PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Cambodian officials say a golden urn containing what are considered to be remnants of the Buddha's body has been stolen from its shrine near the capital.Government spokesman Ek Tha said Friday that the relics have enormous cultural and religious significance for Cambodians, noting that the late King Norodom Sihanouk moved them in 2002 from Phnom Penh, the capital, to the mountain shrine in the former royal city of Udong, in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands.Na

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's chief weather forecaster says Sochi will have enough snow for the Winter Olympics in February.Two test events in Sochi had to be cancelled last February because of lack of snow or rainy weather in the area, which is the only sub-tropical region of Russia.Organizers have stored snow and installed what they described as Europe's biggest snow-making system to make sure there's enough snow for the games, which begin on Feb. 7.Roman Vilfand, director of the Russian Meteorologi

Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., an affiliate of South Korea's biggest conglomerate Samsung Group, said Friday that its board has decided to sell its entire stake in Samsung Card Co. to improve its financial health and resources.Samsung Electro-Mechanics plans to sell its 4.42 million shares to Samsung Life Insurance Co., another Samsung Group affiliate, for 157.6 billion won (US$149.7 million), the company said in a regulatory filing.The stake sale was to be made through a block deal after the cl

BEIJING  -- China is exercising "effective supervision" of its recently expanded air defense zone over the East China Sea in response to a South Korea-Japan joint naval drill in international waters covered by Chinese airspace, Beijing said Friday. South Korea and Japan conducted the regular naval drill this week with two destroyers and two helicopters each from the two navies, South Korean military officials said. They practiced search and rescue operations, according to the officials.As South

Prosecutors said Friday they are seeking an arrest warrant for the head of family-run conglomerate Hyosung Group on suspicions that he created large amounts of slushfunds and evaded taxes.Chairman Cho Suck-rai, who was summoned by prosecutors twice earlier this week for questioning, is facing multiple charges including embezzlement, tax fraud and breach of trust, prosecutors said."Senior prosecutors at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office have decided to seek the warrant for (Cho) afte

More than 400 people attended a special mass held by Catholic priests on Friday urging President Park Geun-hye to step down, just hours after the presidential office expressed displeasure at their move.Members of the left-leaning Catholic Priests' Association for Justice gathered in the southwestern city of Gunsan for the mass demanding Park take responsibility for the state agencies' alleged intervention in last year's presidential race to sway the election in her favor. "We can only conclude t

Israel's opposition Labour party announced on Friday that its members have elected a new leader -- former government minister Isaac Herzog -- seen as more open to joining the right-leaning ruling coalition.Herzog defeated incumbent Shelly Yachimovich with 58.5 percent of the vote in Thursday's election among the party's some 55,000 members, official results showed.Herzog's victory could affect the make-up of rightwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition, with the new Labour lead

MANILA (AP) -- The death toll from one of the strongest typhoons on record has risen above 5,000 and is likely to climb further, although recovery efforts are beginning to take hold, Philippine officials said Friday.Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said 4,919 people were killed on Leyte, Samar and nearby islands in the Eastern Visayas region. Civil defense chief Eduardo del Rosario said 290 others died in other parts of the central and southern Philippines.The regions were battered two weeks ago by

Official records have confirmed that Japanese military police massacred Koreans during Tokyo's colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula following a powerful earthquake in Japan in 1923, a South Korean lawmaker claimed Friday.The claim by Rep. Yoo Ki-hong of the main opposition Democratic Party comes three days after the National Archives of Korea unveiled decades-old records of Koreans who were killed during the March 1919 independence movement and following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.Histor

South Korea's trade commission said Friday that it has decided to launch an investigation into an alleged dumping of Japanese polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film.The decision follows a formal complaint from three South Korean manufacturers, according to the Korea Trade Commission."The commission decided to launch an antidumping investigation after a review of materials submitted by the petitioners yielded a conclusion that their complaint was reasonable," the commission said in a press release

Relief pitcher Oh Seung-hwan of the Samsung Lions decided to move to Japan's Hanshin Tigers on a record-breaking, first-term contract, his agency said Friday.The 31-year-old signed on for two years with the Nippon Professional Baseball team for 300 million Japanese yen (US$2.9 million) a year with a signing bonus of 200 million yen. With 50 million yen in annual incentives, Oh can receive up to 900 million yen from the Hanshin Tigers. The amount is the highest among his three predecessors includ

BEIJING,  (AFP) -- An oil pipeline exploded Friday in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, killing 35 people, state media said, in the latest deadly industrial accident in the country.The force of the blast ripped roads apart, turning cars over and sending thick black smoke billowing over the city, pictures showed.One pedestrian had a leg blown off and another man's head was crushed under a piece of concrete debris.The pipeline, run by state-owned oil giant Sinopec, sprang a leak early Friday an

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan and Russia held their first high-level defense and diplomatic talks Saturday and agreed to step up cooperation between their militaries amid regional security concerns such as North Korea and China.Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, and their Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu also agreed to hold joint military and anti-piracy exercises and establish a defense consultation framework. Their countries' defense ties a

TORONTO (AP) -- A lawyer for Toronto's embattled mayor accused the city's top cop of acting as "judge, jury and executioner" a day after police said they had obtained a copy of a long-rumored video that appears to show Rob Ford puffing on a crack pipe.Ford's lawyer Dennis Morris attacked Police Chief Bill Blair on Friday for saying he was ``disappointed'' in the mayor at a news conference announcing the video had been recovered from a computer hard drive during an investigation of an associate o

BEIJING -- China's propaganda minister pledged to deepen relations with North Korea during a meeting here with theNorth's media delegation, according to state media Saturday.Liu Qibao, chief of the publicity department of China's Communist Party, made the remarks on Friday when he met with the North Korean delegation led by Kim Won-sok, deputy editor of the North's ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, Xinhua news agency reported."It's an unswerving principle of the Chinese Party and government