Cristiano Ronaldo helped Real Madrid roll to a 3-1 win over Athletic Bilbao Sunday hours before the Spanish club announced it had signed Gareth Bale to pair him with the Portugal forward in one of the most formidable attacks in football.Not to be overshadowed by Bale's imminent arrival, Lionel Messi needed 41 minutes to score his 23rd career hat trick for Barcelona in a thrilling 3-2 victory at Valencia.Barcelona sports director Andoni Zubizarreta was one of the first to extend his welcome to th

Egypt's top prosecutor on Sunday referred ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to trial on charges of inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace while he was in office, the state news agency said. The military ousted Morsi on July 3 after millions took to the streets demanding that he step down. He's been held incommunicado since. Despite other accusations by prosecutors, the decision Sunday is Morsi's first referral to trial. No date was announced for the trial.Morsi wi

South Korean stocks opened lower Monday due to losses on Wall Street in the previous trading session amid the rising crisis in Syria, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) edged down 0.51 points, or 0.03 percent, to 1,925.85 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Shares lost ground across the board, with tech giant Samsung Electronics falling 0.29 percent and top steelmaker POSCO moving down 0.78 percent. No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor shed 1.41 percent.U.S. stocks clos

South Korea's consumer price growth stayed in the 1-percent range for the 10th straight month in August, a government report showed Monday.The country's consumer price index rose 1.3 percent on-year in August, decelerating from a 1.4 percent gain tallied in the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea.The August figure represented the 10th straight month since November that the price growth has stayed in the 1-percent range.The core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and f

Syria on Sunday derided President Barack Obama's decision to hold off on punitive military strikes, but also took precautions by reportedly moving some troops and military equipment to civilian areas.The Obama administration countered that its case for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is getting stronger, saying it now has evidence that the toxic gas allegedly used in strikes on rebel-held areas was the nerve agent sarin.The administration predicted Sunday it w

서울고 우완 투수 배재환(18)이 2014년 입단 선수를 대상으로 한 프로야구 신인 2차 드래프트에서 전체 1순위로 NC  다이노 스의 부름을 받았다. 배재환은 26일 서울 강남구 역삼동 르네상스서울호텔 3층 다이아몬드볼룸에서 열린 2차 신인 드래프트에서 NC에 가장 먼저 호명됐다.  배재환은 올해 4경기에 등판해 3⅓이닝만 던져 베일에 싸였으나 NC는 그의 장래 성이 밝다고 평가한 것으로 보인다. 그는 고교 3년간 9경기에 마운드에 올라 22⅓이닝을 던져 1승 2패, 평균자책점 2.05를 남겼다. 이번 지명 회의에는 고교, 대학 졸업 예정 선수와 상무, 경찰야구단 소속 선수 등 총 720명이 지원했다. 이 중 105명만이 프로 구단의 지명을 받아 계약을 앞두게 됐다. 홀수 라운드는 2012년 성적의 역순(NC-한화-LG-넥센-KIA-롯데-두산-SK-삼성-KT)으로, 짝수 라운드는 2012년 성적 순(KT-삼성-SK-두산-롯데-KIA-넥센-LG-한화-NC)으로 각 구단이 1명씩 총

South Korean technicians may be allowed to stay for extended periods of time at an inter-Korean factory park in North Korea from this week to better support companies planning to reopen their factories, the government said Monday.The plan to permit Koreans to stay overnight comes after Seoul and Pyongyang agreed on Aug. 14 to reopen the Gaeseong Industrial Complex that has been closed since early April. Starting last week, South Korean businessmen began visiting Gaeseong in large numbers to gaug

One out of four students in Seoul have had suicidal thoughts due mainly to academic worries and loneliness, a survey showed Monday. According to the survey conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government of 1,320 students attending primary, secondary and tertiary schools in the capital city, 25.6 percent said they have felt an impulse to commit suicide.As for the reason, 29.5 percent, or the largest share, cited stress from schoolwork and performance-oriented circumstances at school, followed by

South Korean stocks traded 0.82 percent higher late Monday morning, driven by gains in heavy industries and chemical companies, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shot up 15.42 percent to 1,885.58 as of 11:20 a.m.Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's biggest shipyard, soared 2.5 percent, and LG Chem, a leading chemical maker, jumped more than 3 percent. In contrast, shipping lines trended lower, with STX Pan Ocean slumping 3.5 percent. The local currency was c

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, South Korea's richest person, has fallen off the list of the world's top 100 wealthiest people due to a slump in the group's key unit, Samsung Electronics Co., data showed on Monday.Lee's assets were estimated at US$10.2 billion and ranked 107th as of Friday, according to a daily ranking of the world's wealthiest people compiled by Bloomberg. The figure was down $1.2 billion from the end of last year.The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of

More than half of South Korea's economically active people are employed by small and medium enterprises, data showed Monday, due mainly to the growing presence of the services sector in the local economy.According to the data by the Statistics Korea, workers employed at small and medium firms came to 12.6 million in 2011, accounting for 50.3 percent of the country's 25 million economically active population.Economically active population refers to people over the age of 15 who are either working

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un chaired a meeting of a top military commission to decide on important matters on enhancing the country's independence and defense, the communist country's media reported Monday.At the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim and the North's top policymakers discussed and decided on key practical issues to bolster the combat capability of the revolutionary armed forces, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.The ce