TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A Taiwanese flight carrying 58 people turned on its side in midair, clipped an elevated roadway and careened into a shallow river Wednesday shortly after taking off from Taipei, killing at least 19 people and leaving 24 missing, officials and media reports said.More than half of the passengers aboard TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 were from China and the death toll was expected to rise as rescue crews cleared the mostly submerged fuselage in the Keelung River. Teams in rub

South Korea's foreign minister plans to hold talks with his U.S. counterpart in Germany this weekend to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program and other bilateral issues, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which kicks off Friday for three days, the ministry said.Yun will fly to Germany on Thursday for a four-day stay, which includes a planned

Sales of hybrid vehicles were found to have climbed last month despite low oil prices, data from the Ministry of Environment showed Thursday.“As the global crude oil prices are set to bounce back, the eco-friendly vehicles are projected to gain more popularity in the coming months. The effect of state subsidy and tax benefits for buyers will further expand,” a ministry official said.Korea saw the sales of hybrid cars in the nation come to 1,596 units in January, up 56 percent from 1,023 units a

The South Korean military is seeking to export $1 billion worth of an indigenous light attack aircraft to Peru, informed sources said Tuesday.“We’ve been pushing to sell 24 units of the FA-50 to Peru, and are planning to submit a proposal for Lima’s fighter purchase project this month,” said a source, requesting anonymity.“Factoring in the necessary logistics support, the total amount of the envisioned exports would reach $2 billion.”South Korea is likely to vie with Russia, Italy and China, wit

A Korean Air cabin crew chief told the court Monday that Cho Hyun-ah, the airline’s then-vice president, beat and verbally abused cabin crew and coerced them into making false statements over the “nut-rage” incident.Cho, 40, had caused public uproar by forcing a cabin crew chief to disembark from a flight from New York to Seoul on Dec. 5 after not following the carrier’s protocol on serving macadamia nuts. The de facto heiress of the flag carrier was found to have ordered the taxiing plane to re

The Navy began taking measures Saturday to drive sit-in protesters out of the construction site of a naval base on a major southern island to complete the construction project by December as planned, triggering strong resistance from the protesters.Civic groups, environmental activists and some residents in the village near the construction site have staged protests in a make-shift tent at the entrance of the site since October last year when the Navy began constructing apartment buildings to be

North Korea “reportedly” sacked the chief of its Supreme Guard Command, the elite personal bodyguard force tasked with protecting the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, in the wake of last month’s killings by a North Korean army deserter, a Chinese scholar wrote in an op-ed for state media on Saturday.Hu Mingyuan, associate researcher at the Center for Northeast Asian Studies, a research institute of the Jilin province that shares borders with North Korea, did not specify where he got the information.I

The prosecution on Sunday indicted Homeplus and its CEO Do Sung-hwan without detention on charges of taking illicit profits worth 23.1 billion won ($21 million) by selling customers’ private data to insurance companies.Five more incumbent and former executives have also been subject to the coming court trials for their implication in the scheme.The supermarket chain was found to have handed over about 24 million entries of personal information to a variety of insurance firms, according to invest

A U.S. textbook publisher said Friday it “unequivocally” stands by the description of Japan’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II in one of its books after Japan’s government asked for changes in it.Japan made the request to the publisher, McGraw-Hill, last month, claiming there are grave errors and descriptions in the book, “Tradition & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past,” which it said conflict with the country’s stance on the sexual slavery issue.The request was seen as

Upholding a lower court ruling, the top court on Thursday acquitted a former Seoul police chief of charges that he soft-pedaled a police probe into a high-profile election-meddling scandal.The scandal centers around allegations that the state intelligence agency spearheaded an online smear campaign against rival candidates of President Park Geun-hye, the then ruling party candidate, during the 2012 presidential election.Kim Yong-pan, the now former head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, w

South Korea’s vice defense minister plans to visit Colombia and Peru this week to explore ways to boost bilateral exchange and cooperation in the defense field, the defense ministry said Thursday.During his three-day stay in Colombia starting Friday, Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo is scheduled to sit down for talks with key military officials, including his counterpart, Secretary General Luis Manuel Neira Nunez, to exchange opinions on a wide range of issues of mutual concern, according to

The Russian presidential office said Wednesday that North Korea’s leader will attend a war anniversary event in Moscow in May.The heads of state from about 20 nations confirmed their plans to join the ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II and North Korea’s leader is among them, according to the Kremlin.The Kremlin earlier sent an invitation to the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un.In a written reply to Yonhap’s inquiry, however, the Kremlin did not