LONDON (AFP) ― Angelina Jolie joined British Foreign Secretary William Hague to visit Rwanda on Monday in a bid to encourage world powers to do more on tackling rape and sexual assault in war zones.Britain’s Foreign Office released a picture of the U.S. film star and Hague getting off a British-flagged jet in the central African country. They are also to visit the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo this week in a trip aimed at forcing the Group of Eight world powers to address the issue mo

CITYNET, a coalition of local authorities in the Asia Pacific region, has moved its secretariat from Yokohama, Japan to Seoul. Seoul City Hall held a ceremony at Seoul Global Center Tuesday to open the Seoul office of CITYNET, with delegates from five cities and related officials attending. The move to Seoul was approved in the general session in September, 2009. Seoul was also elected the host city of the 7th congress in November, this year.  For over 20 years, CITYNET has committed itself to h

A Canadian-born ice hockey player has acquired South Korean citizenship and will represent his adopted home in international competitions, the sport’s officials said Tuesday.The Korea Ice Hockey Association said Brock Radunske has obtained his South Korean passport, about a month after the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) asked the government to grant the 29-year-old a chance to play for South Korea.Officials of the association said Radunske will join the national team as soon as he finishes the n

The thought of donating stem cells might arise fear in many, conjuring up images of large needles. But if there was a relatively painless way to help someone in need, would you still hesitate to do it? Not many people know about “Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation,” a procedure to extract stem cells that gives a helping hand to those suffering from leukemia and other types of stem cell-related disease. There are two ways to transplant stem cells: the traditional method is called bone mar

Best-selling violist O’Neill wants the music to shine, resists temptation to merely impress listeners

Do cold sores lead to mental disorders?Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center claimed that the virus that causes cold sores might be associated with memory loss and mental diseases.In the study, performed in collaboration with the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, the researchers tested the mental function of 1,625 participants with aged 69 on average and living in New York.Participants who had high levels of infections such as herpes simplex virus in the blood were

A Swedish “hotel” is offering customers the chance to sleep in “rooms” including a dirty mattress under a bridge and a sleeping bag in a public park.Faktum Hotels in Gothenburg said the $15-per-night accommodations, which it began offering in November, are designed to highlight the hardships facing the city‘s homeless population, The Local.se reported Monday.　“We asked several of our homeless contacts where they often slept, then we set up our rooms,” said Aaron Israelson, editor of Faktum magaz

CHESSY, France (AP) ― Forever-young Minnie Mouse is growing up and moving on from her old red and white polka dots.Lanvin has designed the loveable Disney rodent a new dress ― a more mature frock in royal blue and long sleeves that she can wear at special Paris events.It was unveiled at a catwalk show in Disneyland Paris on Saturday evening.Gone was the oversized hair bow that has been the signature of the character since she was created in 1928. In its place, the catwalk presentation showcased

Former South Korean trade minister Bark Tae-ho, who is running for the top post of the World Trade Organization, was appointed as an ambassador for economic and trade affairs, the foreign ministry said Monday. The appointment is “aimed at supporting former trade minister Bark’s campaign activities for the director-general of the WTO,” the ministry said in a statement. Bark is one of nine candidates who have applied for the WTO’s top job. Other competitors include Herminio Blanco Mendoza, a forme

Architect Cho Min-suk has been named the commissioner of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2014, the state cultural agency Arts Council of Korea announced on Monday. Cho will be in charge of selecting architects and planning the Korean Pavilion for the architecture exhibition. Cho runs his own architecture firm, Mass Studies in Korea. Its representative projects include the “Dalki Theme Park,” in Paju, “Nature Poem,” and “World Expo 2010 Shanghai: Korea Pavilion,” for which Cho received the

Less than a year after the death of Moon Sun-myung, founder of the Unification Church, his widow, Han Hak-ja seems to have consolidated power at the organization. Han is referred to as the True Mother in the religious group with reportedly more than 3 million members and a number of successful business enterprises. Tongil Foundation, the umbrella organization that controls Tongil Group with 12 affiliates and the Unification Church, on Sunday announced the appointment of Park No-hee as the chairm

NHN Corporation, operator of the country’s largest search engine Naver, introduced what is called a “page profit sharing,” or PPS, program to make its webtoon services more profitable for the writers. “PPS is a business package in which we introduce a revenue model to a webtoon page and share the profit with the author,” said Kim Joon-ku, director of Naver Books.Webtoon -- a series of comic strips published through the Internet -- was originally provided for free to local readers. PPS now allows

“Yoga,” “healing” and “tranquility” are words Koreans often link to India. The movie “Eat, Pray & Love” portrayed a peaceful and meditating Indian lifestyle, as the main character was filmed praying about her worries and finding an answer to her anxieties. These dreamy images of India, however, were shattered by the gang rape of an Indian girl on a bus in south Delhi last December. Shortly after the incident, the alleged drug rape of a Korean college student and gang rape of a Swiss woman have f