SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has done its best to butter up Google Inc. ahead of Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s visit that started on Monday, even to the extent of setting up a gmail account for its state news agency KCNA at kcna@gmail.com.

Sadly, the Hermit Kingdom’s chosen email address doesn’t work as it is short of the minimum six characters required for a Google account.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt began a controversial private mission to North Korea on Monday that may include an effort to secure the release of an imprisoned American, media reported.

The trip comes after North Korea carried out a long range rocket test last month and as the reclusive state continues work on its nuclear testing facilities according to satellite imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb test.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt began a controversial private mission to North Korea on Monday that may include an effort to secure the release of an imprisoned American, media reported.

The trip comes after North Korea carried out a long range rocket test last month and as the reclusive state continues work on its nuclear testing facilities according to satellite imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb test.

SEOUL, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Former New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt
began a controversial private mission to North Korea on Monday
that may include an effort to secure the release of an
imprisoned American, media reported.

The trip comes after North Korea carried out a long range
rocket test last month and as the reclusive state continues work
on its nuclear testing facilities according to satellite
imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb
test.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will start their controversial private mission to North Korea on Monday that may include an effort to secure the release of an imprisoned American, South Korean media reported.

The trip comes after North Korea carried out a long range rocket test last month and as the reclusive state continues work on its nuclear testing facilities according to satellite imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb test.

SEOUL, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Former New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt
will start their controversial private mission to North Korea on
Monday that may include an effort to secure the release of an
imprisoned American, South Korean media reported.

The trip comes after North Korea carried out a long range
rocket test last month and as the reclusive state continues work
on its nuclear testing facilities according to satellite
imagery, potentially paving the way for a third nuclear bomb
test.

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s President-elect, Park Geun-hye, used her first major speech on Thursday to warn of the risks posed by a hostile North Korea and also fired a political shot across the bows of Japan’s incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Speaking after a visit to the country’s national cemetery, which included a poignant homage at the graves of her assassinated father and mother, South Korea’s first female leader pledged to spread wealth more evenly.

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s first woman president, Park Geun-hye, will have her job cut out when she takes office in February with the economy slowing, her father’s autocratic rule still an issue for many and North Korea as unpredictable as ever.

Park, 60, won Wednesday’s hotly contested election comfortably. She replaces fellow conservative Lee Myung-bak after his mandatory single, five-year term ended.

SEOUL, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Park Geun-hye will make an
emotional return to South Korea’s presidential mansion in
February as South Korea’s first female leader, more than three
decades after she left it following the assassination of her
father.

Park scored a decisive victory in Wednesday’s vote, ensuring
that South Korea’s conservatives, who pushed through a free
trade agreement with the United States, hold on to the powerful
presidency for a second consecutive time after the end of
incumbent Lee Myung-bak’s mandatory single term in office.

SEOUL (Reuters) – A Korean-American tourist who visited North Korea last month for what was to have been a five-day trip has been detained by police in the reclusive state, associates of his family and activists in Seoul said.

Kenneth Bae, 44, was in a group of five tourists who visited the northeast city of Rajin, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, citing a report by the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper. Bae entered North Korea on November 3 for a five-day visit.