LA Times News

LA Times News

Mogadishu, Somalia, leader knows he might not survive being mayor

Posted: 16 Sep 2012 07:18 PM PDT

Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Ahmed Noor looks at threats and an assassination attempt in a different way: They mean he is effective.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The great part about being mayor of Mogadishu is that you get to reinvent a city so thoroughly taken apart by more than 20 years of chaos and war, it's almost a clean slate.

NATO disasters stack up in Afghanistan

Posted: 17 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT

More 'insider' slayings, as well as a NATO airstrike that killed eight women, follow a Taliban attack that destroyed more than $150 million worth of equipment.

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a disastrous day for the NATO force in Afghanistan, four American troops were gunned down Sunday by Afghan police, a U.S. airstrike killed eight Afghan women foraging for fuel on a rural hillside, and military officials disclosed that a Taliban strike on a southern base had destroyed more than $150 million worth of planes and equipment — in money terms, by far the costliest single insurgent attack in 11 years of warfare.

Pope Benedict XVI ends Lebanon trip, urges interreligious harmony

Posted: 16 Sep 2012 05:27 PM PDT

Pope Benedict XVI concludes his three-day visit to Lebanon by calling for religious tolerance there and urging world leaders to help end the crisis in Syria.

BEIRUT — Pope Benedict XVI closed a three-day visit to Lebanon on Sunday with an impassioned plea for peace, reconciliation and interreligious harmony, the themes that have dominated his discourse here.

Anti-Japan protests in China spread to more cities

Posted: 16 Sep 2012 04:44 PM PDT

More than 1,000 Chinese march in Beijing to protest Japan's plan to buy the disputed Diaoyu islands. Japanese businesses are attacked in several cities.

BEIJING — Anti-Japan rallies spread to dozens more Chinese cities Sunday, as thousands of people demonstrated against the Japanese government's plan to buy several uninhabited islands near Taiwan that China also claims. Protesters marched in front of diplomatic compounds, attacked Japanese businesses and burned Japanese flags.

Taliban targeted Afghanistan base to get to Prince Harry

Posted: 16 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT

An anti-Islam video spurred the attack, but the NATO site in Helmand province was chosen because the Taliban wants to kill or capture Prince Harry, a helicopter pilot, a Taliban spokesman says.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Does a prince's presence endanger those serving alongside him?

In Russia, listless protesters, bored riot police

Posted: 16 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The anti-Putin 'March of Millions' draws only tens of thousands as dissent among the opposition and Moscow's targeting of activists have taken a toll on the movement.

MOSCOW — The opposition had trumpeted the protest Saturday as the "March of Millions," and the authorities were ready, deploying thousands of riot police in full gear all around the center of Moscow, blocking key streets with heavy trucks and sending police helicopters hovering back and forth.

Syria massacres seem to show slow, steady killing strategy

Posted: 15 Sep 2012 09:20 PM PDT

Bashar Assad's forces may be moving incrementally to avoid shocking the international community. But towns are watching the toll of quiet executions mount.

DARIYA, Syria — As he hid from soldiers in a field next to his neighborhood, a young man watched as a cat wandered down a street. Suddenly, it was shot dead. That's when Zuhair noticed the sniper on a nearby roof.

China plays up Xi Jinping's reappearance for foreign media

Posted: 15 Sep 2012 09:13 PM PDT

China Vice President Xi Jinping was not seen in public for two weeks, setting off rumors. His reappearance gets top billing in English, but not so much in Chinese.

BEIJING — Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping appeared in public Saturday after a two-week absence that had sparked intense speculation in the foreign press and on the Internet about his health and possible infighting in the top ranks of the Communist Party.