LA Times News

LA Times News

Violence spreads in Yemen as foreign diplomats struggle to end the crisis

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 07:21 PM PDT

President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs on even as protesters grow bolder and allies abandon him. Arab neighbors insist they are making progress in negotiations with Saleh.

Gunfire and funerals have been spreading across Yemen as international negotiators have yet to come up with a plan to edge President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power and prevent widespread protests from tipping the impoverished nation into a civil war that could spur unrest across the region.

Libyan rebels support having Western troops help evacuate civilians

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:36 PM PDT

A spokesman says the rebels are not asking foreigners to fight side by side with them. France and Italy say they'll join Britain in sending military advisors to Libya.

Libyan rebels said Wednesday that they support Western forces assisting in the evacuation of civilians and other humanitarian missions despite their objections to foreign troops on the battlefield.

Saudi charged in first Guantanamo tribunal under Obama

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:42 PM PDT

The move comes two years after the military dropped charges against Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the accused mastermind of the deadly 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole. A conviction is uncertain, however, because interrogators allegedly tortured him.

The Obama administration initiated its first Guantanamo Bay military tribunal Wednesday, charging a Saudi with masterminding the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole that killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 in October 2000.

Award-winning war photographers killed in attack in Libya

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:27 PM PDT

'Restrepo' co-director Tim Hetherington and Getty photographer Chris Hondros are killed in a blast in Misurata, Libya. Two photojournalists are injured.

Tim Hetherington, an award-winning news photographer and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Restrepo," and Chris Hondros, a veteran war photographer for Getty Images, were killed Wednesday in an explosion in the Libyan city of Misurata, doctors and colleagues reported.

Displaced by disaster, Japanese contend with the big city

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:15 PM PDT

After weeks in makeshift shelters, people are moving into more stable quarters, many far from home, in bigger cities where the pace is fast, the cost high, job skills unfamiliar.

It's not that Miyoko Baba's 11-year-old son, Ryu, is a bad student. Back home in Iwaki, about 20 miles south of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, he got decent marks. But with the family having fled their house for Tokyo, she's worried about how her fifth-grader will measure up to his new classmates in the big city.

Plan rolled out to rescue troubled Afghan bank

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 03:18 PM PDT

The head of Afghanistan's central bank said it had placed Kabul Bank in receivership and plans to have a government panel collect on problem loans, then privatize what's left of the bank.

Afghan officials plan to sell part of troubled Kabul Bank, the country's biggest financial institution, in hope of clearing the way to resume international aid temporarily suspended last year after the bank's loan scandal.

Libya blast kills photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:53 PM PDT

'Restrepo' co-director Tim Hetherington and Getty photographer Chris Hondros are hit by a mortar strike in Misurata, Libya.

Barely two months ago, combat photographer Tim Hetherington sent out a tweet from the Academy Awards ceremony, where his Afghanistan war film "Restrepo" was up for the best documentary trophy.

3 Western powers sending military advisors to Libya

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:53 AM PDT

France, Italy and Britain will send officers but do not agree to a rebel request for ground troops. France will intensify airstrikes and says NATO should consider the ground forces.

In the wake of a plea for help from besieged rebels in the Libyan city of Misurata, three Western powers have announced that they will send military advisors and one said Wednesday that it would step up airstrikes against Moammar Kadafi's military.

Misurata rebels show ingenuity in Libya war

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:15 PM PDT

Young gangs living on borrowed time use wits and captured weapons to protect streets from Moammar Kadafi's forces.

The five rebel gunmen crept tensely along the side road's shuttered storefronts, past the dark furniture shop with the broken windows and the streetlamps decorated with plastic flowers. Perpendicular to them was Tripoli Street, the heart of Misurata, where Moammar Kadafi's snipers hide in office buildings and rake the city with bullets.

In wealthy Mexico City area, hard workers at street level

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 05:32 PM PDT

The richest man on the planet lives in Mexico, as do millions of people existing below the poverty line. Yet rich and poor repeatedly intersect, entangled in a routine of mutual sustenance.

Lomas de Chapultepec, a neighborhood of huge homes behind high stone and brick walls, wakes up each morning to the sound of sweeping.

Egypt report depicts violence that killed 846

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 12:09 AM PDT

The head of a fact-finding commission says former President Hosni Mubarak, now detained, was at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of protesters at the hands of security forces.

A new Egyptian government investigation into the nearly-three-week revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February paints a sinister portrait of a desperate police state relying on snipers, thugs and other forces that led to the deaths of at least 846 people.