Mo Yan has focused an unflinching eye on what he calls the darkness and ugliness of 20th-century Chinese society in a prolific writing career that on Thursday landed him the 2012 Nobel prize for literature.Mo Yan, one of China's leading writers of the past half-century, became the first Chinese national and just the second Chinese-language writer to be awarded the coveted prize.The 57-year-old, wh

World News Oct. 11, 2012

Spanish researchers say they've identified the exact spot in Rome where Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C.Scientists at the Spanish National Research Council said the key to the discovery was a concrete structure 10 feet wide and more than 6 feet high, placed by order of Augustus, the adoptive son and successor of Julius Caesar, to condemn the assassination of his father.The locatio

Technology Oct. 11, 2012

Schools shut their doors in protest and Pakistanis across the country held vigils Wednesday to pray for a 14-year-old girl who was shot by a Taliban gunman after daring to advocate education for girls and criticize the militant group.The shooting of Malala Yousufzai on Tuesday in the town of Mingora in the volatile Swat Valley horrified Pakistanis across the religious, political and ethnic spectru

World News Oct. 11, 2012

A religious cleric in western Afghanistan said Wednesday he is offering a $300,000 bounty to anyone who kills the maker of an anti-Islam film that has angered Muslims around the world.Mir Farooq Hussini, a cleric and the spokesman for an organization representing about 450 religious schools in Herat province, made the latest bounty offer. U.S. federal prosecutors said Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, an

Film Oct. 11, 2012

Standard & Poor's cut Spain's sovereign debt rating Wednesday by two notches to just above junk level, citing the deepening recession and strains from the country's troubled banks.S&P cut the rating to BBB- from BBB+, just one level above "speculative" or "junk" grade debt, which could have sent Madrid's borrowing costs skyrocketing to untenable levels."The downgrade reflects our view of mounting

World Business Oct. 11, 2012

Turkish jets on Wednesday forced a Syrian passenger plane to land at Ankara airport on suspicion that it might be carrying weapons or other military equipment, amid heightened tensions between Turkey and Syria that have sparked fears of a wider regional conflict.The Syrian Air jetliner was traveling from Moscow when it was intercepted by F16 jets as it entered Turkish airspace and was escorted to

World News Oct. 11, 2012

Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae on Wednesday nominated a female judge to fill the last remaining seat on the Supreme Court’s 14-member bench, long considered as a share of public prosecutors. The selection of Kim So-young, a senior judge at Daejeon High Court, follows the resignation in July of Kim Byeong-hwa, a senior prosecutor and one of the four that Yang chose as replacement for four retiring jus

Latest News Oct. 10, 2012

Police in Louisiana said they arrested a pair of alleged burglars after a friend of a burglary victim overheard them talking about the crime.The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said a man overheard Julien Cadis, 17, and Brent Price, 19, talking at a bar Friday about an Oct. 1 burglary that the man suspected to have taken place at the Metairie home of a friend, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune re

World News Oct. 10, 2012

South Korea's jobless rate inched down in September from a month earlier and job creation also quickened, raising hopes that the labor market conditions are improving, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 2.9 percent last month, down from 3 percent tallied in the previous month. The number of jobs added to payrolls also acceler

Oct. 10, 2012

North Korea said Tuesday it possessed "strategic rocket forces" capable of striking the U.S. mainland, as it responded to a new U.S.-South Korean deal to extend the range of the South's missile systems.In a series of bulletins released on the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the spokesman of the National Defense Commission also said Pyongyang was ready to match any enemy, "nuclear for n

North Korea Oct. 9, 2012