World News Archives

A magnitude-4.2 earthquake struck South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju on Saturday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.

Prince William is heading to the azure waters of the Caribbean as part of a two-month deployment in the Royal Navy despite his request to be as close as possible to conflict.

Two supporters of Zimbabwe's ruling party have been shot dead in the country's northeast, state radio reported Saturday, amid mounting violence ahead of a presidential run-off next month.

A group of Nigerians have staged a peaceful protest outside the South African High Commission in Lagos against attacks on their compatriots resident in that country, witnesses said.

Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.

Tens of thousands of South Koreans rallied against a government decision to import U.S. beef in the largest demonstration in a month of almost daily protests.

While Public Works Department engineers have made all arrangements to release water from Periyar dam for irrigation of the first crop of the double crop area stretching 14,707 acres in the Cumbum Valley till Veerapandi on June 1, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board engineers have kept one of the four generators ready to generate electricity at the power generating unit at Lower Camp at Gudalur.

Japan backed down from a plan to dispatch the Air Self-Defense Force to send aid to quake-stricken China after miscalculating the deep-rooted hostility Chinese harbor from their wartime experience with Japan.

HUMAN rights groups lashed out at Burma's military leaders for evicting cyclone refugees from relief camps and forcing them back to their storm-shattered homes.

Colombian emergency workers and residents used spades and rescue dogs to hunt for victims on Saturday after rains trigged a landslide that killed at least six people when it swept over a poor Medellin neighborhood.

And people wonder why Iraqis look askance at us. We aren't in Iraq as missionaries, and this sort of action, no matter what the intent, is bound to produce anger in a country that already looks upon us as occupiers.

Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating earthquake threatened to breach its dam.

Boxes of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft missiles have been found in a mountain in the northern Sinai peninsula, an Egyptian police official said Saturday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, says the weapons were to be smuggled into the neighboring Gaza Strip.

The mountain is about 48 miles south of Rafah on the Gaza border. It has been used before as a shelter for local Islamic militant groups that carried out three bombing attacks starting in October 2004 that killed 125 people.

Tropical Storm Alma, the first of the season, slammed into Nicaragua's Pacific coast.

A strong earthquake of 6.1 magnitude hit Iceland Thursday, 30 miles southeast of the capital Reykjavik, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Investigators are speeding up their corruption probe of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an effort to wind up a case that has upended the country's politics, a Justice Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

A British soldier, center, with the International Security Assistant Force stands with Afghan officials at the site of a suicide attack in Helmand province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 28, 2008.

Israel’s defense minister called on Wednesday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to remove himself from his post pending the outcome of a high-profile corruption investigation in which Mr. Olmert is embroiled.

A Dutch shipping company is negotiating with Somali pirates in an attempt to gain the release of nine crew members of a hijacked freighter.

Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms during the earthquake in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protests in recent days, forcing officials to address growing political repercussions over shoddy construction of public schools.

AFRICAN leaders lashed out at rich nations for erecting trade barriers that prevent the continent's economic development even as they make lofty pledges to boost aid on Wednesday.

Three Iraqis testified Tuesday in a federal grand jury investigation of a deadly Baghdad shooting involving security contractors from Blackwater Worldwide.

Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said.

An e-mail that warned of violence during Memorial Day weekend proved to have some credibility as the death toll continued to rise Monday in Juárez, officials said.

The slaying of three people Monday, along with the death of a woman shot last week, raised the weekend death toll to at least 22.

After fighting for her life for weeks, Amstetten cellar child, Kerstin Fritzl, has miraculously woken from her coma.

Medics feared that the 19-year-old, born to her grandfather and his daughter Elisabeth after a forced incestuous relationship, would die when her organs failed earlier this month.

Chinese officials rushed Tuesday to evacuate another 80,000 people in the path of potential floodwaters building up behind a quake-spawned dam as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain away the threat.

Iran may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday in an unusually strongly worded report.

Parents whose only child was killed or maimed in China's earthquake would be allowed to have another, officials who administer the country's one-child policy in part of the disaster zone said Monday, offering some solace to grieving couples.

A rebel group that has been attacking oil pipelines in southern Nigeria claimed responsibility on Monday for another strike and said it killed 11 government soldiers in fighting that followed the sabotage.

A powerful aftershock jolted southwestern China Sunday, killing at least one person nearly two weeks after a deadly earthquake devastated the region.

Lebanon's parliament elected the army commander, Gen. Michel Suleiman, as president Sunday, filling a post vacant for six months and brining a symbolic if tenuous end to the country's worst crisis since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

Of Garinda's 4,500 people, about 700 are employed in the Gulf, most in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, more than 1,000 miles away. Finding the work is relatively easy - Indian newspapers carry ads for Gulf jobs and brokers come searching for able-bodied men. The brokers usually arrange the travel to the Gulf - securing visas and tickets and shepherding villagers onto what for many is their first plane ride.

Torn between protecting the poor and saving their budgets, governments across Asia are being forced to slash fuel subsidies as world oil prices smash through 130 dollars a barrel.

Heavy equipment began toppling the few buildings left standing in this quake-stricken town once home to 30,000 people, and workers in white protective suits sprayed disinfectant Thursday in the silent streets amid roaming dogs and chickens.

The Central African Republic has been hit by an upsurge in attacks by armed bandits, with up to 100,000 people forced out of their homes fleeing such attacks, the United Nations said on Friday.

China and Russia on Friday condemned U.S. plans to set up a missile defence system that would include bases in eastern Europe viewed by Moscow as a threat.

The earthquake in Sichuan has left more than 4,000 children orphaned, officials say.

Hundreds have died already, but relief officials are predicting a new famine in the Horn of Africa that could rival the catastrophe that killed millions in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

A group of up to 300 young men have burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya — in some cases slitting their victims' throats or clubbing them to death before burning their bodies, officials said.

Israel and Syria on Wednesday said they were holding indirect peace talks through Turkish mediators _ the first official confirmation of contacts between the longtime enemies.

Iraqi troops pushed deep into Sadr City Tuesday as the Iraqi government sought to establish control over the densely populated Shia enclave in the Iraqi capital.

A government warning of a major aftershock sent thousands of panicked survivors running into the darkened streets Monday night following an unprecedented display of mourning for more than 34,000 people killed in a powerful earthquake one week ago

Locally brewed liquor apparently tainted with lethal chemicals killed at least 59 people in southern India over the weekend, police said Monday.

Bootleggers began selling the deadly brew on Saturday after police shut authorized liquor shops in parts of the Karnataka state because of voting for the state government, said Sri Kumar, the state police chief.

Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the ruling military junta will not allow unfettered access for relief teams, Singapore said on Monday.

A strong aftershock early Sunday rattled areas still reeling from last week's massive earthquake in China, shaking frayed nerves of survivors and slowing rescue and relief efforts.

The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people.

Flames from a ruptured fuel pipeline swept through homes and a school in a Nigerian village Thursday, killing about 100 people and injuring 20 others, a Red Cross official said.

Oil prices surged more than $3 Friday, shattering a previous record in a spike near $128 a barrel, as prices at the pump pushed to new highs of their own.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- in a blunt new message that coincides with Israel's 60th anniversary -- urged his followers to liberate Palestine, a terrorism analyst told CNN on Friday.

China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000, while the government issued a public appeal Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster.

As the official death toll in China's massive earthquake neared 15,000 Wednesday, military helicopters dropped food and medicine to survivors who remained cut off in remote mountain villages.

Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta on Wednesday.

Chinese troops rushed to plug "extremely dangerous" cracks in a dam upriver from Dujiangyan an earthquake-hit town, state media said Thursday.

“One can't rule out the involvement of a foreign power”

A series of bombs exploded across the ancient city of Jaipur on Tuesday, killing at least 80 people and transforming busy markets, a jewelry bazaar and a Hindu temple into scenes of carnage.

All seven blasts were within the old walls of the western city known for its pink-hued palaces, and suspicion quickly fell on Islamic militant groups blamed for a string of attacks in India in recent years. Police said an eighth bomb was found and defused by police.

'Obviously, it's a terrorist' attack, said A.S. Gill, the police chief of Rajasthan, the state where Jaipur is located. 'The way it has been done, the attempt was to cause the maximum damage to human life.' Read more

The death toll from Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake in central China exceeded 12,000 Tuesday, as rescue workers frantically tried to pull victims from the rubble and clear roads so relief can be delivered.

Indian police say at least six people were killed and 20 others wounded in five bomb blasts that ripped through the historic city of Jaipur.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the death toll exceeded 12,000 in Sichuan province alone, and 18,645 were still buried in debris in the city of Mianyang, near the epicenter of Monday's massive, 7.9-magnitude quake.

Irena Sendler — a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities — has died. She was 98.

The first U.S. relief airlift arrived in Myanmar on Monday after prolonged negotiations with the country’s isolationist junta, which considers Washington its enemy and has restricted international aid to as many as 2 million cyclone victims.

A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday and state media reported that as many as 5,000 people were killed in a single county while nearly 900 students were trapped under the rubble of their school.

People evacuate office buildings after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in Beijing Monday, May 12, 2008. via Athens Banner-Herald

“Apart from the delay in getting aid to people we may now have to re-evaluate how we transport that aid”

The United States launched its first relief airlift to Myanmar on Monday, after prolonged negotiations with the isolated country's military rulers, who have been accused of restricting international efforts to ... via KansasCity.com

“We might succeed and we might not, but we have to try”

Arab foreign ministers urged warring Lebanese factions to immediately cease fighting and said Sunday they will send a delegation to try to broker a settlement between the Hezbollah-led opposition and U.S.-backed government.

After an emergency meeting in Cairo on the Lebanon crisis, the Arab League issued a statement implicitly criticizing the Shiite militant Hezbollah.

'The ministers reject the principal of resorting to armed violence to achieve political goals,' it said.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the delegation would leave for Lebanon soon but did not give a date. No flights have gone into Beirut for four days because Hezbollah supporters have blocked the airport road. Moussa said the delegation would need to make security arrangements with the Lebanese army to go in. Read more

Calm returns to the streets of Beirut after days of fighting as the Lebanese army takes over security control. via Reuters

“They will continue their mission”

Hundreds of rebels from war-ravaged Darfur clashed with Sudanese security forces on the doorstep of the capital Saturday in a dramatic widening of the five-year-old conflict.

It was the first foray into the seat of the Sudanese government by a rebel group once confined to the western region, which is deeply scarred by the struggle between the ethnic African rebels and the Arab-dominated central government.

The country's interior minister said government forces successfully 'chased' away the rebels by nightfall, about three hours after the first outbreak of violence, and killed a rebel leader and his aide. State television showed footage of the fighters in handcuffs and soldiers driving confiscated jeeps through empty streets, saluting colleagues standing at attention. Read more

The World Food Programme has halted aid shipments to Burma after the contents of its first delivery were impounded on arrival in the military-ruled country.

Venezuela's proven crude oil reserves had swelled to 130 billion barrels as of late April, marking a rise of 30 billion from its prior estimate, energy and oil minister Rafael Ramirez said Thursday.

Gunfire broke out in downtown Beirut Thursday after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said recent government actions amount to "a declaration of open war."

"Just in the past few minutes ... things have gotten a lot worse," CNN's Cal Perry reported from downtown Beirut. The sound of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard throughout his live reports.

Relief supplies from the United Nations began arriving in Myanmar Thursday, but U.S. military planes loaded with aid were still denied access by the country's isolationist regime five days after a devastating cyclone.

Iran's president has alarmed the nation's conservative clerics with remarks suggesting he believes a mystical Shiite religious leader backs his government.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power in 2005 with the votes of Iran's religious poor, has in the past courted controversy for his public devotion to the return of the 12th Imam, a figure he regularly refers to in speeches.

Speaking at a news conference as the Olympic flame was being taken to the top of Mt. Everest, Chinese Technology Minister Wan Gang refused to guarantee China will lift the veil of state-run Internet censorship for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. According to Reuters, China will guarantee sites will not be blocked "as much as possible" over the Olympics, but that "unhealthy" sites would be blocked to protect China's youth.

Israel staged its 60th birthday bash with fireworks, air force flyovers and a great sense of pride Thursday, but also with uncertainty about its future and doubts about prospects for peace with the Palestinians.

The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon said today. "The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," Shari Villarosa said. Villarosa heads the U.S. embassy in the capital Rangoon.

The Chaiten volcano spewed lava and blasted ash 12 miles into the sky on Tuesday, prompting officials to order a total evacuation of nearby area.

The death toll from the Myanmar cyclone is more than 15,000 people, Myanmar's government has said, with at least 10,000 killed in the township of Bogalay alone, according to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

China reported a jump Monday in the number of children sickened with hand, foot and mouth disease, saying more than 11,900 cases have been reported.

The death toll from the cyclone that ripped through Myanmar could reach 10,000, a top government minister said Monday.

The Madeleine posters in Britain's pub windows may have faded but suddenly, one year on from her disappearance from a holiday apartment in Portugal, the pretty girl's smile is everywhere again.

It's probably as revolutionary and groundbreaking as Mozart gets these days. A German-based quartet staged Saudi Arabia's first-ever performance of European classical music in a public venue before a mixed gender audience.

Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of plotters who attempted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944 with a briefcase bomb, died Thursday.

A man triggered panic in a northern Japanese city Thursday when he killed himself by mixing detergents in his house, releasing toxic fumes that drove 350 people from their homes — the latest in a series of such suicides.

Sixty-three years and five days after he stumbled sick and starving from a Nazi transport train and was freed by Russian cavalrymen, Raul Teitelbaum stood motionless Thursday as sirens wailed across Israel in tribute to victims of the Holocaust.

Certainly, there's no lack of accidental data breaches. Companies, even countries like the U.K. have accidentally exposed sensitive information about customers or citizens. But to do it deliberately? Whoa.