Asia, South Korea | featured news

Park Geun-hye is sworn in as South Korea's president, making her the first woman to lead the East Asian nation.

The number of suicides among people 65 and older has nearly quadrupled in recent years, a rate that is among the highest in the developed world.

South Korea unveiled a cruise missile on Thursday that it said can hit the office of North Korea's leaders, trying to address concerns that it is technologically behind its unpredictable rival which this week conducted its third nuclear test.

A recent report by Senate Republican staff members warns that China, because of its deepening economic ties with North Korea as well as its ancient claims on Korean land, could attempt to “manage, and conceivably block,” an eventual unification between the two Koreas, if ever the Kim family falls from power in Pyongyang.

The Korean pop star, who rose to recent fame with his video "Gangnam Style," rapped out these lyrics in 2004: "Kill those f--ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives ...

Ahn Cheol-soo, a computer software mogul who was widely seen as a top contender for the presidency, threw his support behind a fellow liberal who has championed aggressive engagement with North Korea.

At the Everland Zoo in South Korea, there is a young male elephant that can speak Korean. His vocabulary includes “annyong” (hello), “anja” (sit down), “aniya” (no), “nuo” (lie down) and “choah” (good). Researchers say the elephant, whose name is Koshik, vocalizes in a novel way: he puts his trunk in his mouth.

Gangnam Style: how Seoul's most exclusive neighbourhood went global. It started with Psy; now even dissident Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei is in on the act. But where exactly is Gangnam – and how did it end up giving its name to the music phenomenon?

South Korean police on Monday tried for hours to block a civic group from sending pro-democracy leaflets across the border by balloon after North Korea threatened the activists with a “merciless military strike,” but the South’s efforts ultimately failed.

Impoverished North Korea threatened on Friday to open fire on South Korea if it allows activists to go ahead with plans to drop anti-North leaflets on its territory, its most strident warning against its long-time foe in months.