North Korea’s flag carrier has canceled an air route to Kuwait, Airline Route blog says, in what could be Pyongyang’s latest attempt to prevent the news of popular uprisings in the Arab world from reaching the isolated country. The move came less than six months after Air Koryo started a weekly direct flight service between Pyongyang and Kuwait City, Airline Route said Monday on its Web site, ci...

The top U.S. military intelligence official has been in Seoul for annual consultations with his South Korean counterpart and other officials on North Korea, a Defense Ministry official said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, visited the Defense Intelligence Command where he received a briefing on the situation in North Korea on Wednesday, the ...

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) -- When U.S. President Barack Obama holds bilateral summits with his Russian, Chinese and Japanese counterparts in Hawaii later this week, North Korea will be high on agenda, White House officials said Wednesday. Obama is scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Saturday on the sideline...

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday dismissed Japan’s recent request to cancel a scheduled concert on South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, saying it was “needless” to even consider the request. The Japanese request came as a group of South Korean lawmakers are planning to stage a concert Friday on Dokdo, a source of frequent tension between Seoul and Tokyo as the latter continues to lay clai...

Main opposition Democratic Party leader Sohn Hak-kyu and the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation chairman Moon Jae-in reached consensus on creating an integrated liberal party on Wednesday. They agreed to hold a national convention to consolidate liberal parties and select a new leader, but the idea was slammed by DP lawmakers who had their eye on the party’s leadership. In the Wednesday meeting, Sohn sugg...

President Lee Myung-bak will travel to Hawaii this weekend to discuss ways to spur the global economy, create jobs and reform regulations with other leaders of major Pacific Rim economies, the presidential office announced Thursday, The summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, set for Sunday, comes as the world economy struggles to stave off the negative impact of the eur...

President meets minor opposition leader as parliament plenary session called off again President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday stepped up efforts to secure parliamentary ratification of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, as rival parties struggle to find common ground on a key sticking point in the deal. At the National Assembly, a plenary session was called off with the consent of the Grand Nati...

A group of Grand National Party lawmakers demanding drastic change in the party and the government toned down its complaints to stand in line with former chairwoman Park Geun-hye. “Policy reforms should come first,” they said during a luncheon on Wednesday. They thus expressed support for Park, who gave positive assessment on Tuesday to the group’s reform efforts. “Reform should above all be ab...

South Korea’s jobless rate fell in October from a month earlier and job creation accelerated at the fastest pace in 17 months, showing signs that long-frozen labor conditions might be thawing, a report showed Wednesday. The jobless rate stood at 2.9 percent last month, down from 3 percent in September, according to the report by Statistics Korea. The rate was also down from 3.3 percent tallied ...