chinese driver of a passenger bus carrying a group of South Koreans that plunged off a bridge in northeastern China was pronounced dead Thursday, South Korean officials said Thursday, raising the death toll to 11.    Ten South Koreans, mostly government employees, were killed in the accident on Wednesday in the northeastern Chinese city of Jian while on a training program organized by the South Korean government.   A total of 26 South Koreans were on the bus at that time and the 16 injured w

A bus carrying a group of South Koreans fell off a highway bridge in northeastern China on Wednesday, killing seven South Koreans and two Chinese, the official Xinhua News Agency said.    The report did not say what caused the bus to fall off the bridge or how many people were injured. South Korean officials said the 26 South Koreans on the bus were part of a 140-person delegation of mainly South Korean government employees.    They were in China to tour historical sites, including places where