The Korea Herald

Biden visits Iraq ahead of troop pullout

BAGHDAD (AP) ― Vice President Joe Biden arrived on a surprise visit to Iraq late Tuesday in a trip designed to chart a new relationship between the two countries after all American forces have left the country in just over a month.After nearly nine years of war, the U.S. now must navigate a future without American troops in Iraq. Iraq’s vast oil resources, the massive U.S. Embassy presence here and Iraq’s strategic location in the Middle East ― next to Iran ― ensure American interest will remain

Nov. 30, 2011

Norway killer found insane, unfit for prison

OSLO (AP) ― Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik belongs in psychiatric care instead of prison, Norwegian prosecutors said Tuesday after a mental evaluation declared him legally insane during a bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people.The court-ordered assessment found that the self-styled anti-Muslim militant was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, which would make him mentally unfit to be convicted and imprisoned for the country’s worst peacetime massacre.The report, written b

Nov. 30, 2011

Ivory Coast’s ex-president to face ICC

THE HAGUE (AP) ― A plane believed to be carrying former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo landed early Wednesday in the Netherlands ahead of his transfer to the International Criminal Court.The Ivorian plane arrived at Rotterdam The Hague Airport shortly before 4 a.m. and taxied to a hangar where it was met by a convoy of black cars.The international court did not immediately confirm that Gbagbo was on the plane. But its arrival at the airport close to the outskirts of The Hague and the waiti

Nov. 30, 2011

Psychiatric evaluation finds Norway killer insane

Anders Behring Breivikwww.freak.noOSLO, Norway (AP) — Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was insane when he killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway, and should be sent to a psychiatric ward instead of prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.A psychiatric evaluation ordered

Nov. 30, 2011

Psychiatric evaluation finds Norway killer insane

China’s first aircraft carrier starts second trial

BEIJING (AFP) ― China’s first aircraft carrier began its second sea trial on Tuesday after undergoing refurbishment and testing, the government said, amid heightened regional tensions over maritime territorial disputes.The 300-meter ship, a refitted former Soviet carrier called the Varyag, underwent five days of trials in August that sparked international concern about China’s widening naval reach.“China’s aircraft carrier platform, after successfully completing its first sea trial in August, re

Nov. 29, 2011

Violence, late ballots may mar critical Congo vote

KINSHASA (AP) ― Voting materials arrived late or sometimes not at all in precincts throughout the country, but Congo’s elections went ahead, raising doubts about the legitimacy of a poll that already has seen at least nine people killed and could drag sub-Saharan Africa’s largest nation back into conflict.Country experts and opposition leaders had urged the government to delay Monday’s vote due to massive logistical problems. Some districts of Congo, which has suffered decades of dictatorship an

Nov. 29, 2011

Violence, late ballots may mar critical Congo vote

‘25% of global land highly degraded’

ROME (AP) ― The United Nations has completed the first-ever global assessment of the state of the planet’s land resources, finding in a report Monday that a quarter of all land is highly degraded and warning the trend must be reversed if the world’s growing population is to be fed.The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that farmers will have to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to meet the needs of the world’s expected 9 billion-strong population. That amounts to 1 billion tons

Nov. 29, 2011

Divergent views signal tough climate talks

Developing countries push for extension of Kyoto Protocol, wealthy states against itDURBAN, South Africa (AP) ― With heat-trapping carbon at record levels in the atmosphere, U.N. climate negotiations opened Monday with pressure building to salvage the only treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions.The U.S., Europe and the developing countries laid out diverging positions at the outset, signaling tough talks ahead even as South African President Jacob Zuma called for national interests to be laid

Nov. 29, 2011

Winner of $254 million Powerball comes forward

ROCKY HILL, Conn. (AP) - Three asset managers from Connecticut's affluent New York suburbs claimed a $254 million Powerball jackpot on Monday off a $1 ticket.Gregg Skidmore, Brandon Lacoff and Tim Davidson came forward as trustees for The Putnam Avenue Family Trust, which they formed after Davidson

Nov. 29, 2011

Is tech friend or foe to Santa Claus?

NEW YORK (AP) _ Kids can video chat with Santa, follow him on Twitter or enlist NORAD to track his every move online. And yet in many ways, technology may be making it harder for parents to keep their children believing in the jolly old elf.At nearly every turn, the Internet threatens to blow the fa

Nov. 29, 2011

Strauss-Kahn supporters seek probe on conspiracy

PARIS (AP) ― Supporters of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Sunday appealed to French authorities to investigate new allegations that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative political party may have improperly accessed his personal email.The online appeal from the support group “Club DSK” follows a report published Saturday in The New York Review of Books that has triggered new speculation about a possible conspiracy aimed at damaging Strauss-Kahn.That report, citing unident

Nov. 28, 2011

Prince William joins Irish Sea rescue mission

LONDON (AP) ― Prince William joined a frantic search and rescue mission Sunday after a cargo ship sank in the Irish Sea, leaving several members of the Russian crew missing. The second in line to the British throne, who is a Royal Air Force helicopter and known professionally as Flight Lt. William Wales, was aboard an aircraft which rescued two crew members early Sunday, after their vessel’s hull cracked in gale force winds off the coast of north Wales.Britain’s defense ministry said William had

Nov. 28, 2011

Prince William joins Irish Sea rescue mission

Occupy deadline comes, many say they won’t go

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Hundreds of Occupy Los Angeles protesters showed no sign they planned to move Sunday ahead of a city-imposed midnight deadline to abandon their encampment, saying they would instead hold an “eviction block party.’’Although city officials have told demonstrators they must leave the weeks-old protest site and take their nearly 500 tents with them by 12:01 a.m. Monday, just a handful were seen packing up Sunday.Instead, some passed out fliers containing the city seal and the word

Nov. 28, 2011

Occupy deadline comes, many say they won’t go

German police clear sit-in at nuke protest

BERLIN (AP) ― German police cleared a sit-in of thousands of protesters attempting to block a shipment of nuclear waste and temporarily detained 1,300 people Sunday, officials said.Hundreds of officers started evicting protesters from the rail lines near Dannenberg in the north of the country in the morning, police spokesman Stefan Kuehm-Stoltz said.Those who refused to leave were detained on site for several hours, but all were eventually released by late afternoon. Only those who refused to di

Nov. 28, 2011

German police clear sit-in at nuke protest

Putin warns West as he launches presidential bid

MOSCOW (AP) ― Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sternly warned the West not to interfere in Russia’s elections, as he launched his campaign to reclaim the presidency in a speech Sunday before thousands of flag-waving supporters.Putin stepped down in 2008 after two presidential terms, but kept his hold on power. He announced in September that he intended to return to the top job next year and was formally nominated Sunday by his United Russia party.“All our foreign partners need to understand this: R

Nov. 28, 2011

WikiLeaks wins Australian journalism award

SYDNEY, Nov 28, 2011 (AFP) - WikiLeaks has been recognised in Australia for its "outstanding contribution to journalism", with founder Julian Assange lashing out at "cowardly" Prime Minister Julia Gillard in an acceptance speech.The anti-secrecy website was lauded at the annual Walkley Awards, where

Nov. 28, 2011

Malaysia launches women-only taxis: reports

Malaysia has launched a fleet of women-only taxis, an initiative that follows pink-colored train coaches and buses aimed at shielding women from harassment, reports said Sunday.Fifty women taxi drivers have started plying greater Kuala Lumpur on an on-call basis, and the government hopes the number

Nov. 28, 2011

In unprecedented step, Arab League sanctions Syria

BEIRUT (AP) _ In an unprecedented move against an Arab nation, the Arab League on Sunday approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.But even as world leaders abandon Assad, the regime has refused t

Nov. 28, 2011

Belgium ends impasse to meet EU demands

S&P’s downgrades rating as crisis lashes European heartBRUSSELS (AFP) ― Belgium fell in behind model eurozone pupils Italy and Greece on Saturday, its feuding politicians ending 19 months of deadlock with an 11th-hour budget deal that met EU strictures hours after a brutal downgrade.“There is an agreement,” French-speaking Socialist premier-to-be Elio Di Rupo’s spokeswoman Ermeline Gosselin said on the stroke of noon, as exhausted but elated politicians closed more than 500 days of struggling to

Nov. 27, 2011

U.S. chef takes on Gallic gastronomes

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― A U.S. mathematician who used to work for Microsoft is hoping to win over Gallic gastronomes, as he takes his “modernist” cooking methods to the home of traditional gourmet cuisine.Defying critics who he argues view cooking “like religion,” chef Nathan Myhrvold is about to publish a French ― and German and Spanish ― version of his “Modernist Cuisine,” which mixes molecular science with the culinary arts.The huge five-volume, 2,440 page tome, published in the United States and

Nov. 27, 2011