Five North Korean defectors have arrived in South Korea after spending three years in a South Korean consulate in China, a South Korean official said Wednesday.China has allowed them to travel to South Korea via a third country, the official said, a step Beijing usually takes to handle those involved in high-profile cases.The five people, who include three family members of a late South Korean sol

Mitt Romney won Tuesday's Republican presidential primary in Maryland, US media projected, as he hoped for a clean sweep in three contests aiming to consolidate his frontrunner status.CNN, MSNBC and Fox television channels all called the vote for Romney just as the Maryland polls closed. Results from the US capital Washington and Wisconsin were not yet known as Romney bids for his party's nod to t

A Seoul court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two former presidential secretaries on charges of instructing the destruction of evidence in an illegal surveillance of a businessman critical of President Lee Myung-bak years ago, court officials said.Lee Young-ho, 48, a former presidential secretary for employment and labor affairs, is accused of ordering an ethics division official of the Prim

Once his father's heir apparent, James Murdoch stepped down Tuesday as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting, surrendering one of the biggest jobs in the Murdoch media empire in a bid to distance the broadcaster from a deepening phone hacking scandal.James Murdoch's credibility and competence have come under severe questioning because of the phone hacking crisis and alleged bribery by British newsp

After being plagued by more than two months of labor union strikes, MBC has taken additional disciplinary measures against strike leaders, its union said Tuesday, escalating labor-management conflict at the public broadcaster.The union said MBC management fired labor union head Jung Young-ha and his deputy Kang Ki-woong and suspended five others for two to three months for masterminding an "illega

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not adapt well to an international school in Switzerland in the 1990s and his grades were poor, a news report has said.Kim was absent for 75 days and 105 days in his first and second year at the International School of Bern, respectively, Swiss newspaper Le Matin Dimanche reported Sunday, citing unidentified sources.Kim sometimes came to the school only in the a

He's already a titan of social media, so it only makes sense that Ashton Kutcher would play the late Apple founder Steve Jobs in an upcoming biography.Kutcher's publicist confirmed Tuesday that the independent film ``Jobs'' will begin production in May while he's on hiatus from the CBS sitcom ``Two and a Half Men.'' Variety first reported the casting news.The 34-year-old actor, who has over 10 mil

A menu for the last luncheon served to first class passengers on the doomed Titanic sold for 76,000 pound ($122,000, 91,000 euros) at a British auction on Sunday.The menu, dated April 14, 1912 -- the night the biggest, most ambitious ship of the age hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, killing 1,514 people -- was the star lot in an auction of Titanic memorabilia.A Britain-based collector

A think tank says North Korean and American delegations have held informal talks in Germany _ talks that come amid tensions over Pyongyang's plans for a long-range rocket launch.Charles King Mallory, the executive director of the Aspen Institute think tank in Berlin, said Sunday that the informal so-called ``track 2'' dialogue took place over the weekend.He wouldn't comment on the contents of the

The government plans to convert existing school loans into lower-interest ones beginning next month as part of efforts to expand the financial support system for young people, President Lee Myung-bak said Monday.The government will utilize 50 billion won (US$44 million) contributed by local banks as a guaranty fund for the interest-lowering measure, Lee said during his biweekly radio address. "As