An engineer savvy in technological development took office Friday as chairman of the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, POSCO, with a four-point reform plan to enhance competitiveness and weather an industry slump.POSCO's shareholders and board of directors formally approved Kwon Oh-joon, 64, as the company's eighth chairman. He will serve through March 2017, leading the country's sixth-largest conglomerate by assets. "POSCO's boastful competitive advantage is on the brink of extinction as the gl

South Korea is considering dispatching two military aircraft to assist with ongoing international search efforts for the missing Malaysia airplane, a military source said Friday, amid deepening mystery surrounding the jet's fate.Seoul is reviewing a plan to send the P-3C Orion patrol aircraft and C-130 military transport airplane to find the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared somewhere over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam last week."The South Korean military has participated in t

Private agencies in the United States have provided North Korea with aid to help its people have access to clean water and medicine, media reports said Friday.   According to the Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA), Wellspring, a non-governmental organization in the U.S., sent a large truck to the North earlier this week to support its groundwater development project.    The aid was provided at the request of the North's underground water development research institute, and the lorry was purc

　 More than 600 North Korean defectors, who initially settled in South Korea, are on the verge of being deported from Canada while attempting to take refuge there, an informed source said Thursday.　The Canadian authorities accuse them of disguising themselves as those who just fled the communist nation, said the source from South Korean political circles.　They actually defected to the capitalist South and gained citizenship there, according to the source who is on a trip here after visiting Cana

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday his government is trying to assure South Korea and Japan of its unswerving commitment to extended nuclear deterrence so that the key allies won't be tempted to develop nuclear bombs themselves.   "We are working with Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in order to make sure they don't feel so threatened that they move towards nuclearization in self-help," the secretary said at a Senate hearing on the department's budget for fiscal year 2

The top commander of the U.S. Army said Thursday a war on the Korean Peninsula would be the most difficult and dangerous scenario for his troops as they seek to transform themselves into a smaller but more mobile force.   "A war on the Korean Peninsula would be incredibly difficult...If we had a fight on the Korean Peninsula, that would be incredibly dangerous," Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the U.S. Army chief of staff, said at a forum here.   He was answering a question about what area of the world