WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The risk of thyroid cancer among people who were exposed as children to the nuclear fallout at Chernobyl has not declined nearly 25 years after the disaster, said a study released Thursday in the United States.The National Institutes of Health-led study examined more than 12,500 people who were under 18 at the time of the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986, and who lived near

South Korea on Thursday welcomed an agreement with France to transfer centuries-old Korean royal books from Paris to Seoul between March and May beginning with the first shipment later this month.Officials from the national museums of the two countries signed the agreement in Paris on Wednesday to transport 297 volumes of the "Oegyujanggak" to Seoul in four shipments from March 28, according to th

South Korea said Thursday it will delay the repatriation of 27 North Koreans who had been set to cross the Yellow Sea border later in the day without four others who have defected here, citing a malfunction in the fishing boatthat was to carry them back home.The Unification Ministry said in a message to reporters that the South Korean Red Cross notified its North Korean counterpart of the delay th

North Korea agreed Tuesday to the repatriation of only 27 of its 31 nationals held in South Korea after their wooden boat drifted to the South last month, withdrawing its earlier demand that all of them, including four who have expressed their wish to defect, be returned, officials said.The agreement, expressed through the Red Cross channel of the two countries, ends the deadlock that has lasted s

 TOKYO, March 15, 2011 (AFP) - Tokyo shares closed down 10.55 percent onTuesday as panicking investors dumped stocks after the government said risingradiation levels at a stricken nuclear plant posed a threat to health.

TOKYO, March 15, 2011 (AFP) - Tokyo shares plunged 11.03 percent as Japan's nuclear crisis escalated on Tuesday, after radiation levels near aquake-stricken nuclear plant surged following explosions and a fire.The Nikkei index lost 1,061.35 points to 8,559.14. 

 SOMA, Japan (AP) _ Japan's nuclear safety agency says a fire in a reactor at a crippled nuclear power plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan has been extinguished.The fire broke out Tuesday at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in one of the hardest-hit provinces in last week's massive earthquake and tsunami.Meanwhile, radiation was spewing from the Dai-ichi plant in a dramatic escalation

North Korea told a visiting top Russian diplomat that it does not oppose discussing its uranium enrichment activity in the stalled six-party talks once they resume, a report said Tuesday.North Korea also told Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin that Pyongyang was ready to rejoin the talks "without any preconditions" and hopes to work under an "action-for-action principle," the offici