The United States Congress will push to tighten the screw on North Korea with legislation making the communist nation's access to the global financial system more difficult, diplomatic and congressional sources said Sunday.Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations, is working on a bill aimed at tackling Pyongyang's ability to gain hard currency, according to the sources.The move is part of a series of reactions by the U.S. Congress to North Korea's nucle

Late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had first proposed an inter-Korean summit in 2009, though the proposal later fell apart as Pyongyang demanded economic aid in return, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was quoted Monday as saying.The proposal was conveyed via Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Lee said in an interview with the Donga Ilbo newspaper last week, according to senior presidential press secretary Choe Guem-nak. Kim attached no conditions to the offer at the time, such as demandin

South Korean stocks traded marginally lower late Friday morning, as automakers and shipping lines drove the key index down, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) slipped 0.69 points, or 0.03 percent to 1,978.92 as of 11:20 a.m.No. 2 shipyard Hyundai Merchant Marine plunged more than 4 percent following a market forecast that its earnings had dwindled in 2012. Industry leader Hyundai Motor fell 1.8 percent. In contrast, domestic-focused issues gathered ground, wit

South Korean football player Park Jong-woo received his Olympic bronze medal on Friday, six months after he was denied the prize following his controversial celebration at the London Games, officials said.The Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) said Park was handed the medal by the KOC President Park Yong-sung at the KOC's headquarters in Seoul. Following a disciplinary hearing earlier this week in Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to award the player his medal, and Park

ING, a Dutch banking group, has sold its stakes in KB Financial, in an apparent move to rebuild its capital base and break away from its long-term relationship with the Korean banking group. The move comes after the sale of ING Life to KB Financial broke down between the two sides as KB backed away from the potential deal last year. ING is currently also looking to unload its shares in a KB insurance subsidiary.The Amsterdam-based company had been a major shareholder in KB Financial with a 5.02

A bipartisan group of senior U.S. senators has crafted legislation calling for Washington to take across-the-board measures to stop Pyongyang's development and transfer of weapons of mass destruction and to address its human rights record.The move is one of a raft of activities by Congress with regard to the communist nation following its underground nuclear experiment earlier this week.Titled "North Korea Non-proliferation and Accountability Act of 2013," the bill is aimed at preventing nuclear

The number of cancer-related deaths in Seoul rose more than 20 percent over the past 10 years, data showed Friday.According to a comprehensive analysis on the health and welfare of citizens by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, for every 100,000 people 119.6 died of cancer in 2011, up from 98 in 2001. Lung cancer was the No. 1 cause of cancer-related deaths in 2011, killing 24.5 out of every 100,000 citizens, followed by liver cancer with 17.4, stomach cancer with 15.3 and rectal cancer with 13.

Paralympic superstar Oscar Pistorius was charged Thursday with the murder of his girlfriend who was shot inside his home in South Africa, a stunning development in the life of a national hero known as the Blade Runner for his high-tech artificial legs. Reeva Steenkamp, a model who spoke out on Twitter against rape and abuse of women, was shot four times in the predawn hours in the house, in a gated community in the capital, Pretoria, police said.Hours later after undergoing police questioning, P

South Korean stocks opened higher Friday but then fell slightly as a decline in the quarterly output of European nations spurred losses in key local exporters, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) dropped 0.39 points to 1,979.22 as of 9:15 a.m.Market bellwether Samsung Electronics slid 0.6 percent and automaker Hyundai Motor dipped 1.4 percent. The 17-nation eurozone economy reported on Thursday its gross domestic product declined 0.6 percent on-year in the four

The U.S. Senate's top Democrat attacked Republican senators Thursday for blocking Chuck Hagel's nomination to be President Barack Obama's next secretary of defense, saying it was “shocking” and “tragic” that they would attempt such a move at a time when the U.S. military is engaged in so many places around the world.The vote on Hagel was expected Friday, but Senate Republicans want more information about what Obama was doing on the night of the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Ben

The price, smell and color should have been clear tipoffs something was wrong with shipments of horsemeat that were fraudulently labeled as beef, French authorities said Thursday. The government pinned the bulk of the blame on a French wholesaler at the heart of a growing scandal in Europe.Police in the U.K., meanwhile, announced the arrests Thursday of three men on suspicion of fraud at two meat plants inspected earlier this week by the country's Food Standards Agency.The two separate developme