LA Times News

LA Times News

SeaWorld, others seek to import beluga whales caught in wild

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The marine mammals were caught off the coast of Russia and are being sought by a U.S. consortium of marine park and aquarium owners.

ORLANDO, Fla. — For the first time in many years, a consortium of U.S. marine park and aquarium owners — including SeaWorld — is attempting to import whales that have been captured from the wild specifically for public display.

Turkey says Syria-bound jet had munitions

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

Neighbors' rift grows as Damascus denies the passenger plane en route from Russia was ferrying weapons.

ANTAKYA, Turkey — A Syrian passenger jet forced to land in Turkey while on a scheduled flight from Moscow to Damascus was carrying ammunition and other items destined for the Syrian Defense Ministry, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday.

Pakistan sends former Taliban fighters to militant rehab

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

In one program in Lahore, the men get religious counseling, job training and a stipend. It's too soon to know whether it will prevent them from returning to militancy.

LAHORE, Pakistan — The seed of jihad was planted in Shahbaz Ahmed in 2001 when fundamentalist mosques in Pakistan welled up with rage against America's post-Sept. 11 invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

Forced evictions on the rise in China, Amnesty International says

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

The rights group's report says millions of poor and working-class Chinese have been displaced for building projects, often sparking violence and deaths.

BEIJING — Forced evictions of poor and working-class people from their homes and property are accelerating in China, leading to violent disturbances and deaths, a report released Thursday by Amnesty International asserts.

U.S. Embassy employee is killed in Yemen

Posted: 12 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT

A security investigator for the U.S. Embassy in Sana, Yemen, was shot and killed by masked men on a motorcycle.

SANA, Yemen — A Yemeni security investigator at the U.S. Embassy here was shot and killed Thursday by masked men on a motorcycle in the latest assassination by militants of political and security targets in cities across the country.

China's Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize in literature

Posted: 11 Oct 2012 04:08 AM PDT

Mo Yan, the Chinese writer best known for his 1987 novel "Red Sorghum," has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature.

Chinese writer Mo Yan wins Nobel for literature

Posted: 11 Oct 2012 04:38 AM PDT

Mo is the first Chinese national to win the prize, but not the first Chinese: That was emigre Gao Xingjian, whose work has been banned in China.

Chinese writer Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, a somewhat unexpected choice by a prize committee that has favored European authors in recent years.

Security chief slain at U.S. Embassy in Yemen

Posted: 11 Oct 2012 05:44 AM PDT

The man was shot on his way to work by a masked gunman on a motorcycle, officials say.

A masked gunman assassinated a Yemeni security official who worked for the U.S. Embassy in a drive-by shooting near his home in the capital Sanaa on Thursday, officials said.

U.S. declined requests to boost security in Libya, Congress told

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 09:10 PM PDT

State Department officials defend their decision during a House panel hearing, saying that security before the Benghazi attack was appropriate.

WASHINGTON — Senior State Department officials acknowledged to Congress on Wednesday that they had turned down requests to send more U.S. military personnel to guard diplomatic facilities in Libya shortly before the Sept. 11 attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Torture cases rise sharply in Mexico, Amnesty International says

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 09:00 PM PDT

The human rights group says the Mexican government has 'effectively turned a blind eye' to brutality amid its crackdown on drug cartels.

MEXICO CITY — A leading human rights group contends that the Mexican government under outgoing President Felipe Calderon has "effectively turned a blind eye" to a dramatic increase in reported instances of torture and abuse by police and the military in recent years, as those forces have been pressured to come down hard on the powerful drug cartels threatening large chunks of the country.