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Agence France-PresseJune 15, 2013 23:01

North Korea has proposed high-level talks with the US aimed at discussing nuclear weapons programmes and easing of tension on the peninsula, state media said Sunday. "We propose high-level talks between the North and the US to secure peace and stability in the region and ease tension on the Korean peninsula," the North's powerful National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

Bulgaria's controversial new security chief will resign

Agence France-PresseJune 15, 2013 18:54

Bulgarian Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski said Saturday he accepted the resignation of controversial media mogul Delyan Peevski as national security agency chief amid continuing street demonstrations over his appointment. Peevski is a lawmaker from the Turkish MRF party whose backing is vital for Oresharski's two-week-old Socialist cabinet, which took office after protests brought down the previous Conservative government.

Panama's boom helps drive Nicaragua's dreams of building a new trans-ocean canal

The Canadian PressJune 15, 2013 16:00

PANAMA CITY - Curundu used to be a warren of ramshackle wooden houses and reeking open sewers, one of Panama City's most notorious refuges for street gangs and drug dealers. Then, three years ago, the government tore down the shacks and built a bustling new neighbourhood of concrete apartment buildings, freshly paved streets, basketball courts and fields with artificial turf.

Japanese repatriates embark on tour to burial sites in N. Korea

Kyodo News InternationalJune 15, 2013 10:48

About 10 Japanese former residents of what is now North Korea embarked Friday on a 12-day trip to the reclusive country to visit grave sites believed to contain the remains of their family members. The visit is the fifth of its kind since North Korea allowed a tour last August on humanitarian grounds to study burial sites of people who died in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula around the end of World War II.

S. Korea industrial output rises in April

Agence France-PresseJune 14, 2013 22:27

South Korea's industrial output rose in April for the first time in four months, fanning hopes of a recovery in an economy that posted its slowest growth for three years in 2012. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries for April rose 0.8 percent from March, state-run Statistics Korea said Thursday. The April growth figure, which was up 1.7 percent from a year earlier, snapped three months of consecutive contraction in industrial output that began in January.

Japanese abductee's son among defectors sent back to N. Korea: report

Kyodo News InternationalMay 29, 2013 20:00

The son of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea in the 1970s was among the group of nine defectors recently sent from Laos back to the reclusive country, a South Korean daily reported Thursday. Quoting diplomatic sources, the Donga Ilbo daily said the nine men and women were captured in Laos, where they arrived via China, and sent back to North Korea, with one of them being the son of a woman who went missing at age 29 and whom the Japanese government officially designated as an abductee of the North Korean authority.

China miners' African gold rush tarnished by terror

Agence France-PresseJune 13, 2013 00:36

Thousands of men travelled vast distances from a poor part of rural China to seek their fortunes mining gold in west Africa -- but now their dreams are in tatters with a wave of arrests and allegations of deadly violence. Zhuo Haohe's ashes were buried in a field near his home in Shanglin county this week, after his son flew home with his remains stuffed in his luggage following a deadly attack by shotgun-wielding bandits in Ghana.

Football: Nigeria qualification put on hold after draw

Agence France-PresseJune 12, 2013 18:31

Nigeria failed Wednesday to reach the final round of 2014 World Cup qualifiers in Africa after a 1-1 draw in Namibia. The African champions needed a win in Windhoek to take an unassailable four-point Group F lead with one game to spare. But the 'Super Eagles' had to settle for a point when Godfrey Oboabona equalised seven minutes from time at Sam Nujoma Stadium. Deon Hotto Kavendji had put the 'Brave Warriors' ahead on 77 minutes as they threatened to avenge a 1-0 loss in Calabar last June.

Myanmar readmitted to EU trade scheme

Agence France-PresseJune 12, 2013 17:37

The European Union on Wednesday readmitted Myanmar to its trade preference scheme, saying it wanted to support reform in the once pariah state through economic development. Myanmar's membership of the scheme was withdrawn in 1997 due to concerns over the use of forced labour under the then-military junta. But the EU said the International Labour Organisation had last year reported "necessary improvements" to labour practices in Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.

Korea immune from U.S. military budget cuts: Pentagon official

Yonhap News AgencyJune 12, 2013 16:33

By Lee Chi-dong WASHINGTON, June 12 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter made clear Wednesday the Pentagon will not cut its spending in Korea despite the so-called sequester, an automatic massive defense budget reduction that took effect on March 1. In a speech at the annual conference of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), he said the Barack Obama administration will not apply sequester to a war in Afghanistan nor to the stationing of around 28,500 troops in South Korea.