South Korea has been elected as a member of a U.N. council in charge of overseeing economic and social issues, keeping its membership in the body for 12 consecutive years, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.According to the ministry, South Korea was chosen to keep its membership in the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from 2017-2019 in an election held in New York on Tuesday (local time).China, the United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan were other Asia Pacific countries elected as council

North Korea's trade volume sank 18 percent last year from a year earlier, ending five years of straight growth, due largely to a drop in the prices of its key trading items such as coal and overall shipments, a South Korean trade agency said Wednesday.The North's overall trade volume came to $6.25 billion in 2015, compared with $7.61 billion the previous year, according to the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.The reclusive country's outbound shipments fell 15 percent on-year to

A woman dropped a complaint against Park Yu-chun, a member of popular K-pop boy band JYJ, on Wednesday, on charges of sexual assault, police said.The 20-something woman, whose identity was withheld, filed the case with the Gangnam Police Station on Friday, claiming the singer raped her at a bar in southern Seoul early in the morning on June 4.She had claimed the incident took place in a bathroom located within a room where they had been drinking together, according to police. Park and the woman,

North Korea is believed to have produced an additional four to six nuclear weapons since late 2014, with its total arsenal now estimated at between 13-21 weapons, a U.S. think tank said Tuesday.The Institute for Science and International Security released the assessment in a report, making estimates about the amounts of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium the North is believed to have produced at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.The assessment came after recent reports that the North

The United States on Tuesday welcomed China's decision to ban exports to North Korea of a series of so-called "dual-use" items that can be used not only for civilian, but also for military purposes, such as nuclear and missile development.China's Commerce Ministry announced the measure earlier Tuesday, adding about 40 items to the list of items banned for export to the communist neighbor. The ministry said the decision was part of efforts to implement the latest U.N. Security Council sanctions r