It was a good old-fashioned Olympic scandal in Sochi, when South Korean figure skater Kim Yuna, known as “the Queen,” lost to a less experienced Russian. The judgment spurred millions of angry Tweets, and a Change.org petition protesting the result was the fastest growing one on site record—reportedly more than 1.2 million signatures in about 12 hours.

Not long ago, China was a soft-power juggernaut. Media accounts highlighted Chinese leaders’ thoughtful forays abroad, depicting policymakers that were respectful of others’ opinions, willing to listen, humble to a fault, and reluctant to dispense unsolicited advice. Here was a country that was content to allow its own example of success to speak for itself.

South and North Korea will hold a ‘high-level meeting’ tomorrow, Seoul announced Tuesday. The meet will be held at the border village of Panmunjom at 10 a.m., local time, on Wednesday, spokesperson Kim Eui-do said in a press release. “Though an agenda is not set before the meeting, the two sides are expected to have discussions on major inter-Korean issues including smooth proceeding and the regularization of the family reunions,” it read.

For a second time, North Korea has rescinded an invitation for a special American envoy to visit Pyongyang, the capital, to seek the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary held in the country for over a year, the State Department said on Sunday.

A trip to South Korea this summer by Pope Francis appeared much more likely after the Vatican said Saturday that he has approved honoring as martyrs 124 Koreans who were among thousands who perished for their faith in Korea in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A trip to South Korea this summer by Pope Francis appeared much more likely after the Vatican said Saturday that he has approved honoring as martyrs 124 Koreans who were among thousands who perished for their faith in Korea in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A new Asian diplomatic row broke out on Monday after China unveiled a memorial to a Korean national hero who assassinated a Japanese official a century ago - with Tokyo condemning him as a “terrorist”. In 1909, Ahn Jung-geun shot and killed Hirobumi Ito, Japan’s first prime minister and its top official in Japanese-occupied Korea, at the railway station in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin.