Dust levels in Seoul and its surrounding areas fell to their lowest on record in 2011, showed government data released Tuesday. According to the data from the Ministry of Environment, the levels of dust in Seoul, as measured in the amount of PM10 particles per cubic meter, averaged 47 micrograms, the lowest since the official monitoring began in 1995. Dust levels have been on a steady decline from 78 micrograms in 1995. The 2011 figure is within the Korean government’s target of 50 micrograms pe

BERLIN (AFP) ― Does the world treat men and women differently? Drag king pioneer Diane Torr not only believes so but in an experiment in front of the camera empowers women to test out her theory.The documentary “Man For A Day,” which has premiered at the Berlin film festival, follows a group of very different women who sign up for a workshop on how to assume the persona of a man.“Gender is a culture-given thing, it’s not natural,” German director Katarina Peters told AFP of her just over 90-minu

Korea has about 1,000 judges sitting in the district, appellate and the supreme courts. They were given their robes after passing the state-run judiciary examination and two years of training. Each year, those who earn higher scores in various tests during the training course are appointed as judges and the rest go to the prosecution or directly go into legal practice.Judges are supposed to make rulings in accordance with the law and their conscience. People have believed judges have clearer con

TEHRAN (AP) ― A senior Iranian military official said Monday that Tehran’s nuclear and other industrial facilities suffer periodic cyber attacks, but that the country has the technology to protect itself from the threat, an official news agency reported.Iran considers itself to have been waging a complicated cyber war since 2010, when a virus known as Stuxnet disrupted controls of some nuclear centrifuges.“Most enemy threats target nuclear energy sites as well as electronic trade and banking ope

Up until a few weeks ago, leaders of parties talked about some kind of “bottom-up” process in nominating candidates for the upcoming National Assembly elections. Both Park Geun-hye of what is now the Saenuri Party and Han Myeong-sook of the Democratic United Party mentioned “open primaries” at each district to find fresh personalities who have the respect of constituents and present positive images of their parties.But what we now see at the headquarters of these parties are members of respectiv

Nothing better illustrates America‘s sliding status in today’s Arab world than Egypt‘s decision to try 16 Americans who work for pro-democracy groups there.On the surface, the strange story of this “criminal” case looks far less important than the Syrian government’s repression of its people. But this crisis has the potential to wreck U.S. relations with Egypt, a country that is still considered a key ally. And these charges graphically illustrate the decline of U.S. leverage in the new Middle E

Mitt Romney appears to have all the foreign-policy savvy of someone who once visited Euro Disney, and it‘s freaking me out. Not to say that President Obama is any more knowledgeable on that front, but at least he seems aware of his limitations, outsourcing foreign leadership to the French, the Brits, Hillary Clinton and private contractors.Never has the world been so interconnected, with power and influence becoming decentralized and regionalized. America’s problems -- economic or otherwise -- c

Siemens AG and Samsung C&T Corp. are among the European and Asian companies that may vie to build and operate a $21 billion rail link between Moscow and St. Petersburg before the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament.Alstom SA, Bouygues SA of France, Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA and UniCredit SpA and a unit of South Korea’s Hyundai have also expressed interest in the high-speed link, said Yelena Shebunina, deputy head of OAO High-Speed Rail Lines, in an interview in Moscow. A Portuguese group led by Braz

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) -- Bahrain deployed thousands of security forces Sunday to confront anti-government protesters ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Shiite-led uprising that seeks to loosen the ruling Sunni dynasty‘s monopoly on power.Opposition groups urged marchers to stream toward an empty lot dubbed “Freedom Square” outside the capital Manama. Some activists seek to occupy the site before Tuesday’s anniversary of the start of the wave of protests, and turn it into a new semi-permanen

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) ― Zambia won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l’Amitie.The score was 0-0 before the penalty kicks.Stophira Sunzu scored the deciding sudden-death penalty after Gervinho missed his kick for Ivory Coast.Zambia earned its first African title in the same city where 18 Zambian internationals died in a plane crash in 1993 in the country’s worst sporting disaster.Ivory Coast captain and best p