ROME (AP) -- Amanda Knox, who maintained that she and her former Italian boyfriend were innocent in her British roommate's murder through multiple trials and nearly four years in jail, was vindicated Friday when Italy's highest court threw out their convictions once and for all."Finished!'' Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova exulted after the decision was read out late Friday. "It couldn't be better than this."The surprise decision definitively ends the 7{-year legal battle waged by Knox, 27, and

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is arguing for strong China-led efforts to promote Asian economic and political cooperation while speaking a major regional economic conference.Xi delivered the keynote address at the Boao Forum held Saturday on Hainan island in the country's south, at which he lauded the promise of the Chinese economy despite slowing growth. The Chinese president also celebrated what he said was a multipolar world in which all countries play equal roles in regional d

The United States will pursue further three-way defense cooperation deals with South Korea and Japan like the information sharing agreement concluded among the countries late last year, the top Pentagon official in charge of Asian affairs said Friday.Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear made the remark during a speech at an event on U.S.-Japan security, calling the intelligence sharing deal was a "good first step" and expressing hopes for Seoul and To

U.S. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi plans to visit South Korea next week, diplomatic sources said Thursday, amid hopes she could play a role in helping resolve tensions between Seoul and Tokyo over the issue of Japan's sexual enslavement of women during World War II.Pelosi will lead a delegation of U.S. House lawmakers on the visit to South Korea on April 1-3. Seoul is part of a regional trip that will also take her delegation to Myanmar, Vietnam and Japan, the sources said. She was to depart on

The United States on Thursday withheld comment on South Korea's decision to join the Chinese-led regional development bank AIIB, only expressing hope that members will work toward having the institution embrace transparency and high standards."I am not going to react or comment on their decision. I would say in general we've seen a number of countries make decisions to join the bank. That is their decision," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said at a regular press briefing."We certainly ho

The U.S. government, Congress and academics have a very "solid" consensus that Japan should stop its attempts to gloss over its wartime wrongdoings, namely the issue of sex slavery, the South Korean ambassador to Washington said Thursday.The remarks by Amb. Ahn Ho-young came amid speculation that Washington appears to be "fatigued" as tension over the shared history between Seoul and Tokyo has been protracted without signs of improvement."It is my understanding that the U.S. government, lawmaker

Pictures of South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo were put on display in Beijing on Thursday, the event's organizers said, marking the first overseas photo exhibition of Dokdo. Dokdo, which lies closer to South Korea in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, has long been a thorn in relations between the two countries. South Korea keeps a police detachment on the islets, effectively controlling them.The exhibition, which runs through April 17 at the Korea Culture Center in

The number of asylum applications hit a record high in South Korea last year, with people from Egypt, Pakistan and China dominating the list of asylum seekers, a U.N. report showed Thursday.South Korea recorded 2,900 asylum applications in 2014, up 81 percent from the 1,600 tallied in the previous year, according to a 2014 report on asylum trends released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.The report analyzed the trends of asylum claims in 44 industrialized countries last year.

South Korean government officials and lawmakers paid their respects Thursday in China on the 105th anniversary of the death of a revered Korean independence hero who assassinated a prominent Japanese colonial leader a century ago.It was the first time that a South Korean government-organized memorial service for Ahn Jung-geun, who shot to death the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, in China's northern city of Harbin in 1909, was held in China. Such events, however

The South Korean and Polish defense chiefs agreed Wednesday to strengthen their security ties and further boost cooperation in the defense industry, officials said. South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo met with his Polish counterpart, Tomasz Siemoniak, in Seoul to "exchange their assessment on the situation of the Korean Peninsula and the region and discuss ways on how to further develop their defense cooperative ties," according to the defense ministry.The Polish minister arrived here earl

South Korea's hosting of the annual governors meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank is expected to fuel a Latin America boom in the country that will lead to greater economic cooperation with the region, the government said Wednesday.The finance ministry said the annual board of governors meeting to be held in Busan, 453 kilometers southeast of Seoul, over the weekend will be preceded by knowledge business forums, as well as one-on-one talks between companies.The meeting will be the lar

The defense chief of the United States plans to visit South Korea in early April for talks with his South Korean counterpart on pending security and alliance issues, sources here said Wednesday.U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is expected to come here early next month as the destination of his first bilateral visit since taking office last month," a Seoul source said, adding his itinerary will also include Japan."Seoul and Washington have made a significant progress in pushing for Carter'

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said Tuesday that building an integrated air and missile defense system will be a key topic of discussions when he meets with South Korean officials.Heading off on a trip to Japan and South Korea, the general also said that the U.S. is making progress on building an integrated air and missile defense umbrella, and Seoul and Tokyo have "made some commitments in procurements on their side to make us more interoperable."Dempsey did not elabora

South Korea has decided to join a Chinese-led development bank and is expected to announce the decision soon, a South Korean diplomatic source with direct knowledge of the matter said Monday, despite U.S. concerns over the new multilateral lender in Asia. The Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has recently gained traction as major Western economies, including Britain, Germany and France, decided to join. South Korea, a close ally of the U.S. in Asia, has said it will make a d