South Korea picks sports stars as G20 envoys

NKorea denies SKoreans passage across border to enter factory that is last symbol of detente PAJU, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North in the latest sign that Pyongyang's warlike stance toward South Korea and the United States is moving from words to action.

South Korea's Olympics figure skating champion Kim Yu-Na is suing her former agent for failing to pay the athlete part of her endorsement earnings, her lawyer said.IB Sports, the agency Kim left in April last year, failed to pay her 894 million won (793,960 dollars) earned from advertisement deals for Hyundai Motor and other companies, Kim's lawyer said on Monday."We filed the suit last November and the first court hearing was held on March 16 in Seoul," the lawyer Lee Sang-Hun told AFP.

GYEONGJU, South Korea (MNI) - The meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs ended here Saturday amid claims that real progress has been made on addressing the global imbalances and the spats over currency interventions that have dogged the global economic recovery.

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Oblivious to international tensions over a possible North Korean missile launch, Pyongyang residents spilled into the streets Monday to celebrate a major national holiday, the birthday of their first leader, Kim Il Sung.

YONGYANG, North Korea — The prospect of a North Korean missile launch is “considerably high,” South Korea’s foreign minister told lawmakers Wednesday as Pyongyang calmly prepared to mark the April 15 birthday of its founder, historically a time when it seeks to draw the world’s attention with dramatic displays of military power.

There is a North Korean factory with no portraits of the country's late leaders on the walls, no North Korean flags, no hand-painted posters screaming party slogans. Everything from the tissues to the toilets comes from South Korea.

Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung faces up to four weeks on the sidelines after suffering a hamstring injury, the English Premier League giants confirmed Tuesday.The South Korean star, who retired from international football after playing in last month's Asian Cup, sustained the injury in training with United last week, manager Sir Alex Ferguson said on the club's website."We got a blow on Saturday morning with the news that Park Ji-sung did his hamstring on Friday afternoon in training," Ferguson said.

A senior official of host South Korea has said leaders of the Group of 20 would at best agree on a vaguely worded accord on defusing currency disputes at their summit next month, a report said Saturday.Any agreement on the inflammatory issue would be "heavy on rhetoric" and short on specifics to avoid attacks on particular currencies, Kim Sung-Min, chief of the G20 affairs office of Korea's central bank, told the Korea Herald.