South Korea's presidential office moved busily Saturday to weigh the implications behind the unexpected visit by the highest-ranking North Korean delegation to step foot in the country since Park Geun-hye took office.   Official sources said presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon held a meeting of senior secretaries early in the morning to discuss the trip by Hwang Pyong-so, Choe Ryong-hae and Kim Yang-gon, who arrived via the direct air route from Pyongyang to Incheon earlier in the day.   H

North Korea Oct. 4, 2014

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ The U.N. Security Council late Friday sharply condemned a new video that purports to show an Islamic State group fighter beheading British hostage Alan Henning, calling the killing a ``heinous and cowardly murder.''The statement said the video ``once again demonstrates the brutality'' of the Islamic State group. It stressed that council members believe that ``such continued acts of barbarism perpetrated by ISIL do not intimidate them, but rather stiffen their resolve'' that

World News Oct. 4, 2014

 DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) _ Shelling in the rebel-held eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk killed two people Wednesday and wounded three others, municipal authorities said.    The city council of Donetsk confirmed that shells had hit a neighborhood in the north of the city, where fighting centered on the government-controlled airport has caught many residential neighborhoods in the crossfire.   An AP reporter at the scene saw the remains of what appeared to be a Grad rocket in the burned-out building.

World News Sept. 17, 2014

  Prosecutors said Wednesday they have decided to appeal a court ruling that cleared a former chief of the state intelligence agency of meddling in the 2012 presidential election, one day before the deadline for filing an appeal.   Last week, Won Sei-hoon, former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), was sentenced to two years and six months in jail for ordering agents to post online as many as780,000 politically sensitive comments against opposition-bloc candidate Moon Jae-in the

Social Affairs Sept. 17, 2014

Two Palestine football players have been booked for investigation on suspicion of sexually harassing a female official at the Asian Games in South Korea, police said Wednesday.The footballers, whose names were withheld, were suspected of approaching and groping the South Korean woman on Monday in a laundry room in the athletes' village in Incheon, the host city of this year's Asiad, they said."We returned them to the athletes' village after interrogation," said a police officer, adding that the

Olympic Games Sept. 17, 2014

Opposition candidates in two strategically important constituencies for the coming July by-elections on Thursday stepped down from their candidacy as part of efforts to prevent the ruling party from gaining more seats in the National Assembly.　Ki Dong-min of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy said earlier Thursday that he would quit his candidacy in Seoul’s Dongjak-B constituency. Later in the day, minor opposition Justice Party chairman Cheon Ho-sun bowed out of the race in

Politics July 24, 2014

   BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union may go even further than the United States in hitting Russian banks with sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, curbing their ability to raise fresh funds, reports said Thursday.   As member state ambassadors to the EU began a meeting to review the next step, the Financial Times said they would look at proposals to ban Russian banks from selling new shares on European markets.   Citing an options memo, the Financial Times said the new measures would go even fur

World Business July 24, 2014

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) _ An Air Algerie flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers disappeared from radar early Thursday, the official Algerian news agency said.Air navigation services lost track of the plane after 0155 GMT, or 50 minutes after takeoff, the agency said. That means that Flight AH5017 had been missing for hours before the news was made public.``In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan,'' the agency quoted the airline as saying.The flight path of the plane fr

World News July 24, 2014

   DAKAR (AFP) - An epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa is now "out of control" with more than 60 outbreak hotspots, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday.   "The scale of the current Ebola epidemic is unprecedented in terms of geographical distribution, people infected and deaths," MSF said in a statement.    The rapid spread of the disease, which is deadly in up to 90 percent of cases, has overwhelmed aid agencies and health workers and terrified local

World News June 24, 2014

TOKYO (AP) _ The leader of the Philippines on Tuesday endorsed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ongoing push to expand Japan's military role.President Benigno Aquino III, after meeting with Abe, expressed his support for Abe's proposal to reinterpret Japan's pacifist constitution to allow its military to defend not only Japan but also allies that come under attack."We believe that nations of goodwill can only benefit if the Japanese government is empowered to assist others and is allowed the

World News June 24, 2014

한국 야쿠르트 창립자의 윤덕병 회장의 외아들 윤호중 전무만큼 베일에 싸여있는 경영인도 드물다. 포브스 코리아는 윤전무가 약 5,922억원어치의 주식을 보유하여 한국에서 45번째 주식부자라고 보도한바 있으나, 이외에 그에 대해 알려져 사실은 거의 없다.윤전무가 은둔형 경영을 고수하는 이유는 윤덕병 회장의 건재에서 찾을 수 있다. 윤회장은 지난 1969년 일본의 야쿠르트와 합작으로 한국 야쿠르트를 설립, 회사는 2013년 기준으로 9,800억원의 매출을 기록하고 있다. 한국 야쿠르트의 주력상품은 탈지분유와 발효유산균을 섞은 달달한 음료로 “야쿠르트아줌마”라는 독특한 컨셉의 판매방식을 통해 크게 히트한 바 있다. 한국 야쿠르트는 음료사업 이외에 라면업체 팔도, 식혜로 유명한 비락, 능률교육, 의료기기업체 큐랙소 그리고 디저트 카페 코코브루니 등을 통해 사업 다각화를 꾸준히 추구해 왔다. 윤전무는 그룹 신사업에 깊숙히 관여했던 왔던 것으로 알려지고 있으나, 썩 좋은 결과를 낳지는 못한 듯하

한국어판 June 4, 2014