Some seven out of 10 Japanese people regard South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as their territory, with 90 percent being aware of a diplomatic row between the two countries over it, a survey showed Thursday.According to the survey of 440 Japanese citizens and students on the Dokdo issue, 91 percent said they have heard of Japan's diplomatic tension with South Korea over Dokdo, the rocky outcroppings in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.Of the respondents, 67 percent

A previously unseen press photo of an apparently teenaged Princess Diana that a London tabloid deemed too hot to publish is coming up for auction in the United States later this month.The black-and-white image from the dawn of the 1980s shows Diana, possibly in a ski chalet, smiling at the camera as she lies comfortably in the lap of a like-aged but unidentified young man reading a book.By the window stands a bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky, but more intriguing are the words “not to be published

A weary U.S. congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid the economy-threatening ``fiscal cliff'' of middle-class tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts late Tuesday night hours before financial markets reopen after the New Year's holiday.The bill's passage on a 257-167 vote in the House of Representatives sealed a hard-won political triumph for the president less than two months after he secured re-election while calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. The economic as w

Egyptian prosecutors launched an investigation on Tuesday against a popular television satirist for allegedly insulting the president in the latest case raised by Islamist lawyers against outspoken media personalities.Lawyer Ramadan Abdel-Hamid al-Oqsori charged that TV host Bassem Youssef insulted President Mohammed Morsi by putting the Islamist leader's image on a pillow and parodying his speeches.The case against Youssef comes as opposition media and independent journalists are growing increa

House Republicans abandoned demands for changes in emergency legislation approved by the Senate to prevent widespread tax increases and painful across-the-board spending cuts and cleared the way for a final, climactic New Year's night vote before financial markets reopen Wednesday.The decision capped a day of intense political calculations for conservatives who control the House. They had to weigh their desire to cut spending against the fear that the Senate would refuse to consider any changes

An official in a British county has criticized teachers at a high school for creating a YouTube parody of South Korean pop star Psy‘s “Gangnam Style” video.Peter Britcliffe, a county councilor in Lancashire, England, said he feared the video created by teachers and staff members at Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School in Accrington would cause students to lose respect for their instructors, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.The video depicts the teachers performing the dance moves from the

South Korean home appliance giant LG Electronics Inc. said Wednesday it has started receiving orders for its 55-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs in South Korea.Consumers can apply for pre-orders of the 11 million won ($10,319) TV at 1,400 retail outlets across the country, with delivery set to start in early February, the company said in a press release.LG plans to expand sales to major markets in Asia, Europe and the U.S. in the first quarter, an LG spokesman said, without further e

A bill on protecting "stateless children" from North Korea was sent to President Barack Obama's desk Tuesday for his signature after both chambers of Congress passed it.The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill, entitled "An Act to develop a strategy for assisting stateless children from North Korea, and for other purposes."The bill, also dubbed "North Korean Child Welfare Act of 2012,"notes that hundreds of thousands of North Korean children suffer from malnutrition in the c

A 6-acre tract in Philadelphia, owned by a church group derided as a cult, is available in an eBay auction, starting at $4.5 million. The property, which includes a swimming pool, a basketball court and 10 rundown buildings, on an entire city block, is owned by the Church of Bible Understanding, an organization founded by Stewart Traill, a former vacuum cleaner salesman who rebranded himself a prophet and attracted followers beginning in the 1970s, The Philadelphia Inquirer said Monday.By 1985 t

A military bomb disposal team took care of some unfinished World War II business in eastern England after a boy found an old bomb, officials said.Sonny Carter, 7, was using a metal detector he got for Christmas during a walk with his parents Wednesday, the Lynn News reported. He got a hit on Roydon Common near the family's home in Gaywood, Norfolk. The family brought the mud-caked object home and washed it off. Then Sonny's father, Jem Carter, got concerned and called a friend who had been a Roy

A Swedish hospital said new precautions are being taken after a dentist's drill unattached during a procedure and ended up in a patient's lung.Officials at the Vastmanland Central Hospital in Vasteras said the drill became loose and fell into the mouth of a 60-year-old woman, who was undergoing dental implant surgery last September, The Local.se reported Friday."She tried to spit it out, and was made to cough, but she'd already swallowed," said Per Weitz, the hospital's medical chief.Weitz said