Ulala Session leader Lim Yoon-taek died on Feb. 11, after battling gastric cancer for a number of years.“Lim Yoon-taek passed away today in the hospital. On Feb. 8 his condition suddenly deteriorated and he had to be admitted to the hospital. The hospital announced that he had passed away due to cancer,” said an official of Lim’s agency.Lim was the leader of the group Ulala Session, winners of the audition program Superstar K Season 3 in 2011. The popular group attracted fans with their vocal sk

SYDNEY (AFP) ― One of the Australian radio hosts at the center of a royal hoax call controversy in which a nurse was found hanged returned to the airwaves Monday.Michael Christian, with Mel Greig, made the phone call to London’s King Edward VII Hospital in December pretending to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles inquiring about the health of Prince William’s pregnant wife Catherine.Christian resumed work with Austereo station Fox FM in Melbourne.“We are happy to have Michael back on air,” sa

China‘s Health Ministry said Sunday two human cases of H5N1 bird flu in the southwestern city of Guiyang.The patients were identified as a 21-year-old woman and a 31-year-old man, who developed symptoms Feb. 2 and Feb 3, respectively.“They are in critical condition and medical workers are carrying out emergency treatment,” the ministry said in a statement. “No epidemiological connections have been found between the two cases.”The ministry said an investigation found o evidence the two had contac

Fewer than 1-in-3 U.S. adults say they have a living will indicating whether they want life-sustaining medical care if incapacitated, a survey indicates.The survey by FindLaw.com, a legal information website, found 61 percent of U.S. adults said they have no living will, also known as a healthcare directive or directive to physicians. A living will is a document in which a person can indicate his or her instructions in advance as to what medical treatments he or she wishes to receive in the even

After nearly five years, the newly restored Sungnyemun, the historic gate in downtown Seoul, is expected to officially open to the public in April, the government said Monday. The Cultural Heritage Administration on Monday said that it would open the Sungnyemun site, which is now receiving the final touches before the unveiling to the press Thursday. The National Treasure No. 1 was damaged in an arson attack on Feb. 10, 2008, by an elderly man who was later revealed to be suffering from a mental

SAO PAULO (AFP) ― With samba music and allegorical pageantry, the Brazilian Carnival pays glowing tribute this year to South Korea’s ancient culture and technological prowess, and to 50 years of Korean immigration.Friday, South Korean popstar Psy was a star guest at Carnival celebrations in the northeastern city of Salvador, wowing the crowd with his “Gangnam Style” hit that made Internet history last December by clocking more than one billion views on YouTube.Saturday, he was warmly applauded a

BEIJING (AP) ― Three-time world table tennis champion Zhuang Zedong, a key figure in 1971’s groundbreaking “pingpong diplomacy” between China and the United States, died Sunday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. He was 72 and had struggled with cancer since 2008. Zhuang won fame by presenting a gift to American player Glenn Cowan, who had inadvertently boarded a bus carrying the Chinese team at the World Championships in Nagoya, Japan, in 1971. Zhuang and Cowan were photographed toge

About 300 sailors patrolling off Somalia aboard Munmu the Great, a 4,400-ton destroyer of the anti-piracy Cheonghae Unit, wished one another a happy Lunar New Year on Sunday. Among them were the nation’s first father and son serving overseas at the same time, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They are Warrant Officer Nam Dae-il, 52, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Nam Hyun-jae, 22.  On the Lunar New Year’s Day, which fell on Feb. 10 this year, Hyun-jae bowed down on his knees to his father in

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― She may be fresh out of a job, but Hillary Clinton is currently the most popular political figure in America, well ahead of President Barack Obama, who is slipping, a poll published Friday found.Clinton, who stepped down last month as Obama’s secretary of state, enjoys a 61 percent favorability among U.S. voters compared with a 34 percent unfavorable rating, according to a survey by Quinnipiac University.Obama, who beat Clinton to the Democratic nomination in 2008 and took the

A 3-year-old British girl has been allowed to join Mensa, a society for people with high IQs, becoming the club‘s youngest member, officials said.Alice Amos has an IQ of 162 -- higher than those of Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking, both of whom had IQs of 160, The Sun reported.“It is clear that she has the capacity to do almost whatever she wants in life,” said child expert Joan Freeman.Alice achieved the high score in English, which is actually her second language, after Russian, which her pa

The word “disk,” which Koreans often misuse as a name of a condition, refers to the structure that connects the bones in the spine. The correct term for the condition is “spine herniation of the intervertebral disk.” Degenerative change of the lumbar disk is the most common cause of the problem and occurs in people in their late teens to their early 20s. The prevalence of herniation of the intervertebral disk increases significantly in the twenties up to the forties when people are more physical