The chief of Hyundai Group, the parent firm of inter-Korean tour operator Hyundai Asan Corp., has requested government permission to visit North Korea next week to mark the anniversary of the death of her husband, who used to run the cross-border travel business, company officials said Wednesday.Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun and about 20 executives and employees of Hyundai Asan hope to inspect the company's properties at Mount Kumgang, a scenic resort on North Korea's east coast, on the occasion of

The South Korean government has allowed the country's lexicographers to meet with their North Korean colleagues in China this week for a project to publish a joint dictionary of their language, officials here said Monday.A group of 32 South Korean lexicographers will hold a meeting with their northern counterparts in the Chinese city of Xinyang from Tuesday through Aug. 6, said the unification ministry.The two sides plan to discuss a schedule for making what is called the Big Dictionary of the K

Foreigners consider South Korea as a country with cutting-edge technology, but only a small portion of them are aware of Korean pop culture, known as hallyu, a survey showed Friday.According to the survey, the respondents most frequently come up with technology after being asked to present the word that first pops up in their mind when thinking of South Korea. The name of the leading mobile phone maker, Samsung, came in second, followed by war and Psy, a South Korean rapper whose dance music vid

A separatist leader in eastern Ukraine says rebels have recovered the black boxes for the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and are willing to hand them over to international investigators.Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said Sunday that the devices would be handed over to the International Civil Aviation Organization.Borodai also said bodies which have been removed from the crash site would remain in refrigerated containers at a train station

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Masked gunmen stormed a coastal Malaysian resort, shot a policeman and kidnapped another then sped away in a boat toward the southern Philippines, where Muslim militants have carried out similar raids in the past, a security official said Sunday. The latest kidnapping highlights persistent security threats in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo Island and is believed to be spillover of violence from the southern Philippines, a region where separatist militants and kid

BAGHDAD, (AFP) - Apartment blocks near a mosque and a kindergarten daubed with cartoon characters seem an unlikely place for the slaughter of 27 alleged prostitutes, but in Baghdad death is never far.Few people in the Iraqi capital's Zayouna district know any details of what happened in their neighbourhood late on Saturday, and even fewer want to hazard a guess.Residents of the rubbish-strewn area of crumbling grey apartment blocks say they stopped asking questions long ago in a city awash with

BERLIN (AP) -- German police say they allowed an anti-Israel protester to use a megaphone in a police car during a "Free Gaza" demonstration in Frankfurt and he shouted inciting slogans including "child murderer Israel" and "Allahu akbar."Frankfurt police spokeswoman Virginie Wegner said Sunday they let the protester use the megaphone because the demonstration had turned violent and he had offered them to calm down the situation.But instead of doing that, he shouted anti-Israel slogans. A video

BERLIN (AFP) - German authorities said Wednesday they were investigating an alleged foreign spy, as reports said the suspect was the second within days believed to be working for U.S. intelligence."Federal police officers have since this morning searched the residential and office premises of an accused in the Berlin area due to preliminary suspicion of intelligence activities. No arrest has been made," said the federal prosecutors’ office.The case was considered "more serious" than that of a Ge

More than 1,200 Chinese workers who had been trapped in the embattled northern Iraqi city of Samarra have been evacuated to Baghdad, according to Chinese state media.The official Xinhua news agency says the Chinese arrived safely at a Baghdad hotel, with the Iraqi military providing security.The report said that China Machinery Engineering Corporation employed the workers at a power plant construction site in Samarra, near where security forces are battling militants from the Islamic State of Ir

A group of U.S. lawmakers on Friday protested Japan's review of a 1993 apology for its sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, saying it is "unacceptable" for Tokyo to suggest it remains unconfirmed the victims were coerced.The 18 House of Representatives members, led by Rep. Mike Honda, also said in a jointly signed letter to the Japanese ambassador to Washington, Kenichiro Sasae, that they found the timing and the release of the contents of the report both "regrettable and unfo

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed sympathy Friday for the loss of scores of South Korean students in the sinking of a ferry last month."As a father and grandfather myself, I cannot begin to imagine the pain so many in the Republic of Korea are enduring," he said in a statement issued on the occasion of South Korea's Children's Day that falls on May 5. It marked the secretary's first statement on South Korea's worst ferry disaster in decades."No parent should ever have to experience th

South Korea will send two warships to an international fleet review in China, an official at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing said Monday. About 30 warships from 10 nations, including China, Australia, India and Pakistan, will join the fleet review to be held in China's eastern port city of Qingdao next week, the official said. South Korea will send a 4,500-ton destroyer and a 2,300-ton frigate to the naval ceremony, the official said on condition of anonymity. Chinese President Xi Jinping is