A Swedish school is requiring 13-year-old students to play the popular computer game Minecraft to encourage creative thinking.Monica Ekman, a teacher at the Viktor Rydberg school in Stockholm, said the game teaches students many practical skills, The Local.se reported Wednesday."It‘s their world and they enjoy it," Ekman said. "They learn about city planning, environmental issues, getting things done, and even how to plan for the future."Ekman said about 180 students are being given lessons surr

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt urged North Korea on Thursday to shed its self-imposed isolation and allow its citizens to use the Internet or risk staying behind economically, after seeing the tightly controlled country on a private visit.Schmidt joined former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richards in a delegation that also urged North Korea to put a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests that have prompted U.N. sanctions and sought fair treatment for a detained American citizen there.

Venezuela's Supreme Court chief on Wednesday endorsed putting off President Hugo Chavez's inauguration, siding with the government in a heated dispute with the opposition while the ailing leader struggles with complications a month after cancer surgery in Cuba. Supreme Court President Luisa Estella Morales made the statement after the opposition urged the top court to rule that the government was violating the constitution by delaying the swearing-in for a new term, which had been scheduled for

ZAATARI, Jordan (AP) ― A winter storm is magnifying the misery for tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the country’s civil war, turning a refugee camp into a muddy swamp where howling winds tore down tents and exposed the displaced residents to freezing temperatures. Some frustrated refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 60 kph winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that hel

NEW DELHI (AFP) ― India summoned Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi on Wednesday to protest at the killing of two soldiers and the reported beheading of one of them in a border attack that has raised tensions in South Asia. The two Indian soldiers died after a firefight erupted in disputed Kashmir around noon Tuesday as a patrol moving in fog discovered Pakistani troops about 500 meters inside Indian territory, according to the Indian army.Promising that New Delhi’s response would be “proportionate,”

GUANGZHOU, China (AFP) ― A Chinese weekly newspaper at the center of rare public protests about government censorship will publish as usual on Thursday, a senior reporter said, following reports of a deal to end the row.“The newspaper will publish as normal on Thursday,” the reporter at Southern Weekly, who declined to be named, said after reports said staff had reached an agreement with the authorities.The row at the popular liberal paper, which had an article urging greater rights protection r

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Japan’s main opposition party urged Tuesday against Tokyo revising an apology for Japan’s use of sex slaves during World War II. Motohiro Oono, an upper house lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Japan, said it would be “counterproductive” to change a 1993 apology, known as the Kono statement, in which Japan expressed remorse for the suffering of so-called “comfort women.” Oono urged caution by new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his handling of historical issues. Abe, whose conser

TOKYO (AFP) ― New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to make Southeast Asia his first foreign destination, reports said Tuesday, despite an earlier pledge to go to Washington before anywhere else.The second-time premier is expected to visit Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam later this month, after “scheduling difficulties” put the brakes on a trip to the U.S., the major dailies Asahi and Yomiuri reported, without citing sources.Abe said on Monday that although he wanted to visit the United

Syrian rebels on Wednesday freed 48 Iranians they had been holding for months in a swap for 2,130 prisoners detained by the Syrian regime, according to a Turkish charity, a rebel spokesman and Iranian state television."This is the result of months of civil diplomacy carried out by our organization," a spokesman for the Turkish charity the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), Serkan Nergis, told AFP in Turkey.The regime's prisoners exchanged for the Iranians were of several nationalities, includ

Failure to appear interested in the job during an interview was the No. 1 mistake made by job seekers, a survey of hiring managers found.In a survey conducted for employment agency CareerBuilder by Harris Interactive, 62 percent of hiring managers said an apparent lack of interest was among the mistakes made during interviews by job candidates."A lack of enthusiasm can leave the employer feeling less than enthusiastic about you as a candidate," CareerBuilder said in a news release Wednesday.The