NEW YORK ― Barack Obama has promised to send a group of 100 armed United States military personnel to Uganda ― a high-powered posse to help bring to heel (and to justice) the notorious war criminal Joseph Kony, the leader of a brutal rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. “These forces will act as advisers to partner forces that have the goal of removing from the battlefield Joseph Kony and other senior leadership of the LRA,” Obama wrote in a letter submitted to the leadership of the

BOGOTA (AP) ― President Juan Manuel Santos on Saturday called on fighters of Latin America’s only major rebel force to accept the killing of their top leader as proof the movement is doomed and to surrender.“This is the moment to decide to lay down your arms because, as we’ve said many times, the alternative is prison or a tomb,” Santos told combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia a day after troops killed their 63-year-old chief.But analysts don’t believe Alfonso Cano’s death w

RUJM AL-HIRI, Golan Heights (AP) ― A newly proposed solution to an ancient enigma is reviving debate about the nature of a mysterious prehistoric site that some call the Holy Land’s answer to Stonehenge.Some scholars believe the structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri was an astrological temple or observatory, others a burial complex. The new theory proposed by archaeologist Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska links the structure to an ancient method of disposing of the d

LONDON (AP) ― Cultural events will take over Scottish castles, ancient English monuments and every corner of London as part of a giant arts festival running in conjunction with the 2012 Olympics.The lineup for the 12-week London 2012 Festival, announced by organizers Friday, ranges from pop-up William Shakespeare to vintage Alfred Hitchcock, and includes artists, musicians, writers and performers from Britain and around the world.The festival opens June 21, 2012 ― Midsummer’s Day ― with a series

Having seen a rapid rise in the number of travelers from the country this year, W Seoul-Walkerhill will enhance marketing to attract more Chinese people, said Greg Findlay, who was appointed general manager of the hotel in early October.About 45 percent of visitors are Koreans and the largest group among the international guests is Chinese, he said.“On the weekends, it’s generally Koreans coming out of Seoul to get away from the city. But China is growing and Japan is quite strong for us with th

When she was a teenager, Sung Shi-yeon used to listen to Metallica over and over again. The strong beat and symphonic development of heavy metal music may find a similarity in the deep and powerful orchestral sounds of Mahler’s symphonies, one of which Sung is to conduct soon.The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra’s associate conductor will showcase Mahler Symphony No. 7 at Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall on Nov. 11, as part of the SPO’s Mahler Series. After Sung’s No. 7, SPO music director Chung Myu

ROME (AFP) ― The sixth Rome Film Festival, marred by protests over cuts in arts funding and struggles to attract big stars, ended Friday with the top prize going to Sebastian Borensztein’s “A Chinese Tale”.The film stars Ricardo Durin as a lonely hardware store owner whose life is upturned by the appearance of a young Chinese man.France’s Guillaume Canet won the festival’s best actor prize for his performance, widely applauded in the Italian press, in “A Better Life” directed by Cedric Kahn.Cane