Amid growing aversion to the use of nuclear energy in Japan, officials calling for the elimination of nuclear arms at anniversary rites in Hiroshima have been obliged to also call for a safer energy policy for the country.The city was devastated by a US atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the final days of World War II, with Nagasaki the second city to be hit three days later.The Hiroshima event yesterday comes nearly 11/2 years after a quake and tsunami triggered a nuclear plant disaster in Fukushi

MANILA (AFP) -- At least five people were killed and seven were missing as torrential rains brought the Philippine capital to a standstill Tuesday, with floodwaters covering half the sprawling city, officials said.More than 20,000 people fled their homes due to the rising waters while a deadly landslide buried four houses in a Manila suburb, police said.As local television flashed live footage of rampaging rivers carrying off houses and Manila residents marooned on their rooftops, President Beni

PASADENA, California (AFP) ― After its first day on Mars, NASA’s rover Monday sent back to Earth stunning images of its crater landing site and the mountain it aims to climb in the hunt for signs of life.The landing of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory and nuclear-powered robot Curiosity late Sunday opened a new chapter in the history of interplanetary exploration by touching down on the Red Planet.The one-ton mobile lab is the largest rover ever sent to Mars, and its high-speed landing w

OAK CREEK (AP) ― Before he strode into a Sikh temple with a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition, Wade Michael Page played in white supremacist heavy metal bands with names such as Definite Hate and End Apathy.The bald, heavily tattooed bassist was a 40-year-old Army veteran who trained in psychological warfare before he was demoted and discharged more than a decade ago.A day after he killed six worshippers at the suburban Milwaukee temple, fragments of Page’s life emerged in public

Malaysian police say a 3-year-old girl was killed in a suspected exorcism ritual by her parents and other relatives.District police chief Azman Abdul Lah says police raided a house in northern Penang state late Sunday after receiving a distress call from a relative and found a group of eight people lying on top of the girl in a bedroom.He says the girl was lying face down under the human pile, which comprised her parents, grandmother, uncle, aunt, two cousins and their Indonesian maid. He says t

Torrential rains pounding the Philippine capital on Tuesday paralyzed traffic as waist-deep floods triggered evacuations of tens of thousands of residents and the government suspended work in offices and schools. Incessant downpour set off by the seasonal monsoon overflowed major dams and rivers in Manila and surrounding nine provinces and put authorities on alert. The death toll from last week's

RIYADH (AFP) ― The father of the first ever Saudi female to compete at the Olympic Games has vowed to sue those who insulted his daughter for challenging strict traditions that prevented women from participating.The father of Wojdan Shaherkani, who stole the limelight at the London Olympics despite lasting only 82 seconds on the mat before being defeated, told Al-Sharq daily that he wrote to the interior minister with copies of insults made on the Twitter microblogging website.“I have sent an ur

The search for South Korean mountaineers lost in the Himalayas last fall, including a renowned climber Park Young-seok, is to be resumed, officials said Monday.Officials at the Park Young-seok Exploration and Culture Foundation said that a team of five rescue climbers left for Kathmandu, Nepal, from Incheon Airport on Monday morning to once again carry out the search mission for Park and his two teammates, Shin Dong-min and Kang Ki-seok.The funeral for the three was already held in November last