ATLANTA (AP) -- A motorist is facing charges after police say he crashed a car into a lobby at CNN Center, the news network's headquarters in Atlanta.Authorities say the car shattered a glass entryway before dawn Friday. It came to rest in the middle of the lobby.Atlanta police officer John Chafee says the driver is being charged with driving under the influence, reckless driving and marijuana possession. Chafee said the driver, whose name wasn't released, told police he had smoked marijuana ear

BEIJING, (AFP) - China on Friday said that Vietnamese ships have rammed its vessels more than 1,500 times since early last month, as the  two countries increasingly trade accusations over a South China Sea territorial dispute.At a special briefing with reporters Friday, Chinese foreign ministry  official Yi Xianliang accused Vietnamese vessels of ramming Chinese ships near  an oil rig in contested waters a total of 1,547 times since May 2.Vietnam now has 61 ships in the area while China has 71,

BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Hisham Issa Kamel slipped out of his home in Baghdad early Friday and headed to a recruitment centre, joining thousands of others signing up to fight an offensive by Sunni Arab militants.His wife opposed the move, but she did not understand how serious the  situation in the country has become, "so I did not listen to her," Kamel said.The assault spearheaded by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has overrun a vast swathe of northern and north cen

A Seoul court ruled Friday that the state tax office refund Lone Star Funds 119 billion won (US$117 million) in taxes collected from the U.S. buyout fund in its sale of a stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB).In June 2007, Lone Star, which bought KEB in 2003, sold part of its stake in the lender for 1.19 trillion won via a block sale.Local tax authorities withheld 10 percent of the sale proceeds in capital gains taxes. Challenging the taxation, LSF-KEB Holdings, Lone Star's subsidiary, filed a laws

South Korea's national pension fund plans to raise its stock investment in 2015 while cutting its exposure to safer assets in a bid to boost its return, the welfare ministry said Friday.According to the ministry, the National Pension Service (NPS), among the world's big four pension operators, will raise the portion of local stocks in its overall investment portfolio to 20 percent next year from 19.7 percent at the end of last year, while slashing its exposure to local bonds to 52.9 percent from

The South Korean government on Friday recommended construction companies operating in Iraq to evacuate from areas captured by Arab militants for their safety.The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport sent out messages through the International Contractors Association of Korea for the companies and their staff to leave Iraq's Nineveh province.Sunni Arab militants captured Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh, earlier this week. They are also said to have captured Tikrit, the provincial cap

SHANGHAI,  (AFP) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a veiled warning to the United States on Wednesday, saying countries should not build up military alliances in Asia, even as Beijing feuds with several neighbours.Speaking at an Asian regional security forum in Shanghai, Xi said a rising China would seek "peaceful" means to resolve territorial disputes.Beijing has sought to counter Washington's foreign policy "pivot" to Asia, but it has also irritated Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines -- t

SHANGHAI (AP) -- China signed a long-awaited, 30-year deal Wednesday to buy Russian natural gas worth $400 billion in a financial and diplomatic boost to diplomatically isolated President Vladimir Putin. Negotiations on the price for the gas had continued into the final hours of a two-day visit by Putin to China, during which the two sides had said they hoped to sign a deal. The agreement calls for Russia's government-controlled Gazprom to supply state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. with 3

The death toll from last month's deadly ferry sinking rose to 288 on Wednesday as divers recovered one more body from the submerged hull during an early morning search, officials said. A female body was retrieved from the sunken ferry Sewol, lowering the number of those still missing from the maritime accident to 16, according to officials of the government accident settlement team in charge of the search efforts. The 6,825-ton ferry carrying an estimated 476 people, mostly high school students,

Prosecutors entered a church retreat Wednesday to find and detain the de facto owner of a sunken ferry Sewol who has refused to appear for questioning over corruption allegations. A group of some 70 prosecutors and investigators, armed with court-issued warrants, entered the premise belonging to the Evangelical Baptist Church, where Yoo Byung-eun was suspected of hiding, around noon in Anseong, just south of Seoul. Yoo remains an influential founding member of the religious sect.Yoo -- an entrep

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- Hope Keown was reading the newspaper in her kitchen when she noticed a face she hadn't seen in years. Staring up from the page was her estranged stepfather's mug shot, next to a story about how he starved himself to death in a Kentucky prison.The story triggered tears, confusion and a torrent of memories about James Kenneth Embry, the man she knew as ``Kenny'' and ``Spider Red.'' She recalled the good times, such as when a sober Embry helped with homework and folded

President Park Geun-hye apologized to families of the victims of the sunken ferry Sewol for the government's poor response to the sinking, promising to significantly upgrade the country's safety standards to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.Park made the remarks during a meeting with a group of representatives of victims' families at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae to hear their views and demands as she prepares measures to remedy numerous problems revealed through the disas

KIEV,  (AFP) -- Gunmen have taken over a police station in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Kremlin militants are already holding state buildings in several cities, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Saturday."Armed men in camouflage fatigues have taken the police station in Slavyansk," Avakov wrote on his Facebook page, adding that "the reaction will be very strong." He did not provide any other details.

KUALA LUMPUR, (AFP) - The co-pilot of missing Malaysian airliner MH370 attempted to make a mid-flight call from his mobile phone just before the plane vanished from radar screens, a report said Saturday citing unnamed investigators.The call ended abruptly possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower", The New Straits Times quoted a source as saying.But the Malaysian daily also quoted another source saying that while Fariq Abdul Hamid's "line was reattac

TOKYO (AFP) -- A Japanese cabinet minister visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo on Saturday, in a move likely to cause anger in China and South Korea, which see it as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.Yoshitaka Shindo, minister for internal affairs and communications, paid homage Saturday morning at the Yasukuni shrine, Jiji Press and other news reports said.Shindo, a regular visitor to the shrine, insisted that it was a "private matter", playing down the potential for diplomatic fallou