LA Times News

LA Times News

Filmmaker sees South Africa through a gentle but keen eye

Posted: 06 Jan 2011 12:00 AM PST

Jann Turner, a white director whose anti-apartheid father was killed in front of her, makes movies with her black partners that capture the humor and pain of today's South Africa.

This is the birth of a South African movie, at a kitchen table in suburban Johannesburg. Two black men and a white woman work a comic moment. Their voices compete, louder and faster. They backtrack and rework the scene, exhilarated, laughing.

Jordan clamps down on rioting in south

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 03:56 PM PST

The clashes began in the Maan governorate after two people died in a fight among workers at a water project, official media reported. The troubles escalated into a wider dispute between rival clans.

Security forces imposed a clampdown and officials warned troublemakers of consequences as calm was restored Wednesday in southern Jordan after several days of tribal violence.

Mexico has arrested a leader of Santa Muerte 'church'

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 04:03 PM PST

La Santa Muerte is cherished by the marginalized, impoverished and sometimes-criminal sector. David Romo, a self-appointed bishop of the church, is accused of kidnapping and money laundering.

Her skull-face peers from beneath a cloak, the Grim Reaper's scythe often clutched in her hand. She is the Saint of Death, icon of an underground cult that for many years has been the bane of the Roman Catholic Church and Mexican governments.

Plans for major Taliban attacks are foiled in Afghanistan, officials say

Posted: 06 Jan 2011 12:00 AM PST

One of two planned attacks on Kabul targeted the presidential palace; the other was intended to kill a top government official, authorities say.

Two significant Taliban attacks in the Afghan capital have been thwarted in the last three weeks, Afghan intelligence officials said Wednesday, an indication both of success in foiling such plots and of insurgents' continuing determination to carry them out.

Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr returns to Iraq

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 05:18 PM PST

Sadr's first visit since leaving for Iran in 2007 is seen as a sign of waning American influence. An assistant says the militant religious leader, whose Shiite fighters battled U.S. troops and were involved in sectarian killings, is in Iraq to stay.

In the latest example of waning American influence in Iraq, anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr returned home from Iran, where he had gone in 2007 after his Shiite Muslim militia engaged in years of on-and-off battles with U.S. troops and was blamed for some of the country's worst sectarian violence.

Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr returns to Iraq

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 07:06 AM PST

Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led several Shiite uprisings against American forces in Iraq before traveling to neighboring Iran at least three years ago, has returned to Iraq, officials said Wednesday.