Pope Francis appealed Monday for responsible parenting and said that good Catholics should not have to breed "like rabbits."The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said he defends the Church's teaching against artificial contraception but claimed that didn't mean "Christians should have children one after the other."He told journalists on his flight back from his visit to the Philippines that he once asked a mother of seven children -- all born through caesarian section -- who was pregna

Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic State fighters in Iraq in recent days, in the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS, a senior officer said Monday.The Canadians came under mortar and machine gun fire while training Iraqi troops near front lines and shot back in what Canadian special forces commander Brigadier General Michael Rouleau described as self-defense, killing the IS fighters.Rouleau said the melee had taken place in the previous seven days and

South Korea and Japan held talks on Tokyo's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II on Monday, one of the most knotty issues for bilateral ties, Seoul's foreign ministry said.Lee Sang-deok, Seoul's chief delegate to the talks, met with his Japanese counterpart, Junichi Ihara, in Tokyo in their sixth round of talks to discuss the issue of "comfort women," according to the foreign ministry.In April, the two historical rivals launched the talks on the sex slavery, but no major progre

Multiple shots were fired near a residence of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, but Biden and his wife were not home at the time and no other damage has been reported, CNN cited Secret Service officials as saying Sunday.The shooting happened around 8:25 p.m. Saturday near Biden's residence in Delaware, Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback was quoted as saying. The shots were fired from a vehicle that was traveling at a high speed on a public road several hundred meters way from Biden's residence,

NEWCASTLE, (AFP) - Australian surfers and swimmers defied beach closures on the country's east coast Saturday, taking to the water despite repeated shark sightings over the past week and an attack on a teenage spearfisher.Beaches in the eastern city of Newcastle, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Sydney, were closed for a record eighth-straight day Saturday after two sharks were spotted off the coast.One shark, believed to be a great white, was estimated to be five metres  (16 and a half

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A Canadian tourist with records of several previous child sex offenses has been arrested in Nepal on charges that he lured a 9-year-old boy to his hotel room and had sex with him, police official said Saturday.Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, was arrested at a hotel in Lalitpur, a suburb south of the capital, Kathmandu. He was ordered detained by the district court until the charges can be further investigated, Lalitpur's police chief Pushpa Ranjit said. Officials were not

A South Korean man went missing in a Turkish town bordering with Syria recently with a local media report suspecting that he might have joined the extremist Muslim militant group IS, the Korean embassy in Istanbul said Saturday.Earlier, Milliyet, a local daily newspaper, reported that a Korean man, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, might have crossed the border with Syria and joined IS, citing some undisclosed sources. He is reportedly in his teens.The report claimed the young man, who is

BEIJING (AP) -- Officials and state media say 21 people have been confirmed dead in a tugboat capsizing in eastern China after the vessel was lifted to the surface and dragged to shallow waters of the Yangtze River.The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Saturday that one person remains missing from Thursday's trip to test the newly built tugboat in the river's Fubei Channel in the eastern province of Jiangsu.The ship's owner, parts suppliers and engineers were among 25 people aboard for the test,

WASHINGTON,  (AFP) - The United States on Friday condemned as "tragic irony" the International Criminal Court's decision to open a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians."We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor's action today," State  Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement."It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of  terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutini

South Korea and Japan plan to hold talks on Tokyo's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II early next week, a major stumbling block to the improvement of their bilateral ties, Seoul's foreign ministry said Friday.Lee Sang-deok, Seoul's chief delegate to the talks, will meet with his Japanese counterpart Junichi Ihara on Monday in Tokyo in their sixth round of talks to discuss the issue of the so-called "comfort women", according to the foreign ministry.In April, the two historica

The presidential office reiterated Friday that the issue of former South Korean sex slaves for Japan's World War II soldiers should be quickly addressed.Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook made the comments to reporters, citing the age of the former sex slaves.The issue has gained urgency as the victims are dying off. In 2007, more than 120 South Korean victims were alive, but the number has since dropped to 55, with their average age standing at 88.Min's comments came a day after Suh Chung-wo

South Korea's foreign minister will leave for Switzerland next week to attend this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum to discuss global economic and geopolitical issues, officials said Thursday.Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is likely to depart Seoul around Wednesday to attend the forum to be held in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, officials from the foreign ministry said. The forum is scheduled to kick off on Wednesday for a four-day run.This year's forum is expected to draw about 2,

A South Korean parliamentary delegation led by a confidant of President Park Geun-hye left for Japan on Wednesday for a three-day visit expected to include a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.The visit by members of the South Korea-Japan lawmakers' association comes as the two countries' ties have been strained over various issues related to their shared history, including the Japanese military's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.In Tokyo, the bipartisan group

South Korea is seeking to operate a special express train this year that would pass major cities in Eurasia nations as part of efforts to advance President Park Geun-hye's vision for a united Eurasia, officials said Tuesday.In October 2013, Park unveiled her Eurasia initiative that calls for, among other things, infrastructure development and freer trade among Eurasian nations by linking their railways. South Korea hopes to eventually link its rail network to Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway via