LA Times News

LA Times News

At U.N., free speech divides West and Muslim nations

Posted: 24 Sep 2012 07:34 PM PDT

At the U.N. General Assembly, Muslim nations are expected to demand international limits on anti-Islam speech, putting President Obama in a tough spot.

UNITED NATIONS — The annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, which is intended to celebrate the world's common values, this year is exposing instead the gulf between Western and Islamic perspectives on freedom of expression, posing an unexpected challenge for President Obama when he speaks here Tuesday.

The specks of land at the center of Japan-China islands dispute

Posted: 24 Sep 2012 06:28 PM PDT

Only goats live on the islets, known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu. A Japanese businessman in the late 1800s had big plans that didn't pan out.

BEIJING — In its heyday, the largest island was home to several hundred workers who caught fish and collected albatross feathers to adorn women's hats in Europe.

Chinese police chief in scandal gets 15-year sentence

Posted: 23 Sep 2012 10:30 PM PDT

Former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun's case has been closely watched for clues on the fate of his former boss, disgraced party official Bo Xilai.

BEIJING — The Chinese police chief who fled to a U.S. Consulate in February and set off a messy, sprawling political scandal involving murder was convicted Monday on charges of abuse of power, defection, bribe-taking and "bending the law for selfish ends" and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Vigilante justice brings terror to 2 African nations

Posted: 24 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT

A South African province has set up an inquiry into a rash of vigilante killings, and in a Nairobi slum, a victim describes the anatomy of a mob attack.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The voices were loud and harsh outside the thin walls of the tin shack where Musa Otieno, a boy of 12, tried to sleep in the Nairobi slum of Kibera.