A government plan to introduce competition to train operations and end the monopoly held by state-run KORAIL is stirring a heated debate as critics say for-profit businesses would endanger safety and public interests.The Transport Ministry said last week it will open bidding this year to operate new bullet-train routes connecting Suseo in southern Seoul to the southern part of the country, which will open in 2015. KORAIL will continue to manage the other sections.The ministry expects the change

PARIS ― Russia is not Egypt. And Moscow is not on the eve of revolution as Cairo was less than a year ago. Indeed, Russia’s powerful have at their disposal assets that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime lacked.As an energy superpower, Russia can open its coffers to appease, at least in part, the humiliation that it has inflicted on its citizens by falsifying the country’s recent legislative election results. And not all Russians are in the streets. We should beware of the “zoom eff

KABUL (AP) ― Just 15 years old, Sahar Gul has become the bruised and bloodied face of women’s rights in Afghanistan. The teenage bride’s eyes were swollen nearly shut as she was wheeled into the hospital seven months after her arranged marriage. Black scabs crusted her fingertips where her nails used to be.According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, Gul’s in-laws kept her in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers ― al

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) _ Front-running Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney focused on friendlier political territory in New Hampshire on Wednesday, moving on from the Iowa caucuses where he managed only the skimpiest of victories in the first-in-the-nation vote to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama.Just eight votes separated Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Santorum staged an abrupt rise from single-digit support in the Mid

MILWAUKEE ― In the course of a few hours on a recent fall day, all of Ann Merrell’s blood slowly exited her body through a tube in her left arm, then re-entered through a tube in her right.Two lives were bound up in this circle of blood.The night before, in her own bed in South Beloit, Ill., she’d tossed and turned. Some of it was fear of the unknown. Yet Ann had decided that what she knew about her brother’s disease outweighed what she didn’t know about this effort to save him. Since 2006, her

When the temperature falls, the heart can be put under greater stress and the probability of sudden cardiac death surges among those in mid-life. Excessive drinking, excessive smoking and chronic fatigue in day-to-day life may lead to the onset of sudden chest pain followed by cardiac arrest and death. Sudden death refers to an unexpected natural death caused within one hour of the onset of symptoms. Most cases of sudden death are the result of heart disorder. Therefore, sudden death is normally

DOHA (AP) ― Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer eased into the Qatar Open quarterfinals in rare cool and windy conditions in Doha on Wednesday.Nadal routed German qualifier Denis Gremelmayr 6-2, 6-2, while Federer overwhelmed Slovenia qualifier Grega Zemlja 6-2, 6-3.Federer won his 19th straight match dating to his U.S. Open semifinal loss to top-ranked Novak Djokovic.Federer and Nadal were joined by the sixth-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who saved two set points in the first set before defeating Flavi

Eight Magnum photographers touch hearts in ‘Access to Life’ projectLiving in the scorching sun in Haiti, Autha Adolph, 26-year-old at the time, could barely stand, talk or let alone smile due to extreme malnutrition and HIV infection. She weighed only 35 kg, her limbs bony and her digestive organs practically ruined. When she went to the hospital in November 2007, the doctors doubted that she would survive more than a few more days. Nine others who were sharing the same hospital room with her di