LA Times News

LA Times News

Kadafi aide flees to Britain and quits

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:52 PM PDT

Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa may give Western intelligence agencies a better picture of what is going on behind the scenes.

A high-ranking member of Moammar Kadafi's entourage has dealt a serious blow to the Tripoli regime by abandoning his post and fleeing to Britain, where he stepped off a military plane Wednesday and announced his resignation.

Libya rebels flee eastward by the hundreds

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:00 PM PDT

Kadafi's forces appear poised to take Port Brega after pushing the opposition fighters out of Ras Lanuf, another oil refinery city.

Dispirited rebel fighters continued their headlong retreat across eastern Libya on Wednesday, surrendering a strategic oil city they captured just three days earlier and fleeing eastward by the hundreds.

Traces of radioactive iodine found in Washington state milk

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 07:29 PM PDT

U.S. officials stress that the level is 5,000 times lower than the amount that would require intervention. The isotope found degrades quickly.

A trace amount of radioactive iodine, well below levels of public health concerns, has been detected in milk from the state of Washington as the U.S. monitors radiation levels amid the nuclear crisis in Japan, U.S. regulators said Wednesday.

Karzai denounces alleged 'trophy' killings in Afghanistan

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 07:21 PM PDT

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says photos of U.S. soldiers posing with bodies of victims should stir international indignation — 'if there is conscience left in the West.'

President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday denounced American soldiers who posed for gruesome pictures with Afghan victims of alleged "trophy" killings, calling the deaths cruel and tragic.

Samantha Power, long a critic of U.S. foreign policy, now helps shape it

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 06:29 PM PDT

An outspoken author and advocate against foreign atrocities before joining the Obama White House, she's now part of a small circle shaping the approach to the crises in Africa and the Middle East.

After years as an outsider who watched in frustration as the U.S. failed to stop foreign atrocities, Samantha Power now is an influential White House insider in a position to try to help prevent mass killings and limit the influence of rogue leaders.

Ivory Coast capital seized by president-elect's forces

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 04:57 PM PDT

Troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, recognized internationally as victor of the November presidential election, take over Yamoussoukro. Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to step down, asks for cease-fire.

Troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the man widely viewed as the legitimate president of Ivory Coast, have seized the nation's capital in their effort to remove his rival from power, a spokesman said late Wednesday.

CIA officers in Libya are aiding rebels, U.S. officials say

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 03:55 PM PDT

CIA officers on the ground in rebel-held areas of Libya are coordinating with the opposition forces and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say. The White House is still mulling whether to provide weapons to those trying to oust Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

WASHINGTON — CIA officers on the ground in Libya are coordinating with rebels and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say, but the White House is still mulling whether to provide weapons to those trying to oust Moammar Kadafi.

Israel fears the alternative if Syria's Assad falls

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 04:02 PM PDT

Syria is one of Israel's strongest enemies, but it has been predictable and relatively stable.

As popular unrest threatens to topple another Arab neighbor, Israel finds itself again quietly rooting for the survival of an autocratic yet predictable regime, rather than face an untested new government in its place.

Four reactors at Fukushima nuclear complex will have to be scrapped, utility chairman says

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:03 AM PDT

Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., expresses deep remorse for the problems at the Fukushima plant. Meanwhile, authorities are considering ways to limit radiation damage, including placing a tarp over the reactors and pumping radioactive water into a barge.

The chairman of the utility that runs the crippled Fukushima power plant on Wednesday said the facility's four tsunami-battered reactors would have to be scrapped, and he apologized to the Japanese public for the nuclear disaster.

President Bashar Assad blames conspiracies for Syria unrest

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 07:45 AM PDT

Foreign conspiracies, media distortions and the hand of Israel are to blame for uprisings in Syria, President Bashar Assad insists in a speech to the nation.

Invoking the steely determination of his brutal father, President Bashar Assad blamed foreign conspiracies for Syria's unrest in a highly awaited speech Wednesday that sought to brace his family's 40-year dynasty against a rebellion similar to those that have left governments reeling across the Middle East and North Africa.

Seawater radiation rises in Japan

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 06:24 AM PDT

The power company acknowledges that reactors will have to be scrapped, and its president checks into a hospital.

Setbacks mounted Wednesday in the crisis over Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear facility, with nearby seawater testing at its highest radiation levels yet and the president of the plant operator checking into a hospital with hypertension.

Kadafi's troops defending Surt force rebels to retreat 100 miles

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 12:20 AM PDT

Without the support of allied airstrikes, hundreds of rebels flee east in the face of rocket attacks, reversing much of their advance over the weekend.

A sustained counterattack by Libyan government troops Tuesday sent overmatched rebel fighters fleeing eastward for almost 100 miles, erasing much of the weekend gains by opposition forces attempting to overthrow Moammar Kadafi.

Clooney called by Berlusconi's defense as witness

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 12:20 AM PDT

ROME (AP) — Silvio Berlusconi's defense lawyers on Tuesday named George Clooney, the Italian foreign minister and a bevy of showgirls as witnesses at the premier's upcoming prostitution trial, an attorney and news reports said.