The city of Seoul said Monday it will open an online forum to discuss the current needs of unmarried women living alone in Seoul in an effort to provide support for such single-female households, which make up more than 10 percent of the total number of households in the city."Most policies today are centered on assisting women from conventional family systems who give birth to and raise children,

South Korea plans to use various state-run funds to help stimulate its economy that has been affected by the general global slowdown this year, a top economic policymaker has said.In a meeting with reporters over the weekend, Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan said the country has made headway toward economic stability in the past year, but there is a need to fuel vitality and growth.He

South Korea's foreign exchange reserves shrank in May from a record high reached in the previous month as a weaker euro and a softer British pound reduced the conversion value of non-dollar assets, the central bank said Monday.The country's foreign reserves reached US$310.87 billion at the end of last month, down $5.97 billion from April, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). In April, the country

A plane carrying 153 people plunged into a residential area of Nigeria's largest city on Sunday, with all those aboard presumed dead, an inferno igniting at the scene and buildings badly damaged.A number of people on the ground were also believed killed, an emergency official said, as around 10 burnt bodies had been removed from a building damaged in the crash.President Goodluck Jonathan declared

Smartphone apps are very useful but users often have to pay for them with their privacy.The German consumer protection group Stiftung Warentest looked at 63 applications and graded 28 of them as "critical" in regards to data protection. Another nine were determined to be "very critical" -including widely-popular apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Foodspotting and iTranslate.The applications take per

Kathryn Joosten, a character actress best known as the crotchety, yet loveable, Karen McCluskey on “Desperate Housewives” and the president's secretary on “The West Wing,” has died. She was 72.Joosten, who had battled lung cancer for 11 years, died Saturday at her home in Los Angeles, her publicist Nadine Jolson said.Joosten “was surrounded by love and humor `til the end,” her family said in a sta

A Saudi princess was caught trying to leave the Shangri-La hotel in Paris without settling a six million euro ($7.4 million) bill for her rooms, police said Saturday, confirming a report in the daily Le Parisien.Maha al-Sudani, the former wife of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Nayef ben Abdel Aziz, tried to walk out on 3:30 am Thursday without paying for her suite and those of her 60-strong entourage,

South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to steadily strengthen trilateral defense cooperation to deter provocations by North Korea, Seoul's defense ministry said Saturday.The agreement was reached during a meeting of the three countries' top defense officials held on the sidelines of the 11th Asia Security Summit, also known as the Shangri La Dialogue, in Singapore, the ministry said.South