South Korean police said Tuesday that they have deported two Chinese suspects in separate criminal cases back to China in the latest case of cooperation between the two nations' law enforcement authorities.South Korea's National Police Agency (NPA) said one of the suspects, a 42-year-old woman whose identity was been withheld, was apprehended on Sept. 30 in a motel in western Seoul.The woman had been wanted by Chinese police on suspicion of swindling 5 billion won (US$4.7 million) from a real es

South Korea has completed building Cameroon's first mechanized rice farming district that is expected to help modernize the African state's overall agriculture industry and improve the country's food production, the South Korean government said Tuesday.The 2.3-billion-won (US$2.18 million) project began in late 2011 as part of South Korea's official development aid, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.For the project, the South Korean ministry readjusted 20 hectares

South Korea's ICT ministry said Tuesday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ghana to assist the African nation with building a technology infrastructure.The agreement, signed during the 19th International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference being held here from Monday, is an extension of South Korea's official development assistance (ODA) to Ghana for IT projects. In 2008, South Korea provided digital multimedia broadcasting devices, and last year, it helped es

China said Monday it will hold talks with South Korea this week to discuss how to improve bilateral cooperation in counterterrorism. The talks will be held in Seoul on Tuesday and the two nations "will have an in-depth exchange of views on the regional counterterrorism situation and bilateral cooperation in the field of counterterrorism," China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters during a regular briefing. Hua said China expects to produce "some positive results" during th

The foreign and defense minsters from South Korea and the United States are scheduled to have a meeting later this week to discuss an array of security issues, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.South Korea and the U.S. plan to hold a "two plus two" meeting of their foreign and defense ministers Thursday afternoon (Washington Time) in the U.S. capital, according to the foreign ministry.The planned meeting will bring together South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Defense Minister Han Min-

Former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will depart for Vietnam later Monday on a five-day visit aimed at boosting bilateral ties with the Southeast Asian nation, his aides said.Lee's visit comes at the invitation of Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. The two leaders are scheduled to meet later in the day to discuss ways to expand bilateral cooperation in business and culture, among other areas.Their meeting comes as South Korea and Vietnam have been pushing to conclude a free trade deal

South Korea's presidential office called Sunday for a parliamentary ratification of a free trade deal with Australia by the end of this year.South Korea and Australia had signed a free trade agreement in April, which Seoul submitted to the National Assembly last month for approval.The move by the presidential office came more than two weeks after Australia's Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb asked South Korea to quickly ratify a free trade deal.Robb made the request during a meeting with

Two members of a Chinese cult group were sentenced to death and another to life imprisonment for beating a woman to death in a McDonald's outlet after they unsuccessfully tried to recruit her into their ``all-powerful spirit'' cult.The Yantai Intermediate People's Court in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong announced the verdicts against Zhang Fan, 29; her father Zhang Lidong, 55; Lu Yingchun, 39, and two others, weeks after holding the trial. The other two _ a younger sister of Zhang Fan

Senior diplomats from South Korea, China and Japan agreed on Thursday to ramp up their trilateral cooperation to patch up relations strained over history and territorial rows, Seoul officials said.The meeting brought together Seoul's Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and their Japanese counterpart, Shinsuke Sugiyama, they said.The high-level talks, the first since November, dealt with various cooperative projects to be pursued

South Korea expressed support Thursday for U.S. President Barack Obama's plan for airstrikes in Syria and expanded strikes in Iraq to defeat the Islamic State militant group.Obama said Wednesday he won't hesitate to take action against the Islamic State in Syria, as he pledged to "degrade, and ultimately destroy" the extremists responsible for beheading two American journalists."South Korea voices its support to the efforts by the international community to defeat the Islamic State militant grou

South Korea's Cabinet on Thursday approved a bill on a free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada ahead of ratification by the parliament, the prime minister's office said. After nearly nine years of talks, including a five-year hiatus, Seoul and Ottawa concluded the FTA in March this year. The two sides expect the deal to help significantly boost bilateral trade by cutting tariffs on a wide range of products including automobiles and meat.During a weekly meeting held in Seoul earlier in the day, th

GENEVA/SEOUL (Yonhap) – The top U.N. official on human rights on Wednesday expressed "profound regret" over Japan's failure to resolve the issue of its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women, warning that the victims' human rights continue to be violated.Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement that she regrets that "Japan has failed to pursue a comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution" of the issue of wartime sexual slavery.She warned that the human righ

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has no plan to meet one-on-one with his counterpart from North Korea on the sidelines of an upcoming regional security conference in Myanmar, his spokeswoman said Monday.Kerry is scheduled to make a three-day visit to Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar, this weekend to attend a set of annual meetings led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Asia’s biggest annual security gathering, known as the ASEAN Regional Forum.ARF and other ASEAN talks h

SEOUL, July 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korea should immediately halt the transfer of all weapons to Israel in light of the deadly conflict in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 1,300 people and injured many more since earlier this month, the local office of a global human rights group said Thursday."We express grave concerns over the fact that South Korea has armed Israel with conventional weapons," the local branch of Amnesty International said. "South Korea must therefore urgently suspend its