Foreign

BEIJING: China on Tuesday said it was shocked by the latest comments from Tokyo in a simmering row over a group of disputed islands, as the two sides held informal talks in a bid to ease tensions.
The latest volley in the war of words between Asia's top two economies came after three days of sporadically violent anti-Japan protests in several Chinese cities -- the largest such demonstrations since 2005. Japan and China are trying to rebuild ties that were badly strained after

GROZNY: Militants on Tuesday stormed parliament in Russia's conflict-torn region of Chechnya, holding deputies and gunning down three people, before being killed in a bloody standoff with security forces.
The group of up to four militants broke into the parliament building in the Chechen capital Grozny early in the morning, sparking fears of a major hostage crisis before security forces moved in. The dramatic raid was a major blow to Kremlin claims that stability has returned to

PARIS: Striking public sector workers disrupted travel across France on Tuesday and troublemakers piggybacked on protest marches to burn cars as opponents of the government's pension reform made a last-ditch bid to stop it.
Refinery workers, airport staff, train drivers, teachers, postal workers and armoured truck drivers who supply cash machines went on strike and students set off rowdy protests in a day of protests against a plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from

THE HAGUE: A senior Afghan Taliban official has warned of an attack against the Netherlands if its new government implements the agenda of anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders, the Volkskrant daily reported Monday.
"If the Netherlands maintains or intensifies its anti-Islam policy, it is certain that the Netherlands will be the target of an attack by a jihadist group," Zabiullah Mujahed, a long-time Taliban spokesman, is quoted as having told the newspaper.
"If he (Wilders) succeeds

THE HAGUE: Muslims told judges trying anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders for hate speech Monday that he was dangerous, dividing a multicultural society that used to cohabit peacefully.
"Mr Wilders is a dangerous ideologist who has divided Dutch society," Naoual Abaida, a trainee lawyer with a native Dutch mother and Moroccan father, told the court. "I am asking you to protect me as a Muslim and a Moroccan against Mr Wilders," she said, referring to his "Islam-bashing" and "insulting,

COLUMBUS: US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle made their first joint campaign appearances in two years, sending a jolt of energy through 35,000 supporters two weeks before mid-term elections.
Ahead of a week of campaigning, Obama showed he can still fire up a vast crowd of young backers, despite his diminished political brand and Democratic fears of a drubbing by Republicans in congressional polls on November 2.
It was a show of force and energy in a bellwether

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar said Monday foreign election observers and international media would not be allowed into the country for next month's election, seen by critics as a sham to entrench military rule.
Foreign diplomats and representatives from UN organisations based in Myanmar will be allowed to observe voting, said election commission chairman Thein Soe. But there is no need for overseas poll monitors because "our country has a lot of experience in elections," he said in a

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI expressed "deep pain" and regret for the "destruction" caused by priests' child abuse Monday, while insisting on the rule of clergy celibacy.
In a letter addressed to trainee priests, the pope said that it had emerged "recently" that "priests have deformed their ministry by the sexual abuse of children and young people."
"Instead of leading people towards a mature humanity and setting an example they have caused, through their abuses,

TOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged Beijing on Monday to guarantee the safety of Japanese companies and citizens, as a wave of rowdy protests in China sparked by a territorial row entered a third day.
As many as 1,000 anti-Japanese demonstrators took to the streets of Wuhan, the capital of China's central Hubei province, on Monday, chanting slogans to vent their anger at Tokyo amid a heavy police presence, witnesses said.
Armed police with riot shields also guarded

PARIS: French high school students clashed with riot police Monday, truckers blocked roads and filling stations ran out of fuel as protests escalated against plans to raise the retirement age to 62.
Police fired tear gas at youths who set a car on fire, smashed bus stops and hurled rocks outside a school in a Paris suburb blocked by students protesting against a move that is central to President Nicolas Sarkozy's reform agenda.
Youths threw petrol bombs at police outside a

The shocking climax of a murder investigation during a live broadcast left Italians on Friday questioning the role of television in a country governed by media mogul Silvio Berlusconi.
There were angry reactions after 3.5 million people saw the mother of missing schoolgirl Sarah Scazzi being told on live television this week that her brother-in-law was being charged with the teenager's murder.
"This is the last frontier of a culture that... has long given the media the right

Facebook and other social networking tools are being used by sex assailants in the Philippines to lure their victims, contributing to a rise in such crimes, national police said on Friday.
Police are investigating cases in which suspects used Facebook or text messages sent from mobile phones to lure people, especially minors, into sex, said national police spokesman Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz.
"They have networking, they have 'clans', they invite youths to join.

Alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on Friday appealed against a Thai court ruling that removed a major obstacle to his extradition to the United States, his lawyer said.
Thailand's Criminal Court on Tuesday dismissed money-laundering and fraud charges against Bout that had been holding up his extradition, citing insufficient evidence.
In an apparent delaying tactic, Bout's lawyer Lak Nittiwattanawichan said he had submitted an appeal against the decision, partly on the

A senior North Korean official has given the first public confirmation that the youngest son of veteran leader Kim Jong-Il will succeed his father, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Yang Hyong-Sop confirmed the eventual ascent to power of Kim Jong-Un in an interview in Pyongyang with AP's television affiliate APTN, the US news agency reported.
The reported remarks by Yang, a leading ruling party member, marked the first time that a North Korean official has spoken openly

Wilders has been campaigning for an end to Muslim immigration, a ban on the building of new mosques and a head scarf tax.
Dutch Prime Minister-elect Mark Rutte on Friday started work to forge a new rightist, minority government that will rely heavily on the support of anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders.
With Wilders support expected to come at the cost of a burqa ban and a halving of immigration, Rutte met his future vice-premier, Maxime Verhagen, leader of the Christian Democratic

China on Friday slammed the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as a violation of the honour's ideals, while the laureate's joyful wife led calls for his immediate release.
Beijing -- which has repeatedly branded the 54-year-old writer a criminal following his December 2009 jailing for 11 years on subversion charges -- also warned Norway that ties would suffer over the Nobel committee's decision.
"The Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to those