LA Times News

LA Times News

In Mexico City, crowds protest drug violence

Posted: 08 May 2011 07:06 PM PDT

Tens of thousands descend on downtown with placards saying 'No more blood!' and 'We're fed up!' More than 34,000 have died since President Felipe Calderon began cracking down on cartels.

Bearing white balloons and fake bloodstains, tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded Mexico City's historic downtown Sunday to call for an end to the country's unrelenting drug violence.

12 dead in Muslim-Christian clashes in Egypt

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:13 PM PDT

Riot police disperse crowds outside a Cairo church burned by Muslim mobs. The violence raises questions about minority rights and Egypt's transition to democracy.

Gunfire rang out as a priest and his congregation prayed Sunday inside a church that hours earlier had been set on fire by a Muslim mob in a wave of deadly sectarian violence threatening Egypt's aspirations for a new democracy.

17 killed in Baghdad prison escape attempt

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:12 PM PDT

Running battles inside a detention facility at the Iraqi Interior Ministry lasted several hours. Those slain include militant leader Huthaifa Batawi, suspected in a massacre at a Baghdad church last year.

The suspected mastermind of October's gruesome massacre at a Baghdad church attempted a daring jailbreak Sunday and killed several police officers before he and his accomplices were shot dead.

U.S. seeks access to Bin Laden widows in Pakistan

Posted: 08 May 2011 07:18 PM PDT

The Obama administration hopes to talk with the three women and review materials taken from the Abbottabad compound after the U.S. raid.

The Obama administration Sunday pressed Pakistan to grant the United States access to Osama bin Laden's three widows as part of an investigation into the Al Qaeda leader's life leading up to his killing by American forces inside a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad a week ago.

Supplies running low in besieged Libyan rebel city

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:25 PM PDT

Attacks on Misurata's port by forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi have disrupted the supply of aid. The city may run out of food and fuel in a few weeks.

Food and fuel supplies are running low in the besieged western Libyan city of Misurata, where government shelling and rocket strikes on the port have slowed humanitarian deliveries, a rebel official here said Sunday.

In wake of Osama bin Laden's death, Taliban may be considering options

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:11 PM PDT

The death of the Al Qaeda leader could push the Afghanistan-based Taliban toward peace talks, but it could also further motivate the group to fight the West.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his allies in Washington are hoping that Osama bin Laden's demise will prod the Taliban into joining peace negotiations. But the aftermath of the raid in Pakistan that killed the Al Qaeda leader could just as easily embolden the Afghan insurgent group in its long struggle against the West.

U.S. wants to interrogate Osama bin Laden's wives

Posted: 08 May 2011 09:54 AM PDT

The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to make the three widows of Osama bin Laden available for questioning, even while relations between the two countries are strained.

The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to make available Osama bin Laden's three widows for interrogation in what could become a test of U.S. relations with the country that served as a sanctuary for the terrorist leader.

Mobs set Egypt churches on fire, 10 killed

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:55 AM PDT

Muslim mobs set two churches on fire overnight in a Cairo slum during sectarian clashes that left 10 dead and more than 200 injured, deepening religious violence in military-ruled Egypt while the country is already struggling through a chaotic and lawless transition to democracy.

U.S. releases videos of Osama bin Laden

Posted: 07 May 2011 11:48 PM PDT

Seized from the late Al Qaeda leader's raided Pakistani compound, one video shows a gray-bearded, unkempt Osama bin Laden. Other information gathered in the raid shows that he remained to the end the terrorist group's operational leader, a U.S. intelligence official says.

Initial analysis of the huge cache of documents seized at Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound shows he was not a figurehead but the operational leader of Al Qaeda, an active manager who communicated regularly with terrorist partners about plots and tactics, a senior intelligence official said.

In Afghanistan, insurgents launch deadly assault in Kandahar

Posted: 07 May 2011 09:48 PM PDT

The Taliban vows not to be deterred by the death of Osama bin Laden. Hours later, assailants target six government compounds in fierce attacks. At least eight people are killed, including six of the attackers.

Insurgent gunmen and suicide bombers launched fierce simultaneous attacks Saturday against half a dozen government buildings in the troubled southern city of Kandahar, hours after the Taliban vowed to fight on in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death.

South Korea rebuilds great gate without modern tools

Posted: 07 May 2011 11:48 PM PDT

An artisan leads a team of masons and carpenters in piecing back together Sungnyemun, the 600-year-old national treasure burned down by a disgruntled man three years ago.

At the most famous building site in Seoul, no modern sounds of construction reverberate: no electric drills, no jackhammers. Just the clink-clink-clink-clink of masons working ancient stones.

Japan looks abroad for high-tech help at Fukushima plant

Posted: 07 May 2011 11:48 PM PDT

When the Japanese needed robots to work in environments at the nuclear plant deemed too dangerous for humans, the country known for its high-tech prowess looked abroad. Massachusetts-based iRobot is one of the firms that sent machines to do the work.

The little robot rumbled across an otherworldly landscape, its camera lens clouding up in a hostile atmosphere too toxic for human habitation. Its motor whirring, it dispatched a constant stream of images to nervous operators grouped a safe distance away.

In finding Osama bin Laden, CIA soars from distress to success

Posted: 07 May 2011 11:48 PM PDT

With more funding, better technology and a reorganized intelligence community, the CIA shows how far it has come since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The first CIA officers who rushed to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks of 2001 had to buy field gear at an REI camping goods store in Virginia. Some flew in on rickety, former Soviet helicopters. A few rode horses.

Bodybuilding bounces back in Afghanistan

Posted: 07 May 2011 11:48 PM PDT

Since the sport's revival during the Taliban era, about 200 gyms have sprouted in Kabul alone — many for Mr. Afghanistan contenders, but some for women too. Use of steroids is also on the rise.

Mr. Afghanistan is doing his best not to break the leg press as he flexes his toned calves, pumping away under the fluorescent lights of Iron Men Gym. It's a small basement facility in a strip mall off one of the city's many dirt alleys. Written on the concrete walls above the mirrors in Dari script are the house rules: "Please refrain from talking about politics and laughing."