TOKYO (AP) – Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear power plant was leaking highly radioactive water into the sea Saturday, nuclear safety officials said.The plant has been spewing radioactivity since March 11, when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami knocked out power, disabling cooling systems and allowing radiation to seep out of the overheating reactors.The water was seeping Saturday from

BAGHDAD (AP) – Al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for an attack and hostage-taking that killed 57 people at a government building in northern Iraq.The statement was released on the militants' Web site on Saturday. It five suicide bombers carried out the operation using a car bomb and explosive belts.Gunmen wearing explosive belts under military uniforms charged into the provincial council

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (AFP) – Japan's prime minister set foot Saturday in the tsunami zone for the first time since calamity struck three weeks ago, as the UN warned of a "very serious" nuclear situation.Naoto Kan, who flew into Rikuzentakata on a military helicopter from Tokyo, was also due to stop in nearby Fukushima prefecture, in a show of support for emergency crews risking their lives to prev

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Three insurgents attacked a NATO base on the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital Saturday but were killed by coalition forces before they could enter the compound, NATO and Afghan police said.The attack came just hours after Afghans angry over the burning of a Quran at a U.S. church stormed a U.N. compound in northern Afghanistan, killing seven foreigners.NATO told The Ass

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) – The United States has the capability to intercept ballistic missiles from North Korea, a senior U.S. official has said.Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defense Agency, made the remarks at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday in response to a lawmaker who expressed "concerns about the ground-based midcourse defense system in Alaska and California," c

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli aircraft killed three Palestinian militants who were planning to abduct Israelis over the upcoming Jewish festival of Passover, the military said early Saturday.An Israeli military spokeswoman said that an ``aircraft had fired at a terror squad of the terror group Hamas that was planning to carry out kidnappings.'' She said the group was plotting the attacks for the Jewish

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Japan's unfolding nuclear disaster is "much bigger than Chernobyl" and could rewrite the international scale used to measure the severity of atomic accidents, a Russian expert said here Friday."Chernobyl was a dirty bomb explosion. The next dirty bomb is Fukushima and it will cost much more" in economic and human terms, said Natalia Mironova, a thermodynamic engineer who became

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facebook and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg have been hit with a lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion in damages over a page on the social network which called for a "Third Intifada" against Israel.Facebook this week shut down the "Third Intifada" page, which had almost 500,000 fans, but the lawsuit filed in a court here claims that the social network showed "negligence" by not quic

DAMASCUS (AFP) ― Syrian authorities Thursday announced a raft of measures aimed at meeting protesters’ demands as opposition movements ready for more rallies across the country after Friday Muslim prayers.“Our date is Friday, from all houses, all places of worship, every citizen and every free man, to all squares, for a free Syria,” said a statement posted Thursday on Facebook group The Syria Revo

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) ― The ruler of the Gulf state of Kuwait on Thursday issued a decree accepting the resignation of the cabinet which quit earlier in the day, plunging the oil-rich emirate into a fresh political crisis.The decree, cited by the official news agency KUNA, asked Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahamd Al-Sabah and other ministers to continue as a caretaker government until a ne