Two-time world overall champion Choi Min-jeong won the women's Olympic short track trials with ease on Saturday, while upsets abounded on the men's side.Choi won both the 1,000m and 1,500m super final races at the Olympic trials at Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul. Choi had also won the 500m and 1,500m races a day earlier.Choi, who won the world overall titles in 2015 and 2016, will be making her Olympic debut on home ice at the PyeongChang Winter Games next February.She had a clean sweep of all races

Ahn Cheol-soo of the centrist People's Party beat longtime frontrunner Moon Jae-in for the first time in a hypothetical five-way race for the top elected office, a poll showed Sunday.The former software mogul would also win a two-man match against Moon with a wide margin, if the election is held now, according to the survey conducted by the Korea Research Center on Saturday and Sunday.  Ahn Cheol-soo (Yonhap)The poll, jointly commissioned by Yonhap News Agency and public broadcaster KBS, support

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Poland's prime minister has vowed to provide financial and other aid to the survivors of an apartment building collapse that left six people dead and four injured. Rescuers and firefighters search for 11 missing people in the rubble of an apartment house that collapsed in Swiebodzice, Poland, on Saturday, April 8, 2017. (AP-Yonhap)Prime Minister Beata Szydlo came to the site of Saturday's collapse in the southwestern town of Swiebodzice (Shvyeh-'boh-tchi-tseh) and promised

CAIRO (AP) -- A bomb exploded in a church north of Cairo that was packed with Palm Sunday worshippers, killing at least 25 people and wounding 71 others, officials said.The attack in the Nile Delta town of Tanta was the latest in a series of assaults on Egypt's Christian minority, which makes up around 10 percent of the population and has been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists. It comes just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit Egypt. A general view shows forensics collecting eviden

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel remained committed to treating war wounded from Syria and reaffirmed his support for last week's US air strike in the neighbouring country.In comments at the start of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu did not specify whether those injured in last week's suspected chemical attack in Syria would be among those treated in Israel.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem April 9, 2

The recovery of the South Korean sunken ferry has been an unprecedented challenge that gave the veteran salvage team many "first" experiences, the chief diver involved in the project said Sunday."I have dived about 6,000 times, spent some 30,000 hours of my life in water, but the Sewol operation has been somewhat different," Jin Feng, the head of diving unit of the Shanghai Salvage, told Yonhap News Agency in an interview on Sunday.  Jin Feng, the head of the company's diving unit, on April 9, 2

Leading presidential contender Moon Jae-in maintained his view Sunday that the incoming administration should have the final say on the controversial deployment of a US missile defense system in South Korea.Moon, the nominee of the liberal Democratic Party, made the remark in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in reference to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery that is being installed in southeastern South Korea. China claims it is a threat to its security, and recently stepped up

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said Sunday the raised Sewol ferry had been moved onto land, almost three weeks after the sunken Sewol ferry was brought back to the surface.Engineers worked Sunday to move the raised ship onshore, after it ran a final test to move the shipwreck to land that morning.The entire hull of the 145-meter Sewol ferry, loaded on some 600 modular trailers, is towed to land in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, Sunday. (Yonhap)“Following a successful test run, operators beg

Environmental issues have rarely received attention in South Korean elections, but the nation’s worst-ever air pollution in the first three months of this year has changed that. With slightly over a month left to the May 9 presidential election, major contenders are releasing pledges on tackling the aggravating fine dust problem, facing conspicuously growing public awareness and voter demand. With a slew of mobile apps providing nearly real-time updates on air quality, many pollution-conscious c

South Korea is more shrouded in dust than ever. In three months this year, the country has seen 85 ultrafine dust advisories issued, more than double in the same period last year, which had 41. With ominously gray skies, low visibility and warnings about the health effects of airborne dust, South Koreans have become increasingly anxious.A high-rise building in downtown Seoul is shrouded in fine dust on April 3. (Yonhap)This has given rise to a breed of citizens raging their own battles against a

Efforts to move the retrieved Sewol ferry onshore faced difficulties Thursday as engineers failed to load the wreck, heavier than originally expected, on transporters Thursday, delaying further search operations.The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said that it encountered some technical problems with modular trailers placed underneath the ferry.Sewol ferry shrouded in thick fog in Mokpo Port on Thursday (Yonhap)“We ran a test operation to carry the ferry on 480 transport trailers until this mor

The shocking case involving a schizophrenic teenager kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl in Incheon last week has highlighted the country’s failure to cope with the growing prevalence of mental disorders, as longstanding social stigmas on mental illness continue to hide the problem, experts said Monday. The Incheon murder is the latest in a series of high-profile crimes involving schizophrenic patients in South Korea in recent years.  The suspect in a kidnap and murder case of an 8-year-ol

MOKPO, South Jeolla Province -- The Sewol ferry had departed from Incheon on a misty morning on April 15, 2014 for a routine 13-hour voyage to the southern resort island of Jeju. But the passenger ship, now a rusted wreck, reached the end of its voyage at Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, on Friday afternoon, 1,801 days after its departure. With families of the victims of the sinking almost three years ago and ordinary citizens watching, the salvaged ferry, loaded on a transport vessel, arrived at M

The Sewol ferry, loaded on a transport vessel, arrived at Mokpo Port on Friday afternoon, ending its final voyage 1,081 days after it sank in South Korea’s worst maritime disaster. 　The semisubmersible transport vessel carrying the retrieved passenger ferry departed the wreck site off Jindo, South Jeolla Province, at around 7 a.m. and arrived at Mokpo at 1:15 p.m., the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said. 　Engineers have begun work to move the 6,800-ton, 145-meter-long Sewol to the port’s dry

A 16-year-old girl admitted to having kidnapped and killed an 8-year-old who was found dead Wednesday in Incheon, police said Thursday. The suspect, a high school dropout with records of mental illness, is currently in police custody. She allegedly met the victim at a park in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, on Wednesday afternoon and killed her with an unidentified weapon after luring the victim into her home with a phone. The suspect in a kidnap and murder case of an 8-year-old child is seen at Yeonsu Poli