The organizing committee of the annual beauty pageant World Miss University said Monday that it would organize a peace group of its senior members. WMU is a Seoul-based beauty pageant started in 1986 to celebrate and promote the United Nations’ recognition of the International Year of Peace. WMU selects representatives who will promote UN-affiliated events and volunteer for peace services. World Miss University Chairman Lee Seung-min said WMU decided to forge the World Senior Peace Ser

The streets of Mariupol, destroyed by constant bombing and shelling from Russian troops, are now littered with rubble, shell fragments and remains of broken buildings. A local resident walks near a collapsing apartment building, likely damaged by Russian air strikes. While Russia declared victory over Mariupol last Thursday, the marks of Ukraine’s fight against Russian forces remain.  This photo shows a shrine among the debris, amid Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine, taken on Thurs

Korea decided to provide $10 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, as it is fighting against Russia's invasion, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.    The aid for the Ukrainian government and its people, including refugees, was announced hours after President Moon Jae-in ordered officials to swiftly draw up a plan to help support the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country.    "The assistance will be swiftly made following consultations with th

    Russia's top envoy to South Korea warned the two countries' cooperative ties could "change course," after Seoul announced its decision Monday to join a sanctions campaign to hold Moscow accountable for its invasion of Ukraine.    Ambassador Andrey Kulik made the remarks hours after Seoul's foreign ministry announced its decision to bar the exports of strategic materials to Russia and join the multinational move to exclude the country from the SWIFT global

The Korean government joined an intergovernmental announcement to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Countries that are members of the Community of Democracies issued a statement Thursday, condemning Russia’s massive military assault against Ukraine. Following the international community’s shock as Russia launched an all-out invasion on Ukraine, the governing council members of the Community of Democracies, including Korea, the US, Japan, Canada, Estonia, Finland and many m

President Hwang stresses to publish the practical guidebook of stolen asset recovery

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) -- The UN said Friday it feared an even greater human rights catastrophe in Myanmar amid reports of thousands of troops massing in the north of the Southeast Asian country, which has been in chaos since a February coup. “We should all be prepared, as the people in this part of Myanmar are prepared, for even more mass atrocity crimes. I desperately hope that I am wrong,” said UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews. More than 1,100 civilians

Forum brings business leaders, academia experts, foreign envoys together to discuss future of Eurasia

The US state of Maryland will open a new “Koreatown” this week with a new structure designed to symbolize the unity of the Korean-American community in the state, as well as its unity with other communities there, organizers said Friday. 　An opening ceremony will be held Saturday with State Gov. Larry Hogan and his Korean-American wife, Yumi, expected to take part, along with South Korean Ambassador to the US, Lee Soo-hyuck. 　Yumi is the honorary chair of a committee that ha

TORONTO (AP) -- Canada has ended evacuations from Kabul's airport, a Canadian general said Thursday, as the clock ticks down on dramatic Western efforts to help people flee the Taliban takeover ahead of a full American withdrawal. General Wayne Eyre, the country's acting chief of Defense Staff, said the vast majority of Canadian personnel left the airport and all the other countries have to leave before the Americans can wrap up their mission. Canadian military flights evacuated about 3,700 peo

TAIPEI (AFP) -- Taiwan will tighten its laws in an effort to fight talent poaching and intellectual property theft from its lucrative tech industry by China, officials said Thursday. The planned amendment to the island's national security act will make economic espionage a crime punishable by a jail term of between five to 12 years. It aims to protect "trade secrets in key technologies" from being poached by China or other "hostile external forces", the justice ministry sai

KABUL (AFP) - Western nations warned their citizens Thursday to immediately leave the surrounds of Kabul airport over a terror threat, as thousands of people try to reach a dwindling number of evacuation flights. Nearly 90,000 Afghans and foreigners have fled Afghanistan via the US-led airlift since the hardline Islamist Taliban movement took control of the country on August 15. Huge crowds continue to throng the airport, their bid for a way out of Taliban rule becoming increasingly desperate

HONG KONG (AFP) -- A powerful new Hong Kong committee tasked with vetting politicians and officials for their loyalty disqualified an opposition lawmaker for the first time on Thursday, as authorities purge its institutions of anyone deemed disloyal to Beijing. Cheng Chung-tai, one of just two opposition figures left in the city's legislature, was deemed disloyal on the basis of his previous statements and behaviour, chief secretary John Lee, who heads the vetting committee, told reporters. &q

TOKYO (AFP) -- Japan will halt the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna's Covid vaccine after reports of contamination in several vials, drugmaker Takeda and the health ministry said Thursday. Takeda, which is in charge of sales and distribution of the Moderna shot in Japan, said it had "received reports from several vaccination centres that foreign substances have been found inside unopened vials". "Upon consultation with the health ministry, we have decided to suspend the use

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for guaranteeing the security of North Korea to resolve the standoff over its nuclear program, stressing that pressure and sanctions alone are not going to solve the quandary. Putin made the remark during a virtual session with chiefs of global news agencies at an annual economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday (Russia time), as the nuclear negotiations between the North and the United States remain deadlocked after the breakdown of the Hanoi summit be