The United States should avert looming automatic military spending cuts partly in order to avoid gaps in dealing with contingencies in North Korea, according to a Republican congressman.At issue is an automatic spending cut called sequestration, which takes place if Congress cannot reach a budget agreement."Sequestration would cut the military to its smallest size since before the Second World War

Prosecutors have sought a three-year jail sentence for a close confidant to President Lee Myung-bak who was indicted in an illegal surveillance scandal, court officials said Thursday.Former Vice Knowledge Economy Minister Park Young-joon, once considered a right-hand man of Lee, was accused of ordering an illegal surveillance on Ulsan city officials in connection with an industrial complex project

Libya's parliament elected Wednesday a leading member in the country's oldest opposition movement to be its new prime minister.Mustafa Abu-Shakour is tasked with stabilizing a country where armed groups proliferate. Washington's ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed during a late Tuesday attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.Abu-Shakour, deputy to

A mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery attack on the U.S. Consulate, killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the violence, vowed Wednesday to bring the killers to justice and tightened security at diplomatic posts around the world.The attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens -- the first U.S. ambassador to die in the

North Korea refused to accept South Korea's flood relief aid Wednesday as the two countries failed to nail down what types of aid items should be given, a Seoul official said.The Seoul official said the North cabled a notification earlier in the day that reads, "We do not need such aid."Earlier on Monday, Pyongyang said through its Red Cross that it was ready to accept flood aid from the South.Seo

At least 110 people were killed in a blaze at a garment factory in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, an official said Wednesday."We have recovered 110 bodies so far and are still searching for more victims," Karachi fire chief Ehtesham Salim told AFP.The evening blaze in the four-story factory in Pakistan's largest city coincided with another at a shoe plant in Pakistan's second largest city Lahore

A group of six to seven North Korean fishing boats briefly crossed a tense maritime border with South Korea in the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, but retreated after a South Korean patrol boat broadcast a warning message, military officials said.The warning message was broadcast when the fishing boats crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) border and strayed into South Korean waters at around 11:10 a.m."

South Korea's jobless rate edged down in August from a month earlier but job creation slowed markedly amid worries the overall economic conditions are toughening at home and abroad, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3 percent last month, down from 3.1 percent tallied in the previous month, marking the lowest level for this y

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said Tuesday that the government is ready to run ads on its easternmost islets of Dokdo in Japanese media, in a rare move aimed at reinforcing its global public relations campaign over the East Sea islets and countering Japan's territorial claim."The government is preparing to run ads in Japanese media to tell the Japanese people that Dokdo is a Korean t

Rep. Moon Jae-in, the leading presidential contender of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), beat entrepreneur-turned-professor Ahn Cheol-soo for the first time in a hypothetical two-way race for a single opposition candidate ahead of December's presidential election, polls showed Tuesday.Moon has led the DUP's ongoing primary with 10 wins in 10 regional races conducted so far and 50

The Taliban said Monday it was determined to kill Britain's Prince Harry, serving in Afghanistan four years after his previous deployment was cut short over security concerns.A militia spokesman said the group had a "high-value plan" to attack the third in line to the British throne in southern province Helmand, one of the toughest battlefields in the 10-year war."We will do our best to kill Princ

Police said Monday that they have arrested a man for allegedly killing his wife and then chopping up her body and dumping it at a mountain.The suspect, a 46-year-old civil servant identified only by his family name Jin, was arrested earlier Monday in Icheon, about 80 kilometers southeast of Seoul.Jin is suspected of striking his wife with a liquor bottle during a quarrel late Saturday after he had

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ruled out Monday any economic bailout that dictates spending cuts or touches old-age pensions.As global markets anticipated a rapid international rescue for the eurozone's fourth-biggest economy, Rajoy refused to be rushed into a deal or to contemplate surrendering key powers over the budget."I could not accept that they tell us which are the concrete policies

An airstrike killed al-Qaida's No. 2 leader in Yemen along with six others traveling with him in one car on Monday, U.S. and Yemeni officials said, a major breakthrough for U.S.-backed efforts to cripple the group in the impoverished Arab nation.Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was killed by a missile aft