North Korea banned its Buddhist officials from meeting with their South Korean counterparts earlier this week in its border city of Gaeseong, officials said Thursday, in a sign of persistent tensions on the Korean Peninsula. South Korean Buddhist monks traveled to Kaesong on Tuesday for previously arranged talks with their North Korean counterparts on a joint project to return artifacts seized b...

BEIJING (Yonhap News) ― Senior diplomats from North Korea and the United States began talks in Beijing Thursday over the North’s nuclear weapons program that are the first such since the death of Kim Jong-il in December. The talks, led by the North’s long-time nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Glyn Davies, are a chance to gauge whether Pyongya...

A study has contradicted the notion the male sex-determining Y chromosome is steadily shedding genes and is doomed to degenerate, U.S. researchers say. In a 2002 article in Nature, two Australian researchers examined the rate at which the Y has withered and estimated it "will self-destruct in around 10 million years." However, Jennifer Hughes, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedi...

High-profile conflict between two conglomerates takes a nasty turn Two South Korean conglomerates with close ties ― Samsung Group and CJ Group ― clashed on Thursday over alleged illegal surveillance in connection with the drawn-out inheritance fight tracing back to Samsung’s late founder. CJ Group filed a formal complaint with the police against an employee of Samsung C&T Corp., a construction ...

ATHENS, Greece (AP)--Fitch ratings agency says it has downgraded Greece further into junk status, from 'CCC' to 'C' following the announcement of the details of the country's debt swap deal with private creditors. The agency said Wednesday the downgrade indicated ``that default is highly likely in the near term.'' In June, the agency had said it would consider Greece to be in restricted default ...

Controversy likely to roil parliamentary, presidential elections Liberal opposition parties reiterated Wednesday their vow to revise or annul the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, asking voters to deliver their verdict on the controversial deal in upcoming elections. “It is regrettable that (the deal’s implementation schedule) was announced without sufficient consideration of the controversy her...

North Korea has developed a multiple launch rocket system with a maximum range of 200 kilometers, which can reach U.S. bases slated to be moved to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, from Yongsang, Seoul when they are fired near the Demilitarized Zone, a local daily reported Wednesday. According to reports citing unnamed government officials, North Korea has recently developed the long-range MLRS usi...

Doctors at Severance Hospital on Wednesday confirmed that the son of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon has a herniated disc, justifying his exemption from military service. The announcement cleared 27-year-old Park Ju-sin of a month of allegations that he fabricated medical records to dodge military service. “Based on the magnetic resonance imaging we have conducted, we have concluded that Park Ju-sin’...

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will introduce a freestyle travel program for foreign tourists who wish to visit provincial areas without an organized tour, according to officials. The package, which provides transportation and accommodation, will take tourists to destinations and let them travel according to their own schedule, according to officials. “When I worked for a private travel agen...

The non-profit foundation to be established by Ahn Cheol-soo, the former chief executive of a leading South Korean anti-virus software firm, will be called after him, sources said Wednesday. “Ahn Cheol-soo Foundation” was chosen from the three shortlisted names out of 4,045 online submissions by the general public, the source involved in setting up the foundation said. He added that the name be...

The U.N. World Food Programme is planning to extend its Emergency Aid mission to North Korea beyond the original deadline of March. The Emergency Operation, which started in April, aimed to address a dangerous and worsening food crisis in North Korea. It focused on the most vulnerable groups, women and children, of which there were 3.5 million in need of immediate support to prevent starvation. ...