North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump's administration as a "gross violator of human rights", its state media reported Wednesday.The official Korean Central News Agency released its English-language report on Pyongyang's annual white paper on US human rights violations as Trump began his State of the Union speech, in which he condemned the North.North Korea's rights rights record is heavily criticised by both the United States and the United Nations, and it is estimated to have up

SEOUL (AFP) -- The unified Korean women’s ice hockey team faced an unexpected challenge at their first joint training session, reports said Monday -- vastly different hockey terminology on either side of the divided peninsula.　Seven decades of almost total separation after the 1950-53 Korean War, with all ordinary civilian contact blocked between North and South, has seen their once common language diverge in many respects.　The two Koreas still share the same writing system, known as Hangul -- a

HONOLULU - The United States and South Korea are going to keep tightening the screws on Pyongyang so that the hermit state gives up its nuclear program, Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Friday."As two peace-loving nations, the Republic of Korea and America welcome the Olympic Games talks between the ROK and DPRK while at the same time remaining steadfast with the international economic pressure campaign to denuclearize the Korean peninsula," Mattis said in Honolulu.The defense secretary was speaki

A cosmic event not seen in 36 years -- a rare "super blood blue moon" -- may be glimpsed January 31 in parts of western North America, Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Australia.The event is causing a buzz because it combines three unusual lunar events -- an extra big super moon, a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse. "It's an astronomical trifecta," said Kelly Beatty, a senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine.A blue moon refers to the second full moon in a month. Typically, a blue moon hap

MELBOURNE -- Roger Federer hailed Chung Hyeon as a future top 10 player Friday after the South Korean's Australian Open came to a painful end at the hands of the Swiss maestro.The defending champion was leading 6-1, 5-2 and in full control when Chung retired with foot blisters, bringing the curtain down on a breakout tournament in which he announced himself as a future star in the making. The 21-year-old sent 12-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic packing in the quarter-finals, although the Se

HONG KONG (AFP) - A senior United States official warned Hong Kong authorities Wednesday they must stop the city being used as a “safe harbour” for illicit trade with North Korea, in violation of United Nations sanctions.　The warning came weeks after a Hong Kong-flagged ship was seized in South Korea for transferring oil products to another vessel.　The UN -- at the urging of the US -- has imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea aimed at tightening the economic screws on Pyongyang over

MELBOURNE (AFP) - World number one Rafael Nadal faces three weeks out after being diagnosed with a torn inner hip muscle during his Australian Open quarter-final defeat, his management said Wednesday.   The 16-time Grand Slam champion had a scan in a Melbourne hospital after he retired early in the fifth set of his match with Croatia's Marin Cilic on Tuesday.   "The MRI (scan) showed a grade one injury of his illiopsoas on his right leg," his management said in a statement. (Yonhap)   "He will b

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.9 struck off the coast of Alaska early Tuesday, January 23, prompting tsunami warnings or watches as far away as California.The quake struck at 9:31 a.m. in the Gulf of Alaska, 280 kilometers southeast of the town of Kodiak, the US Geological Survey said, revising a preliminary estimate of 8.2 magnitude. The epicenter was 10 kilometers under the seabed. A handout map image made available by the United States Geological Survey shows the loc

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) -- A Japanese soldier was killed Tuesday and several other people injured after a volcano erupted near a popular ski resort, sparking an avalanche and leaving scores stranded -- including tourists from Britain and Taiwan.Footage broadcast on Japanese television showed thick black smoke interspersed with falling rocks rolling down the snow-covered side of the volcano towards a ski slope.Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters that one of eight members of the Self Defen

LAUSANNE -- North Korea will send 22 athletes to next month's Winter Games in the South, the International Olympic Committee said Saturday, approving a landmark deal between two nations still officially at war. North Korean pairs figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok (L) and Kim Ju-sik perform their short program during the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany in 2017. (Yonhap)South Korea had hoped that the Games which begin in Pyeongchang on Feb. 9 could help ease the crisis on the peninsula plagued by

Only an hour's drive from the Winter Olympics venues in South Korea, a stained mattress lies in an abandoned ski resort, a possible harbinger of the gleaming new facilities' fate.The Alps Ski Resort was one of the country's first winter sports destinations, attracting tens of thousands of skiers every year until it abruptly shut its doors in 2006.Now South Korea has spent $800 million on the sporting facilities for next month's Winter Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee has express

A Taiwanese businessman who has been investigated and sanctioned by authorities on suspicion of selling oil to North Korea attempted suicide on Friday, prosecutors said. Chen Shih-hsien was rushed to hospital in southern Kaohsiung city where he lives and was later discharged."We are aware of Chen's attempted suicide. We will consider his health state before deciding on the date for his next questioning," said Ke Kuang-hui, a spokesman for the Kaohsiung district prosecutor's office.An emotional C

Dandong, China -- China has ramped up security along its border with North Korea, installing new surveillance cameras, deploying extra security forces and operating radiation detectors as it braces for a potential crisis.Bellicose rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang has raised fears in China of a conflict that could send millions of North Korean refugees across the 1,420-kilometre (880-mile) border, and of nuclear fallout that could hit Chinese towns.While authorities have been coy about p

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Russia of undermining international sanctions against North Korea and weakening efforts to curb Kim Jong-Un‘s nuclear weapons program.“Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump told the Reuters news agency. “What China is helping us with, Russia is denting.”Last month, Trump had already denounced Russia for “not helping” global efforts to pressure Pyongyang to halt the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile

BEIJING -- China on Tuesday dismissed an international meeting on the North Korean nuclear crisis hosted by Canada and the United States as illegitimate, as major players like Beijing were not present.The absence of Russia and China from the two days of talks in Vancouver, which began on Monday, shows the holes in Washington's bid to form a unified global front against North Korea's nuclear threat."The most important relevant parties of the Korean peninsula issue haven't taken part in the meetin