Qatar has been limiting the issuance of new visas to North Korean workers in line with international sanctions designed to starve Pyongyang of resources for its nuclear weapons program, a government source in Seoul said Friday.About 2,000 North Koreans are estimated to be working in the Middle Eastern nation to earn money for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missile development."Qatar is actively cooperating in terms of putting pressure on the North and taking steps to limit the issuance of new v

The national Olympic body said Friday it will decide on the Summer Games status of banned swimmer Park Tae-hwan after the top sports tribunal hands down its ruling later in the day.At a board of directors meeting, the Korean Olympic Committee said it will wait until the Court of Arbitration for Sport rules on Park's earlier appeal before determining the swimmer's fate for the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games.Park, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 400m freestyle, has filed an appeal at the CAS ov

President Park Geun-hye will host a luncheon with all lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party on Friday, her office Cheong Wa Dae said, a move to secure their support for an array of her policy tasks and foster unity in the party long plagued by factional feuds.All 129 lawmakers of the ruling party, along with interim leader Kim Hee-ok, will attend the luncheon at the presidential office. It will be the third such gathering since she took office in February 2013.At the gathering, Park is expected

North Korea on Friday denounced the U.S. imposition of sanctions on leader Kim Jong-un as "an open declaration of war," warning that it will close down all diplomatic channels with the U.S. unless the blacklisting is revoked.The U.S. rejected the demand, saying it will continue to work with the international community to sustain international attention on the North's "deplorable" human rights situation and to press for Pyongyang to cease such violations.The North's Foreign Ministry issued the st

An invitation to the 1906 wedding of a daughter of then-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and other historical items have been recovered from the site of the former Korean legation in Washington, officials said Thursday.The 15 items, which were found during restoration work on the building that was used as the Korean legation from 1891 to 1910, before Korea was colonized by Japan, show active diplomacy Korean envoys were engaged in at the time, the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation sa

A North Korean martial arts manual dating back to the 18th century has been listed as a UNESCO heritage, the country's state media said Thursday.The U.N. organization listed the manual called "Mu Ye Do Bo Tong Ji" on its World Regional Register for Asia-Pacific at a meeting of the UNESCO Memory of the World Regional Committee for Asia-Pacific in Vietnam in May, the Korean Central News Agency said in an English dispatch monitored in Seoul.The book was illustrated by the famous Korean folk painter