The South Korean football team Suwon Samsung Bluewings were eliminated on Thursday from Asia’s top club competition.The Bluewings defeated Al Sadd of Qatar 1-0 in the second leg of the semifinal at the Asian Football Confederation Champions League in Doha, but Al Sadd advanced to the final on the 2-1 advantage in the aggregate score.In the first leg of their semifinal last week, Al Sadd beat Suwon 2-0 in South Korea. The K-League team needed to win by at least 3-1 in Doha for an outright victory

MADRID (AP) ― Levante extended their surprising stay atop the Spanish league standings by rallying to beat Real Sociedad 3-2 on Wednesday on a stoppage-time goal by Ruben Suarez.Sociedad took the lead on Daniel Estrada’s early opener before Levante’s Nano Rivas and Valdo Lopes each scored in a 5-minute span.Sociedad appeared to have gotten a point when Inigo Martinez equalized in the 86th, but Suarez rifled a free kick from 40 meters into the right corner of the goal 3 minutes into injury time.T

Wednesday’s election victory of opposition-backed civic activist Park Won-soon rocked the ruling party, added to President Lee Myung-bak’s woes, and rattled the country’s traditional two-party political landscape.The 9 percentage-point gap in television exit polls piled pressure on the Grand National Party and the presidential office, already reeling from a series of setbacks including an opposition offensive on Lee’s purchase of property for his retirement and the bribery allegations of two of

The chief of police here is facing heated opposition from human rights organizations and even some officers after telling front line police to use their firearms more often. This will be the third time that the National Police Agency Commissioner-General Cho Hyun-oh has ordered his officers to more readily use their firearms after officers simply watched a massive gang fight unfold. “Police will wage war against organized gangsters by the end of this year,” said Cho.“I will allow all kinds of eq

Park, Ahn and Moon likely to gain more political influence The main opposition Democratic Party scored a major win against the Grand National Party in the Seoul mayoral by-election, but that victory came with its own political cost, political observers said Wednesday. The liberal party lent its full support to Park Won-soon, an independent candidate backed by civil groups, in order to take Seoul from the control of the conservative GNP. The decision to root for a civil activist, not one of its p

Wednesday’s election victory of opposition-backed civic activist Park Won-soon rocked the ruling party, added to President Lee Myung-bak’s woes, and rattled the country’s traditional two-party political landscape.The 9 percentage-point gap in television exit polls piled pressure on the Grand National Party and the presidential office, already reeling from a series of setbacks including an opposition offensive on Lee’s purchase of property for his retirement and the bribery allegations of two of

North Korea on Wednesday attempted to influence elections in South Korea, urging voters to judge the “pro-U.S. and dictatorial” administration of President Lee Myung-bak and the Grand National Party. “The time calls for the people of South Korea to hand down a judgment on candidates of the GNP, who have tried to conjure up ghosts from the Yushin dictatorial regime,” the communist country said in a posting on its official website “Uriminjokkiri.” “Oct. 26 is the day when the military dictator was

Eyes were fixed Wednesday on the voter turnout of the Seoul mayoral by-election, which is to set the tone for next year’s general and presidential races.According to the National Election Commission, 2.69 million out of 8.37 million voters or 32.2 percent cast their ballot as of 3 p.m. in 2,206 polling stations throughout Seoul.Seocho-gu, the relatively affluent district in southern Seoul, showed a visible rise in turnout in the early morning hours before 9 a.m. but was overrun after lunchtime b