LA Times News

LA Times News

Pentagon to withdraw ground-attack aircraft, leaving allies to handle bulk of Libya sorties

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:56 PM PDT

But with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's troops regaining the offensive against beleaguered rebels, questions have deepened as to whether NATO can handle the mission without U.S. firepower.

The Pentagon said it would soon withdraw jet fighters and ground-attack planes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led air campaign in Libya, a move that U.S. lawmakers warned could make the airstrikes less effective in preventing Moammar Kadafi's forces from attacking opposition-held areas.

Libyan rebels losing their nerve

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:59 PM PDT

Visions of Moammar Kadafi falling quickly to the revolution have given way to low morale and a tendency to flee.

The nascent rebel effort in eastern Libya, sustained for weeks by revolutionary passion and zeal, has begun to fray in the face of chaotic battlefield collapses and ineffective leadership.

Calderon replaces Mexico attorney general

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 05:32 PM PDT

Atty. Gen. Arturo Chavez Chavez steps down after 18 months on the job. President Felipe Calderon nominates Marisela Morales, head of a high-profile organized crime unit, to replace Chavez.

Locked in a grueling and bloody war with drug cartels, Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday replaced the nation's top legal official, whose lackluster stint had failed to improve paltry narcotics conviction rates or stem human rights abuses.

Ivory Coast hotel a seat of government and prison too

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 04:39 PM PDT

The Golf Hotel is an unlikely seat of government. Circled by razor wire, tanks and a U.N. force, it's home, office and prison to Alassane Ouattara, Ivory Coast's internationally recognized president.

A sweaty afternoon torpor falls on the vast hotel lobby, as if someone had pumped a mist of sleeping gas through the air conditioning. Men slump beneath garish lime jungle murals, mouths hanging open.

Anger and abandonment in a Japanese nuclear ghost town

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:10 PM PDT

The vast majority of Minamisoma's 71,000 people have fled since the nuclear accident at the Fukushima complex just down the coast. Those who remain endure life in a radioactive no-man's land, facing growing anxiety and deprivation.

Hoshi Jyunichu lives in a nuclear ghost town.

Obama's nuanced foreign policy evident in Libya vs. Syria

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 04:21 PM PDT

The White House has struggled to explain why Libya warrants military action and Syria doesn't. The reasons involve national interest more than humanitarian concerns.

Even as President Obama lays out his vision of America's obligations to civilians menaced by their own governments, the limits of what some are calling an "Obama Doctrine" are evident in his differing approaches to Libya and another Arab country in turmoil: Syria.

India's population grows to 1.2 billion

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:25 PM PDT

Preliminary census figures show that India grew by 17.6%, gaining 181 million people in a decade, putting it on course to surpass China as the world's most populous nation sometime after 2030.

India's population is now more than 1.2 billion, an increase of 181 million in a decade, putting it on course to surpass China as the world's most populous nation sometime after 2030, according to preliminary census results released Thursday.

Ivory Coast's president-elect says his troops are outside key city

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:25 PM PDT

Alassane Ouattara, the U.N.-recognized winner of Ivory Coast's disputed presidential vote, calls on incumbent Laurent Gbagbo's forces to switch sides. Ouattara says his troops are outside Abidjan, Gbagbo's stronghold.

The internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election said Thursday that his forces were outside the nation's commercial capital, Abidjan, after taking control of much of the country, and he called on his rival's army to join him.

Robert Gates again rules out U.S. ground forces for Libya

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:10 PM PDT

In his strongest statement yet on Libya, Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterates that the U.S. would not send ground troops. The administration is still considering whether to provide arms to the rebels, but what opposition forces need most is training, he says.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reiterated Thursday that the U.S. would not put ground forces in Libya, but conceded that allies involved in the operation might provide arms and send in trainers to aid the rebels, who have lost ground to Col. Moammar Kadafi's forces in recent days.

Scam artists exploit generosity in Japan

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 11:16 AM PDT

Reports of fraud are increasing as con artists solicit donations under the guise of aiding victims of the earthquake and tsunami. A senior official in Japan calls the acts 'heartless.'

Con artists are soliciting cash and other valuables in Japan under the guise of collecting funds for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on Thursday to condemn such "opportunistic crimes" and urge the nation to pull together.

Japanese nuclear plant's containment vessels remain suspect as radiation levels spike

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 10:14 AM PDT

Levels of radioactive iodine inside and outside the Fukushima Daiichi plant have risen dramatically, Tepco officials say, hampering repair work and the recovery of bodies. A greater danger is the presence of cesium-137, which could contaminate the food chain, Japan's nuclear safety agency says.

Radiation levels spiked inside and outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday, slowing work on the facility once again and once more throwing into doubt the integrity of the containment vessels that hold the fuel rods.

Libyan regime dismisses Foreign Minister Musa Kusa's apparent defection

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:22 AM PDT

A Libyan government spokesman says Musa Kusa's departure would mean little to Moammar Kadafi. British officials debrief the former intelligence chief and are eager to glean information about the inner workings of Kadafi's regime.

The Libyan government shrugged off the apparent defection of a key regime figure Thursday, saying the nation's foreign minister was on "sick leave," even as another official announced his resignation and rumors swirled of other departures.

Pakistani Islamist survives second assassination attempt

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:02 AM PDT

Hard-line cleric Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a fierce foe of the U.S., is targeted by a suicide bomber in northwest Pakistan, a day after another attempt on his life.

A hard-line Islamist leader known as an outspoken opponent of the United States narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a suicide bomber Thursday in northwest Pakistan, the second such attack in two days.

In Japan, Sarkozy calls for new global nuclear standards

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:26 AM PDT

Japan's Kan backs the French president's push for a May meeting of G20 nuclear officials.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Thursday for a reform of global nuclear standards by the end of the year during a first visit by a foreign leader to Japan since the earthquake and tsunami that triggered its atomic disaster.

CIA officers working with Libya rebels

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:39 PM PDT

CIA officers are coordinating with antigovernment fighters and sharing intelligence, but the Obama administration is undecided whether to supply weapons. Leading lawmakers from both parties are against the idea.

CIA officers are on the ground in Libya, coordinating with rebels and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say, but the Obama administration has not yet decided whether to take the further step of providing weapons to those trying to oust Moammar Kadafi.