TOKYO (AFP) ― Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet U.S. President Barack Obama this week for the first time since taking power, seeking to breathe new life into a key alliance at a time of heightened tensions across Asia.Abe will be keen to get the reassurance of strong U.S. support on a visit to Washington that comes amid an escalating row with China over disputed islands, and in the same month that North Korea carried out its third nuclear test. While Abe is the fifth Japanese premi

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday that France would not give in to "terrorists" after the kidnapping of seven members of a French family in northern Cameroon.Seeming to exclude the possibility of paying a ransom, Fabius told the National Assembly: "We must do the maximum (to free the hostages) but nothing would be worse than yielding. We will not yield to terrorist groups."The family -- a couple, their children aged five, eight, 10 and 12 and an uncle -- were snatched in northern Ca

In a disheartening signal to world powers at upcoming Iran talks, Tehran has started installing high-tech machines at its main uranium enrichment site that are capable of accelerating production of reactor fuel and _ with further upgrading _ the core of nuclear warheads, diplomats said Wednesday.Iran already announced last week that it had begun mounting the new enriching centrifuges, but one diplomat said at the time that the announcement was premature with only a “small number” on site and not

South African police said on Wednesday there were no signs that Oscar Pistorius physically assaulted his girlfriend before shooting her, after reports a bloodied cricket bat was found at the home of the track star.Detective Hilton Botha agreed during a bail hearing with defence lawyer Barry Roux, who said there were "no signs of an assault and no signs of her defending herself against an assault."Media reports at the weekend said investigators had found a bloodied cricket bat at Pistorius's  lux

WASHINGTON (AP) ― As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is eyeing fines and other trade actions it may take against Beijing or any other country guilty of cyberespionage.According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House will lay out a new report Wednesday that suggests initial, more-aggressive steps the U.S. would take in response to what top autho

BRUSSELS (AP) ― When the armored car set off for the Brussels airport carrying $50 million worth of precious stones from Antwerp’s diamond district, eight gunmen knew all about it.One of the biggest diamond heists in recent memory was about to go down.The thieves surely knew it would be too risky to make their move in Antwerp, which is the world capital of diamond-cutting, 43 kilometers from the airport. The city’s diamond industry has some 2,000 surveillance cameras, police monitoring and count

PARIS (AP) ― A French soldier was shot to death on Tuesday in a clash with jihadists in a mountainous region of Mali’s far north, a critical operation in France’s bid to end a growing stranglehold by radicals who had imposed an extreme brand of Islam over more than half the West African country and threatened the borders beyond. The death of the French Legionnaire, announced by President Francois Hollande, brings to two the number of French troops who have been killed since France launched a sur

TAIPEI (AFP) ― Taiwan plans to withdraw troops from two islets near the Chinese mainland and will turn the former battleground into a tourist attraction as relations improve, officials said Wednesday.The two tiny islets, Tatan and Ertan, form part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen island group off southeast China’s Xiamen city and are currently manned by around 120 soldiers.Kinmen county magistrate Lee Wuo-shih Tuesday discussed the plan for the two islands with minister without portfolio Lin Chen

BEIRUT (AP) ― A Syrian missile strike leveled a block of buildings in an impoverished district of Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least 33 people, almost half of them children, anti-regime activists said.Many were trapped under the rubble of destroyed houses and piles of concrete and the death toll could still rise further if more bodies are uncovered.The apparent ground-to-ground missile attack struck a quiet area that has been held by anti-regime fighters for many months, a reminder of how diffi

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) ― A gas explosion that sparked a massive, block-engulfing blaze in an upscale Kansas City shopping district injured 14 people, a city official said Tuesday evening, adding that it is believed that an accident involving a utility contractor may have caused the blast. City Manager Troy Schulte said he did not know of anyone being reported missing and had not heard of any fatalities. Earlier Kansas City police had said the blast was caused by a car crashing into a gas mai