Queen Elizabeth II has said she cherishes the memory of a traditional Korean birthday party that was thrown for her during her visit to South Korea in 1999, South Korea's top envoy in London said Thursday.South Korean Ambassador to Britain Hwang Joon-kook said the queen made the remark when he presented his credentials to her at Buckingham Palace the previous day.During the queen's tour of the Hahoe Village in the city of Andong, southeastern South Korea, villagers prepared a party with a tradit

A South Korean research team said Friday it has isolated a live Zika virus from a local patient's semen, showing the possibility of sexual transmission.The 43-year-old man developed such symptoms as fever, chill and eye pain about a week after returning from Brazil in March where he was bitten by a mosquito.He is the first case of a Zika virus infection in South Korea imported from the South American nation.The team - led by Oh Myoung-don, professor of internal medicine at Seoul National Univers

South Korea's defense ministry on Friday said the issue of deploying a U.S. advanced missile defense system on South Korean soil will not be discussed at the upcoming meeting of the two countries' defense chiefs."The two countries are in consultation over the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery on South Korean soil. After the consultation is over, the results will come out," the ministry said in a statement.Seoul's reaction came as U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Thursday the United States is stronger and safer thanks to the "power of allies," warning that her Republican rival, Donald Trump, would significantly weaken the relationships.In a foreign policy speech, Clinton cited as an example how the U.S., South Korea and Japan worked together to cope with threats from North Korea, a country she called "the most repressive regime on the planet run by a sadistic dictator who wants to develop long-range

The United States left out North Korea from its latest list of states sponsoring terrorism Thursday, despite persistent calls for putting Pyongyang back on the list.The State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 said the North "is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987."The North was put on the list in 1988 for the airliner bombing that killed all 115 people aboard, but the designation was rescinded in 2008 in exchange for p

China said Thursday it opposes unilateral sanctions by a certain country against North Korea, reacting coolly to a U.S. decision that designated North Korea as a "primary money laundering concern" with the aim of blocking the North's access to the global financial system. The designation by the U.S. Treasury Department came as part of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act enacted in February to punish Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range roc

The South Korean government on Thursday said it will designate a total of 53 special languages which it said are strategically important for sustainable national growth.The education ministry issued a preannouncement of legislation implementing the ordinance of the special foreign language education promotion law. This, it said, will help the country train people fluent in many languages that have growth potential. Better fluency in a language can help local companies enter new markets and fuel