LA Times News

LA Times News

IMF chief detained on N.Y. sex assault charge

Posted: 14 May 2011 05:41 PM PDT

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken off a plane bound for Paris, according to New York newspaper reports, after a hotel maid accused him of attacking her. He was being questioned, and charges had not been filed.

The leader of the International Monetary Fund and a possible candidate for president of France was pulled from an airplane moments before he was to fly to Paris and was being questioned Saturday by police in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel maid, police said.

Singer Michel Martelly is sworn in as Haiti's president

Posted: 14 May 2011 06:14 PM PDT

Martelly speaks in front of the crumpled National Palace, a symbol of a broken country ravaged by an earthquake last year and perpetually suffering from high rates of illiteracy and unemployment.

Former singer Michel Martelly was sworn in Saturday as Haiti's new president, promising change in a country whose towering needs will soon test his ability to shift from political outsider to national leader.

Japan's thin, white security blanket

Posted: 14 May 2011 06:14 PM PDT

The Japanese love affair with the surgical mask goes beyond health protection, though that is again at the center of a surge in mask popularity. This time the worry is nuclear radiation.

Leaning against a wall in the busy Akihabara electronics district here, Tomomitsu Funayama was enjoying a do-nothing day off from his architectural job. Yet he looked less like a slacker than a surgeon late for a big operation.

Pakistan condemns Bin Laden raid, threatens reprisals for drone strikes

Posted: 14 May 2011 11:49 AM PDT

Pakistan's parliament joins its intelligence chief in condemning the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden and threatens to prohibit NATO convoys into Afghanistan if Washington continues its drone strikes against militants.

At a marathon closed-door session, Pakistan's parliament Saturday joined the country's intelligence chief in strongly condemning the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The lawmakers also threatened to prohibit NATO from ferrying military supplies into Afghanistan if Washington continued its campaign of drone strikes against militants.

Ahmadinejad fires 3 Iran Cabinet ministers

Posted: 14 May 2011 11:49 AM PDT

As he moves to reshape the country's government, Iran's president escalates a confrontation with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his loyalists.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated an unusually public confrontation within the country's leadership Saturday by firing three Cabinet ministers, defying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his loyalists, who had warned him the move would be unconstitutional.

Afghans protest killing of teenage boy by U.S. forces

Posted: 14 May 2011 09:10 AM PDT

NATO says the boy, 15, reached for a gun during a search by Afghan and U.S. troops seeking a Taliban leader in Nangarhar province. At least one demonstrator is killed as police return fire on the angry crowd.

Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated Saturday after a 15-year-old boy was killed by U.S. forces in a volatile eastern province. At least one protester died in the melee.

Afghans protest boy's killing by U.S. forces

Posted: 14 May 2011 04:25 AM PDT

Angered by another civilian death, demonstrators throw rocks and fire on police in Nangarhar province. Police fire back, killing one.

Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated Saturday against the accidental killing of a 15-year old boy by U.S. forces in a volatile eastern province, leading to the death of at least one protester.

Letter from Libya: To live and lose in Misurata

Posted: 13 May 2011 10:52 PM PDT

Times staff writer Ned Parker recalls arriving and covering the fighting in the western Libyan town, within reach of Kadafi's capital — and where two colleagues would be killed before he left again.

We watched the African refugees wait placidly at the port for the boat to take them out of a city under siege. The day before, one of their own had been killed waiting at the port's entrance, and today, shells were falling nearby. But they still filed quietly in line.

'I am still alive,' Kadafi declares a day after NATO strike

Posted: 13 May 2011 08:59 PM PDT

The Libyan leader's audio broadcast on state TV comes a day after his compound was hit. Meanwhile, the government says a NATO strike in Port Brega killed 16 civilians, including 11 clerics.

A defiant Moammar Kadafi declared "I am still alive" in an audio broadcast on Libyan state television Friday, one day after a NATO strike on his compound spurred speculation that the Libyan leader had been injured or had fled Tripoli, the capital.