SEOUL, South Korea — Japan is without a doubt America’s most stable and prosperous ally in East Asia. Yet today, President Barack Obama became the first American president since Bill Clinton in April 1996 to visit the country as a state guest. Analysts say his visit...

SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans were taken aback Monday when President Park Geun-hye decreed that the captain and crew of the Sewol, the 6825-ton sunken ferry, conducted themselves in a way “akin to an act of murder,” fleeing the listing ship without ensuring the...

SEOUL, South Korea — Get ready. North Korea’s fourth nuclear test may be upon us. There’s been an uptick in activity at the underground test site at Punggye-ri, in the garrison kingdom’s desolate and remote northeast, Yonhap reports. The movements could signify...

SEOUL, South Korea ― Wednesday's ferry sinking off Korea’s west coast is being called one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters in modern times. Although 14 are confirmed dead, close to 300 are still missing in the frigid waters. Hopes are dwindling of finding...

SEOUL, South Korea — The scene on the Seoul subway these days resembles any other modern underground network: throngs of high school students and commuter droids, hunched over, aloof to their surroundings, unable to stop playing with their handheld thingies. Only here...

SEOUL, South Korea — Even by the standards of pop stars, Hatsune Miku is eccentric and protean, her mystique elusive. Her eyes are too round and blue to be real. She can be buxom or boyish, and almost painfully sultry — all in a droid-ish, understated way. She dons a...

SEOUL, South Korea — So, you think your husband is a domestic sloth, failing to pull his weight in household duties? Take comfort from South Korean wives, who have it worse. In fact, men in this severely overworked nation do the least housework of 29 developed...

SEOUL, South Korea — Every few months, North Korea tests short-range rockets, hurling them into the sea with hardly a glance from the rest of the world. The frequency of those launches, however, has increased dramatically in the past month. On Saturday alone, Kim Jong...

SEOUL, South Korea — The headlines are regular and morbid: a shamed celebrity or politician takes her own life, a student leaps off a bridge after being rejected from a first-class university, and an ailing grandfather commits suicide to relieve the financial burden...

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea opened its much-hyped Masik Pass ski area this winter. The resort, in the rugged, mountainous east, has 11 ski runs. It also boasts an ornate, abundantly pillared hotel, with a swimming pool, bar and sauna. And the views are scenic,...