BRUSSELS (AFP) -- On the frontline of the Greek debt crisis, the Franco-German partnership has been in open conflict with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande deeply divided over how far to go to keep Greece in the eurozone. On Monday, Greece reached a desperately-needed bailout deal with the eurozone after marathon overnight talks, in a historic agreement to prevent the coun...

President Park Geun-hye’s new top political aide faces the daunting challenges of restoring the frozen relationship between her and her party and putting her reform drive back on track by normalizing communication with the parliament. Hyun Ki-hwan, a former Saenuri lawmaker and one of the Park’s faithful retainers, was named as the new senior presidential secretary for political affairs Friday. ...

Samsung C&T, the construction and trading arm of Samsung Group, on Friday unveiled detailed new shareholder-friendly policies, including the establishment of a special committee of six experts that will oversee shareholders’ rights, as part of last-minute efforts to win a vote of shareholders on July 17 over the proposed merger with Cheil Industries. The committee will be composed of three outsi...

The Constitutional Court held a public court hearing Thursday on the conscription law, after three conscientious objectors challenged the much-disputed law that does not recognize people’s right to refuse mandatory military service based on their religious or personal beliefs. It marked the third challenge on the law’s legitimacy, with the previous cases also being tied to conscientious objectio...

WASHINGTON ― U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed the leader of Vietnam’s Communist Party on Tuesday to the White House for historic but “candid” talks marking two decades of rapprochement between the former enemies. Nguyen Phu Trong is the first general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party to visit the United States and the White House, and was given the rare honor of an Oval Office meet...

ATHENS ― Greece’s new finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos is as discreet and tight-lipped as his predecessor Yanis Varoufakis was flamboyant and confrontational. Tsakalotos, a 55-year-old leftist economist who had been a pointman in Greece’s bailout talks, was named as Varoufakis’ replacement hours after his resignation on Monday. He is far less likely to irritate Athens’ exasperated creditors...

A thick green tide spreading across Korea’s major rivers due to low water flow and warm temperatures is stoking concerns over the ecosystem and public health. Since mid-May, algal blooms have been seen in the Nakdonggang River in the south of the peninsula. In June, the algal blooms spread in the Hangang River in Seoul as well, and Seoul Metropolitan Government issued an algal bloom warning on ...

South Koreans tend to perceive the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome as a political issue, not a health issue, illustrating a different attitude from what they showed during the flu pandemic that hit the country in 2009, a study revealed Sunday. According to research led by a public health professor at Seoul National University, Koreans appeared to be more concerned about politics tha...

WASHINGTON ― After more than a half century of hostility, the United States and Cuba declared Wednesday they will reopen embassies in each other’s capitals this month, marking a historic full restoration of diplomatic relations between the Cold War foes. For President Barack Obama, the opening of the U.S. Embassy in the heart of Havana is one of the most tangible demonstrations of his long-stand...

Since Ban Ki-moon was first named new secretary-general of the United Nations in 2006, South Korea has waited for another Korean global leader to be named. Nine years later, the president of Busan Port Authority, Lim Ki-tack, has been elected to head the United Nations maritime body. The 58-year-old veteran is the first South Korean to take the secretary-general position of the International Ma...

For Lee Hee-ho, widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, cross-border tensions are a source of deep frustration as the deadlocked relationship has eclipsed the inter-Korean rapprochement Kim laboriously fostered under his signature “Sunshine Policy.” With a plan to visit the North soon, the 93-year-old former first lady hopes to restore Kim’s legacy of bilateral engagement and cooperation, which ...

“Northern Limit Line” stirs emotion step by step, first by depicting the soldiers’ everyday joys and struggles, then exposing them to unexpected warfare. The result is not unsuccessful, and the sacrifice of a country’s hardworking young men does not fail to provide a moving story. The characters are three-dimensional and engaging, with reasonable emotional pull. Kim delivers a notable performance...

The governing party remained split Sunday over if it should stage a confidence vote on whip Rep. Yoo Seong-min due to his role in last week’s legislative crisis that is widely viewed as a power struggle between him and the president. President Park Geun-hye last Thursday vetoed a bill, chiefly sponsored by her former chief of staff Yoo, that would have given lawmakers the right to ask for revisi...

WASHINGTON -- Walmart and Amazon will no longer stock merchandise bearing the Confederate flag after the Charleston church massacre, in a growing movement against what critics say is a symbol of racism in the American South. The retail giants were joined by eBay, Sears and Kmart and follows calls from South Carolina state governor Nikki Haley to remove the controversial flag from the grounds of ...

The National Pension Service, the nation’s largest institutional investor, is facing growing pressure to raise their voice in merger plans being pushed by conglomerates. On Monday, Solidarity for Economic Reform, a civic group pushing for reforms of family-controlled South Korean conglomerates, or chaebol, urged the fund to review the merger plan between SK Holdings and SK C&C and to decide whet...