BEIJING (AFP) -- Disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai will not stand trial until March at the earliest, state media said Monday, as dozens of journalists descended on a court rumoured to be hearing his case this week.Speculation mounted last Friday that details of the biggest scandal to hit the ruling Communist Party in decades would be heard on Monday at a court in the southwestern city of Guiyang, after a report in a Hong Kong newspaper.But the state-run Global Times newspaper, citing "a sour

CAIRO (AP) -- Riot police fired tear gas at rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo on Monday as clashes continued a day after Egypt's president declared a state of emergency in three provinces and vowed to deal "firmly and forcefully" with a wave of political violence roiling the country.The violence, which began around Friday's second anniversary of the uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, has plunged Egypt once again into political turmoil and exposed the deep fault lines run

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Monday it has successfully sent a monkey into space, describing the launch as another step toward Tehran's goal of a manned space flight.According to a brief report on state TV, the rocket dubbed Pishgam, or Pioneer in Farsi, reached a height of 120 kilometers. The report gave no other details on the timing or location of the launch, but said the monkey returned to earth safely.Iran has long said it seeks to send an astronaut into space as part of its ambitious aer

TAIPEI (AFP) -- One of Taiwan's richest men on Monday launched what has been widely touted as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and it is even more lucrative than the famed Swedish award.Samuel Yin, head of the sprawling Ruentex business empire which has invested heavily in China, said that by donating Tw$3 billion ($101 million) for the Tang Prize he had fulfilled one of his biggest dreams."I hope that the prize will encourage more research that is beneficial to the world and humankind,

BAMAKO (AFP) -- French-led troops ringed Mali's fabled desert city of Timbuktu Monday after seizing its airport in a lightning advance as fleeing Islamists torched a building housing priceless ancient manuscripts.French paratroopers swooped in to try to block fleeing hardliners as ground troops coming from the south seized the airport in the ancient city which has been one of the bastions of the extremists controlling the north for 10 months."We control the airport at Timbuktu," a senior officer

TOKYO (AP) -- A U.S. envoy said Monday that North Korea is playing a dangerous game with the international community by threatening a nuclear test and urged the communist nation to scrap its plan.Glyn Davies, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, urged Pyongyang to return to its international obligations in abandoning its nuclear programs."We find North Korea that seems bent on playing a game of risk.  This is very dangerous," he told reporters after meeting with his Japanese count

SEJONG (Yonhap News) -- President Lee Myung-bak ordered the Cabinet Tuesday to thoroughly review the recently passed bill to provide financial support to the taxi industry, a possible indication that he might veto it.The ruling and opposition parties passed the bill through parliament in late December. Criticism arose that the bill was hurriedly pushed through only to win the support of tens of thousands of taxi drivers.The bill designates taxis as a form of mass transportation, along with buses

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- The Google chairman wants a first-hand look at North Korea's economy and social media in his private visit Monday to the communist nation, his delegation said, despite misgivings in Washington over the timing of the trip.Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of one of the world's biggest Internet companies, is the highest-profile U.S. executive to visit North Korea _ a country with notoriously restrictive online policies _ since young leader Kim Jong Un took power a yea

BRUSSELS (AFP) -- The European Union reiterated Sunday that President Basahar al-Assad must step aside to allow a political settlement after the Syrian leader called for a national dialogue in a much-awaited speech in Damascus.A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a short statement: "We will look carefully if there is anything new in the speech but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition."The 27-nation bloc first deman

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine army special forces and police killed 13 suspected criminals in a fierce gunbattle Sunday on the main northern island of Luzon in the latest violence to erupt in the country in the last week.A police officer was wounded in the shootout, which raged for 20 minutes in the coastal town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 140 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Manila, the capital.The gunmen, who were riding in two black SUVs, opened fire on more than 50 army

A Seoul court on Thursday rejected Japan’s request to hand over a Chinese attacker of Japanese facilities here and Tokyo. Liu Qiang, 39, was immediately released and is expected to return to his homeland.He was sentenced to 10 months in jail for hurling four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy building in Seoul in January 2011. His term ended in November but remained in custody pending the court’s review of Japan’s request to repatriate him. He confessed to an arson attack in December 2010

North Korea strongly denounced South Korea's national security advisor Sunday, calling him a traitor and a bad element who, it said, only worked to justify Seoul's hostility toward Pyongyang.The harsh criticism came two days after a local daily here published a recent interview with the top presidential advisor for national security, Chun Young-woo, in which he claimed the incumbent South Korean government has fundamentally changed the nature of relations between the divided Koreas.The North's C

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's government swore in 10 new ministers on Sunday in a Cabinet shake-up aimed at improving the government's handling of the country's struggling economy.The top posts that changed hands were the ministers of interior, which handles the police, and finance. Also included in the shuffle are the ministries of civil aviation, communication and information technology, environment and electricity. A new minister for legal and parliamentary affairs was named after the former had resi

LONDON (AFP) -- David Cameron said Sunday he wanted to serve as British prime minister until at least 2020 to oversee a range of reforms including a renegotiation of Britain's relationship with Europe.In a raft of interviews ahead of a midterm review of the progress of his coalition government on Monday, Cameron also defended a largely unpopular decision to remove child benefit payments from higher earners.Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph he intended to lead his Conservative Party to victory in

NEW YORK (AP) -- The NHL and the players' association reached a tentative agreement early Sunday to end a nearly four-month-old lockout that threatened to wipe out what was left of an already abbreviated season.A marathon negotiating session that lasted more than 16 hours, stretching from Saturday afternoon until just before dawn Sunday, produced a 10-year deal."We've got to dot a lot of Is and cross a lot of Ts," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."The c