The Korea Herald

Chinese lawyer goes on trial in dissent crackdown

Dec 29, 2011

BEIJING (AP) -- A former lawyer and veteran activist left disabled by past police mistreatment went on trial Thursday, the third dissident in a week to be prosecuted as China presses a sweeping crackdown to deter popular uprisings like the ones that shook the Arab world.Looking thin and frail, Ni Yulan lay on a bed and used an oxygen machine to help her breathe during the hearing, her daughter, Dong Xuan, said afterward. Dong said she told the court about her mother’s run-ins with police since 2
On-going violence in Syria despite monitors

Dec 29, 2011

BEIRUT (AP) ― Arab League monitors gathered accounts about the Syrian government’s crackdown on dissent in the central city of Homs Wednesday as fresh violence flared just dozens of miles away. Activists said troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters, killing at least six.Though President Bashar Assad’s regime has made concessions to the observers, including the release of nearly 800 prisoners, the military was pressing ahead with a campaign to put down mostly peaceful protests.In th
Venezuela on track to top S. America in murder record

Dec 29, 2011

CARACAS (AFP) ― Venezuela is on track to set a new record murder rate and to remain South America’s most violent country, according to data released by a crime watchdog.The Venezuela Violence Monitor said Tuesday that 19,336 people had been murdered in 2011, an average of 53 per day in a country of 29 million.“We must inform the nation that 2011 will end as the most violent year in the nation’s history,” the group said in a press release.The group’s figures indicate that the rate of homicides cl
Romney and Paul leading Iowa caucuses

Dec 29, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The months of turmoil among Republicans bidding to become the party nominee to challenge President Barack Obama head into a final sorting process in Iowa next week with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul leading a field of seven candidates.Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Paul, a long-serving Texas congressman, are running neck-and-neck in the Midwestern state that holds precinct nominating caucus meetings Tuesday night. The caucuses are a test of the campaign financing and
Putin rejects calls to talk with protest leaders

Dec 29, 2011

MOSCOW (AP) ― Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday rejected calls to hold talks with opposition leaders who have brought tens of thousands of Russians into the streets to demand an end to his 12-year rule, saying he doesn’t know what the demonstrators want or who he would talk to.Putin has belittled the opposition even as his government has rolled out a set of proposed reforms in response to outrage over the Dec. 4 election for parliament, in which only Kremlin-approved parties were allowe
U.S. warns Iran against closing oil passage

Dec 29, 2011

TEHRAN (AP) ― The U.S. strongly warned Iran on Wednesday against closing a vital Persian Gulf waterway that carries one-sixth of the world’s oil supply, after Iran threatened to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz if Washington imposes sanctions targeting the country’s crude exports.The increasingly heated exchange raises new tensions in a standoff that has the potential to spark military reprisals and spike oil prices to levels that could batter an already fragile global economy.Iran
Massachusetts school bullying settlement disclosed

Dec 29, 2011

The family of a Massachusetts teen who killed herself allegedly because she was bullied in school got $225,000 from the town, the settlement document indicated.The document, disclosed Tuesday, indicated the South Hadley family of Phoebe Prince received the settlement in exchange for agreeing not to
Chimp from 1930s Tarzan films dead at 80

Dec 29, 2011

Cheetah, a chimpanzee said to have performed in the "Tarzan" films of the 1930s, has died at the age of 80, according to the Florida sanctuary where he lived."It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011," the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in
Mass protests in Syrian city as monitors arrive

Dec 28, 2011

BEIRUT (AP) ― Tens of thousands of defiant Syrian protesters thronged the streets of Homs Tuesday, calling for the execution of President Bashar Assad shortly after his army pulled its tanks back and allowed Arab League monitors in for the first time to the city at the heart of the anti-government uprising.The pullback was the first sign the regime was complying with the League’s plan to end the 9-month-old crackdown on mostly unarmed and peaceful protesters.Yet amateur video released by activis
Shops shake mafia grip in Naples

Dec 28, 2011

NAPLES, Italy (AFP) ― In the gangster-ridden streets of Naples, any word against the Camorra mafia syndicate is dangerous.The rebellion by a group of shopkeepers against extortion is unprecedented.“The fear is huge because they threaten you, your shop, your family,” said Raffaele Ferrara, a grocer in the city center who lives in fear after he and around 300 others decided to say no this year after decades of oppression.“Every time someone with a suspicious face walks in, you think ‘this is it’,
Foreign residents experiencing Korea’s growing pains of diversity

Dec 28, 2011

Brian had been living in Korea for just over three months when he encountered the unexpected. The ESL instructor, who asked that his last name be withheld, spent a night out with friends in the southern city of Busan and missed the last train home. He decided to go to the nearest “jimjilbang,” Korean sauna, to rest until morning. He found a convenient place with an English sign right next to Busan Station.“I asked in Korean if the place was a jimjilbang and made the sleeping motion with my hands
Indian lawmakers debate anti-graft law

Dec 28, 2011

NEW DELHI (AP) ― Indian lawmakers fiercely debated sweeping anti-corruption legislation Tuesday while a protest leader began a three-day hunger strike demanding Parliament adopt his tougher proposals.The legislative showdown is the culmination of months of angry political debate and public protests that brought tens of thousands of middle-class Indians fed up with rampant corruption into the streets and put a government battered by scandals deeper on the defensive.Hoping to defuse activist Anna
U.S. extradites war crimes suspect to Bosnia

Dec 28, 2011

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) ― The United States has extradited a Muslim Bosnian woman accused of killing Bosnian Croat civilians during the 1990s Bosnian War, authorities said Tuesday.The prosecutor’s office said Rasema Handanovic, 38, has arrived in Bosnia and will appear in front of judges Wednesday.Handanovic ― who has a son and parents in the U.S. ― was extradited a week after the U.S. handed over her alleged comrade Edin Dzeko, 39, who is accused of taking part in the same killings.Bo
Iran seeks death for American accused of spying

Dec 28, 2011

TEHRAN (AP) ― An American man accused by Iran of working for the CIA could face the death penalty, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Tuesday.In a closed court hearing, the prosecution applied for capital punishment, the report said, because the suspect, identified as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, “admitted that he received training in the United States and planned to imply that Iran was involved in terrorist activities in foreign countries” after returning to the U.S.The prosecutor said Hekmati
Argentina’s president has cancer

Dec 28, 2011

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) ― Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and will undergo surgery on January 4, her spokesman said Tuesday in a statement.Kirchner, who was sworn in for a second four-year term earlier this month, was found to have cancer “on the right lobe of the thyroid gland” during a routine medical examination on December 22, said spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro.“The illness has been contained,” Scoccimarro emphasized, adding the cancer had not metast