President Barack Obama's administration is planning a vast operation to round up and expel from the United States migrant families who fled drought and violence in Central America, reports said Thursday.Any such crackdown would be hugely controversial, with immigration one of the hottest topics in the 2016 presidential campaign, and rights groups expressed grave concern at the deportations.The flow of families and unaccompanied children crossing into the United States from Mexico slowed this yea

World News Dec. 25, 2015

A former school headteacher, who reportedly paid for sex with 12,000 women in the Philippines, has been convicted in Japan for taking photos of naked Filipino girls.The Yokohama District Court sentenced Yuhei Takashima, 65, to two years in prison with the term suspended for four years, a spokesman told AFP.Takashima, who reportedly had sex with girls as young as 14, escaped prison with a promise not to offend again.Quoting the verdict, Japan's Jiji Press said the girls pictured were "aged betwee

World News Dec. 25, 2015

A luxury apartment in Hong Kong sold for a record HK$594.7 million ($76.7 million), days before Christmas, making it the most expensive flat in the city and possibly in Asia, reports said Friday.An unidentified buyer paid more than HK$103,700 per-square-foot for the 5,732 square-foot (532 square-metre) unit at the luxury 39 Conduit Road apartment tower in the southern Chinese city's upmarket Mid-Levels residential area, The Apple Daily and The Standard reported.The condominium, on the 46th floor

World News Dec. 25, 2015

Instead of doing some last-minute shopping or wrapping gifts, families across the U.S. South spent Christmas Eve taking stock of their losses after an unusual outbreak of December tornadoes and other violent weather killed at least 14 people and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes. "Santa brought us a good one, didn't he?'' Bobby Watkins said as he and his wife took a walk amid the destruction in rural Benton County, Mississippi, where four people -- including a married couple and two neighbors

World News Dec. 25, 2015

U.S.-based Intel Corp. was named the most influential firm in the Internet of Things (IoT) segment, data showed Friday, based on how often the company is mentioned on websites and social media with related keywords.According to the data compiled by IoT Analytics, U.S.-based tech companies took the top spots in the report, with Intel followed by IBM, Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. over the third and fourth quarters of 2015.South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. came in ninth,

World News Dec. 25, 2015

Investigators returned from the  Philippines on Friday after looking into the recent shooting death  of a South Korean man, adding they have found key evidence to narrow down the suspects.A 57-year-old South Korean, identified only by his surname Cho,  was shot to death by four unidentified, armed assailants on Sunday  at his house in Batangas, some 100km south of Manila.The incident raised the number of South Koreans killed in the  Southeast Asian country to 11 this year. Police said they have

North Korea Dec. 25, 2015

A long-standing dispute sparked a shooting at a crowded North Carolina shopping mall on Christmas Eve, police said, and an off-duty officer fatally shot a man who pointed a gun in his direction.  Police said no one else was shot and there were no other reports of injuries. The shooting was not a random act but rather the result of a feud among people who knew each other _ though there was no indication it was gang-related, Chief Kerr Putney of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.  D

World News Dec. 25, 2015

President Park Geun-hye checked military readiness against possible North Korean provocations as she made a rare visit to a military base near the border with North Korea, an official said Thursday.Park, wearing a military jacket, commended the soldiers at the military division in Yeoncheon near the central section of the border, for their "resolute" response to North Korea's shelling attacks on Aug. 20, presidential spokesman Jeong Yeon-guk said.Combined with a land-mine attack earlier in the m

North Korea Dec. 25, 2015

As Europe grapples with its biggest migrant crisis in recent history, Hollywood celebrities are rallying to raise awareness about the issue and lashing out at calls to turn away refugees.Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon this month became the latest star to arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos, a frontline for the crisis, where she is spending the Christmas holiday helping new arrivals and writing about her experience for the Huffington Post and RYOT.org, a virtual reality news company.The 69

World News Dec. 24, 2015

Indonesian police said they have arrested two more suspected militants including a member of China's ethnic Uighur minority who was allegedly preparing to be a suicide bomber. National Police spokesman Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan says the suspects were captured in two separate places Wednesday in Bekasi, a West Java town bordering with eastern Jakarta. The arrests of Arif Hidayatullah, alias Abu Mush'ab, and Alli, the Uighur who used a fake identity card, came as security has been stepped up after

World News Dec. 24, 2015