Rep. Park Geun-hye, former chairwoman of the ruling Grand National Party, at last declared that she will back the party’s campaign for the upcoming Oct. 26 by-elections. In doing so, she added momentum to Na Kyung-won, who registered herself as Seoul mayoral candidate on Thursday. “I shall discuss the detailed processes with corresponding party officials,” said Park on Thursday. She also said ...

MOSCOW (AP) _ The widely publicized incident in which Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pulled up ancient Greek jug fragments from the seabed on a diving expedition was staged, his chief spokesman said. The August dive in the Kerch Strait that connects the Black and Azov seas was reported extensively in Russian and overseas media. Putin is noted for his habit of appearing in vigorous and adv...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, left an indelible mark on the world with his uncanny ability to marry hard-core technology with an understanding of human nature. In a rare personal moment at one of his last press events, he displayed a huge picture of street signs showing the intersection of "technology" and "liberal arts," saying that it was ther...

SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector, had sought to create North Korea's interim government before he died last year, his adopted daughter said Thursday. Hwang, a former secretary of the North's ruling Workers' Party, drafted a plan on how to set up the organization as part of efforts to prepare for the potential unification with North Korea, Kim Su...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. scientists used a cloning technique to create the type of customized stem cells that show promise for treating disease. But the first-of-its-kind result comes with a big hitch. The newly created stem cells have too much genetic material to function properly. They include DNA from two people, not just the patient the cells were meant to match. Scientists still have to figur...

SEVILLE, Spain (AP) — A wealthy, 85-year-old Spanish duchess considered the world's most title-laden noble married a civil servant 25 years her junior on Wednesday, shrugging off her children's qualms and celebrating by kicking off her shoes and dancing flamenco. A crowd of several hundred clapped and roared its approval as the Duchess of Alba waved, smiled and danced on a red carpet after her w...

WASHINGTON, Oct 5, 2011 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama mourned Apple visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday as one of America's "greatest innovators" and said it was fitting many people learned of his death on a device he invented. "He transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world," Obama said in...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Six weeks before Michael Jackson died, his doctor recorded the semi-comatose superstar mumbling what might have been his farewell address to the world. In a slow, slurred voice, clearly under the influence of sedatives, Jackson spoke about leaving a performance legacy bigger than Elvis or The Beatles, and building a fabulous hospital for children with proceeds from his highly ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -- Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has had an impact on the world which will last for generations, Microsoft boss Bill Gates said Wednesday, adding that it had been "an insanely great honor" to know him. "Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives," he said, adding that he was "truly sad...

Steve Jobs was a college dropout who built computers in his parents’ garage in the mid-1970s with a friend, Steve Wozniak. They founded what is now Apple Inc. (AAPL) in 1976 to sell their creations. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, surpassed Microsoft Corp. in 2010 to become the world’s most valuable technology company. A timeline of Jobs’s career follows: Feb. 24, 1955: A boy is born in...

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals, a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman's discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. Contrary to the previous belief that atoms were pa...