North Korea said Monday its Cabinet has held an extended meeting to discuss the effect of international sanctions imposed on it and ways to develop its economy through stepped-up exchanges with the outside world.North Korean policymakers deliberated on goals set by leader Kim Jong-un last month that called for simultaneous development of the country's nuclear capabilities as well as its economy as a whole with focus on the light industry, said the Korean Central News Agency in a report, monitore

The nation's police chief pledged Monday to investigate claims that high-ranking police officers had tried to affect the outcome of a police probe into allegations that government spy agents intervened in December's presidential election.Wrapping up a four-month-long probe, Seoul's Suseo Police Station announced Thursday that two National Intelligence Service agents had illegally intervened in politics by posting a slew of politically sensitive comments on the Internet ahead of the Dec. 19 presi

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) -- Worried that long-seething rifts could escalate over the South China Sea, Southeast Asian leaders are expected this week to press China to agree to start negotiations on a new pact aimed at thwarting a major clash in one of the world's busiest waterways.Concern over North Korea's latest threats is also expected to gain attention over economic issues in the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, being held Wednesday and Thursday

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank in a show of outrage Thursday over the deaths of two Palestinian protesters killed in clashes with Israel and a third Palestinian who died of cancer in an Israeli prison. In Gaza, militants fired a rocket that landed in southern Israel, causing no casualties.The unrest has heighted tensions between Israel and the Palestinians after days of West Bank clashes and rocket fire into southern Israel, prompting the

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Disgraced US cyclist Lance Armstrong, who is banned for life from most competitive sports for doping, will compete in a regional swimming championship, a Texas newspaper reported Thursday.The Masters South Central Zone Swimming Championship is not under the umbrella of the US anti-doping agency, which stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France victories and banned him for life from its events, the Austin-American Statesman newspaper reported.Armstrong, 41 will swim over t

European banks may have to offer higher interest rates to attract deposits because of the Cypriot financial crisis, costing the industry about 8 billion euros ($10.2 billion) a year, according to analysts at Barclays Plc.The industry cost could increase to 15 billion euros or 11 percent of its annual profit, as nations bolster deposit guarantee plans and resolution funds, the analysts including Simon Samuels wrote in a note to clients today."Before Cyprus there was hardly any difference in inter

NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has a book deal.She is working on a memoir and policy book about her years as secretary of state, Simon & Schuster told The Associated Press. The book has yet to be titled and is tentatively scheduled for June 2014. Financial terms were not disclosed. Clinton reportedly received $8 million for the 2003 memoir, ``Living History,'' also published by Simon & Schuster.``Hillary Clinton's extraordinary public service has given her a un

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose last week by 28,000, the third straight increase.Weekly applications increased to a seasonally adjusted 385,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's the highest level since late November. The gain pushed the four-week average, a less volatile measure, to 354,250.A Labor Department spokesman says the figures may have been affected by the Easter holiday. The department says the holiday's timing varies from year to year

Drivers involved in fatal U.S. car crashes were more often "lost in thought" than distracted by mobile phones, police data show.Ten percent of U.S. auto accidents that caused death involved at least one motorist who was distracted, Erie Insurance Group said yesterday in a statement on its analysis of national crash data. Daydreaming and being "lost in thought" was the distraction 62 percent of the time, compared with 12 percent for mobile-phone use, Erie said.Auto insurers including State Farm M

KHARTOUM (AFP) -- The first UN food aid has been allowed into Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile state in a "major breakthrough," the World Food Programme said on Thursday, after severe government restrictions."This is the first time that the agency has distributed food assistance since the conflict broke out in September 2011," the WFP said.The war in Blue Nile and another state, South Kordofan, has occurred largely out of world view as Sudan, citing security concerns, tightly constrained the movement

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Iran and world powers trying to curb Iran's nuclear progress are coming to the negotiating table this week with the window shrinking on diplomacy. Tehran is moving closer to the ability to make atomic arms, and that risks the threat of Mideast conflict.Israel says the Islamic Republic is only a few months away from the threshold of having material to turn into a bomb and has vowed to use all means to prevent it from reaching it. The United States has not said what its

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan is making a sweeping shift in its monetary policy, aiming to spur inflation and get the world's third-largest economy out of a long, debilitating slump.Bowing to demands from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for more aggressive monetary easing, the Bank of Japan announced Thursday a policy overhaul intended to double the money supply and achieve a 2 percent inflation target at the ``earliest possible time, with a time horizon of about two years.''BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda describ

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Few imagined Myanmar would embrace democracy when the U.S. began its historic engagement with the military regime. The country's rapid changes were lauded by visiting Western leaders, and the nation's president was hailed as a hero. But spasms of spreading, communal violence show the reform path is bumpier than expected and have taken the sheen off a foreign policy success of the Obama administration's first term.While Washington says the country's overall direction is still p

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Thursday that the bank is considering doing more to shore up the ailing eurozone economy.In comments following the bank's widely anticipated decision to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent, Draghi confirmed that an interest rate cut was discussed.He also said the 23-member governing council was looking at ``various tools'' that go beyond lower interest rates in case the economic recovery doesn't