Police said Tuesday they're investigating an active professional basketball coach over match-fixing allegations.   Seoul police said the coach, Chun Chang-jin of the Anyang KGC in the Korean Basketball League (KBL), allegedly bet against his own team and inserted bench players in the second half of games to ensure the team would lose.   Police said they suspect Chun, 52, of placing illegal bets on five games between February and March while he was coaching another KBL team, the Busan KT Sonicboo

More Sports May 26, 2015

President Park Geun-hye urged the head of the Asian Development Bank to cooperate with South Korea and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Park's office said Tuesday.   Park said mutual cooperation is necessary to prepare for what is promised to be a surge in investment for infrastructure projects in Northeast Asia.   She made the comment in a meeting with ADB President Takehiko Nakao who was in town for an international conference on financial cooperation in Asia.   It is

Politics May 26, 2015

Investigators don't yet know why an Amtrak passenger train was moving at more than twice the allowed speed when it ran off the rails on a sharp curve and killed at least seven people, and the train's engineer has so far refused to speak to police. It was the deadliest U.S. train accident in nearly six years.  While questions grew about why a track technology that would have prevented the train from going over the speed limit had not yet been installed as planned, the lawyer for the engineer said

World News May 14, 2015

An overnight Taliban attack on a Kabul guesthouse left 14 people dead, including nine foreigners, in the most audacious assault by the insurgents in the Afghan capital since the start of their spring offensive, a government official said Thursday.  The full breakdown of the nationalities among the nine foreigners was not immediately known but an American, a British citizen, an Italian and four Indian nationals have been confirmed dead.  Gunmen stormed the restaurant of the Park Palace Hotel in t

World News May 14, 2015

North Korea launched a firing drill near the tensely patrolled western maritime border with the South for a second consecutive day on Thursday, the South Korean military said.    The artillery drill began at around 7:10 p.m. near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), but none of the artillery rounds landed on the south side of the sea border, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.    "We are closely monitoring the North Korean military's drills, keeping a tight guard against any provocations," the JCS s

North Korea May 14, 2015

Nepal has been overwhelmed by its second massive earthquake in less than three weeks, its prime minister said Thursday as he visited this normally placid foothills town, now a center for frightened villagers desperate for government help. Thousands of people now crowd the streets of Charikot, the administrative center of the isolated district hit hardest by Tuesday's magnitude-7.3 quake, which killed at least 96 people and injured more than 2,300. The magnitude-7.8 earthquake that hit April 25 k

World News May 14, 2015

The news of the purge and reported execution of North Korea's defense minister, Hyon Yong-chol, was not searchable on China's dominant search engine Baidu Thursday, suggesting that China's Internet authorities might have blocked it.    Searches by Yonhap News Agency for "Hyon Yong-chol" or "North Korea's Hyon Yong-chol" on the Baidu portal site produced no results as of 3:40 p.m. on Thursday.    However, a search of "defense minister" produced some results for news about Hyon.    South Korea's i

North Korea May 14, 2015

Malaysian police said they arrested on Sunday 12 suspected Islamic militants who were plotting attacks in the country just as it prepares to host a Southeast Asian summit.   National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the suspects, arrested in separate raids in suburbs of the capital Kuala Lumpur, were all Malaysian men and suspected supporters of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.   Police also seized 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of ammonium nitrate, a similar amount of potassium nitrate, two

World News April 26, 2015

The first group of survivors from an earthquake-triggered avalanche that swept through the Mount Everest base camp were flown to Nepal's capital on Sunday and taken to hospitals. None appeared to have life-threatening injuries.    At least 17 people were killed when Saturday's avalanche, set off by a massive earthquake, obliterated part of the rocky village of nylon tents, where dozens of teams were training and acclimatizing themselves to higher altitudes as they prepared to make summit attempt

World News April 26, 2015

Malaysian police have detained 12 men suspected of being linked to the Islamic State group and who are believed to be plotting attacks on strategic government targets in the country.    National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar says the men, all Malaysians aged from 17 to 41, were detained during an operation this weekend.    He said Sunday that the men were believed to be responding to calls by Islamic State group leaders in Syria to attack secular Islamic countries.    Khalid said police also sei

World News April 26, 2015

Nepalese doctors set up makeshift operating theatres in a hospital car park Sunday as they worked round the clock to treat the wounded from a monster quake that has also left morgues overflowing with bodies.   As disaster officials said nearly 6,000 people were injured in Saturday's 7.8 magnitude quake, medics in the impoverished Himalayan nation told how they had been unable to save some of the most grievously wounded.   Their efforts were being further hampered by fresh aftershocks that were f

World News April 26, 2015

A German rescue organization and the French government say they are sending rescue and relief teams to earthquake-torn Nepal.    International Search and Rescue Germany says a team of 52 relief workers including doctors, experts trained in searching for people buried under rubble and several dog squads will fly to Nepal Sunday. The team will bring with them a mobile medical treatment center.    Spokesman Stefan Heine said the priority was to get to the scene of the quake as quickly as possible t

World News April 26, 2015

   South Korean department stores are beefing up marketing efforts to attract Chinese tourists ahead of the International Workers' Day holiday, industry sources said Sunday.   Retail industry insiders said stores are moving to accept the Alipay payment system and scrambling to lure big-spender VIP customers. Alipay is China's largest payment system and makes use of specialized apps to conduct transactions. It has some 800 million users with annual payment hitting some 450 trillion won (US$417 bi

Business April 26, 2015

The heiress of the fashion and perfume house Nina Ricci has been sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay heavy fines and back taxes for having hidden millions of euros in HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland.    Monday's ruling was the first involving a famous name in the so-called Swissleaks scandal, in which a former HSBC employee gave authorities thousands of names of suspected tax evaders. Other trials are expected to follow.     A Paris court convicted Arlette Ricci, 73, granddaughter

World News April 13, 2015