Alleged LA-area pepper-spraying shopper surrenders

Authorities in Los Angeles say a woman who allegedly fired pepper spray at other customers during a Black Friday sale has surrendered to police.

Pakistan buries troops amid fury over NATO strike

Cargo trucks, including those carrying supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan, are seen halted along the Pakistan-Torkham border, after it was shut down to traffic November 26, 2011. NATO helicopters attacked a military checkpoint in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing up to 24 troops and prompting Pakistan to shut vital supply routes for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

Pakistan today buried 24 troops killed in a NATO cross-border air raid that has pushed a crisis in relations with the United States towards rupture.

The attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, starting with the secret raid which killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May, and the question is whether ties will break or whether the two sides will remain stuck in a bad marriage of convenience.

NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two Pakistan military outposts yesterday, killing the soldiers in what Pakistan said was an unprovoked assault.

NATO and US officials expressed regret about the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers, but the exact circumstances of the attack were unclear.

“US stabs Pakistan in the back, again,” said a headline in the Daily Times, reflecting fury over the attack in Pakistan, a regional power seen as critical to US efforts to stabilise neighbouring Afghanistan.

Unseen Jackson film valued at RM25m goes unsold

Jackson performs “Dangerous” during a taping of “American Bandstand’s 50th... A Celebration” in Pasadena, California, April 20, 2002.


Previously unseen footage of Michael Jackson’s 1993 “Dangerous” tour, which had been expected to fetch £4-5 million pounds (RM19.8–RM24.7 million), failed to sell at auction in Britain yesterday.

“At this stage it has not sold,” said a spokesman for The Fame Bureau auctioneers, who specialize in pop memorabilia. “We are still talking to people, but online it did not sell.”

He said he was confident a buyer would be found, although “nothing is a certainty.”

The auction house said it had been forced to remove a brief clip of the video from its website before the online auction after Jackson’s record label made a “copyright claim.”

The fact that a successful buyer may not be able to use the film for commercial purposes may have dampened demand given the hefty asking price, but the spokesman played down the copyright dispute.

“I don’t think that was a problem at all,” he said, adding that any serious potential buyer would be fully aware of the issue.

Pakistan stops NATO supplies after deadly raid

Student supporters of Islami Jamiat Talaba, a student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, protest against NATO forces in front of a burning tyre in Lahore, November 26, 201


NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging US-Pakistan relations deeper into crisis.

Pakistan retaliated by shutting down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in nearly half of the alliance’s land shipments.

Islamabad also said it had ordered the United States to vacate a drone base in the country, but a senior US official said Washington had received no such request and noted that Pakistan had made similar eviction threats in the past, but did not follow through.

Arab ministers impose travel sanctions on Syrian officials

Arab finance ministers have agreed to impose sanctions on Syria including a ban on its senior officials' travel and suspension of trade links after Damascus ignored a deadline to end a violent crackdown on opposition protesters.

Russia’s Putin accepts presidential nomination

Pedestrians walk beneath a poster of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin along a street in central Moscow November 26, 2011. Russians will vote in a parliamentary election on December 4

Vladimir Putin accepted his ruling United Russia party’s nomination today as its candidate in a March 4 presidential vote, paving the way for his return to the country’s top office after four years as prime minister.

The timing of the announcement, which was a certainty after Putin revealed in September that he planned to return to the Kremlin next year, appeared aimed to give United Russia a boost in a parliamentary election next Sunday amid flagging support.

Afghans Say Pakistan Fired First in NATO Attack

As Pakistan's top leaders gathered Sunday to bury 24 Pakistani soldiers killed by NATO airstrike, Afghan officials said Pakistani forces fired first and challenged the Pakistani claim that the helicopter attack was ...

China PM responds to outrage over school bus crash

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the ASEAN-China Commemorative Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali November 18, 2011. Wen pledged central and local government funds to improve and provide school bus service to China’s schools in the wake of a traffic accident that killed 18 pre-school children.


Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today pledged central and local government funds to improve and provide school bus service to schools in the wake of a traffic accident that killed 18 pre-school children and sparked outrage across the country.

A school van with nine seats but crammed with 62 children and two adults crashed head-on into a coal truck in western Gansu province after the van swerved into oncoming traffic, television and other media reports said.

The two adults on board also died in the crash and 44 people were injured.

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Michael Jackson Would 'Absolutely' Be Alive If Not for Conrad

5 in the Conrad Murray trial, speaks out exclusively to "Good Morning America" about the tense moments inside the jury room. (ABC) Nearly all the 12 jurors

Video: Dr. Conrad Murray Placed on Suicide Watch‎

Israel’s Barak dismisses talk of attacking Iran

Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak arrives to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on April 3, 2011


Defence Minister Ehud Barak today played down speculation that Israel intended to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, saying it had not decided to embark on any military operation.

“War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don’t want a war,” Barak told Israel Radio ahead of the release this week of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear activity.

“(Israel) had not yet decided to embark on any operation,” he said, dismissing Israeli media speculation that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had chosen that option. ― Reuters

Widely praised Mexico marines commit abuses in drug war, rights group says

In its report, New York-based Human Rights Watch documents 234 cases which the group says represent serious abuse by US-trained marines and other security forces in several Mexican states.

Some Arab leaders offered haven for Assad: U.S.

Some Arab leaders have told the United States they are willing to provide safe haven to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hasten his "inevitable" departure from power, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

Sarkozy told Obama he is fed up with Israeli PM

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.


French President Nicolas Sarkozy told President Barack Obama last week he was fed up with dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and considered him a liar.

Sarkozy made the comment during a private conversation with Obama during a G20 summit in the French riviera town of Cannes last week and the remarks were overheard by a small number of journalists but not initially reported.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama during a frank exchange where the US president took him to task for backing a Palestinian request for membership of the UN cultural heritage agency UNESCO.

US drone strikes must stop, says American lawyer

A Global Hawk UAV is seen flying over an unidentified location in this US Air Force image.




Prominent international human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith was impressed by the 16-year-old boy who wanted to draw attention to civilian deaths caused by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Tariq Aziz had volunteered to take pictures of people killed by the remotely piloted aircraft to help Stafford Smith highlight what he calls illegal killings.

Three days later, on October 31, he and his 12-year-old cousin were themselves killed by a drone missile strike in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, Stafford Smith said.

For the veteran lawyer, the deaths highlighted major flaws in the CIA-run drone campaign, which US officials say is invaluable in the war on militants.

“What they did to Tariq was absolutely disgusting,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Calls for tougher sanctions against Iran following IAEA report

A UN nuclear watchdog report is expected to show concern that Iran benefited from foreign expertise to help develop technology that could be used to build atomic bombs, Western officials said yesterday.

Tehran is “clearly trying to reach out to nuclear scientists around the world,” a Western diplomat accredited to the UN agency in Vienna said, suggesting it was a case of Iran contacting individuals rather than their governments.

Other Western officials painted a similar picture of suspected foreign involvement in providing know-how for activities seen as geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability, but it was unclear how extensive it had been.

Quake Kills at Least 3 in Turkey

A 5.6-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday in the same region hit by a larger quake two weeks ago killed at least three people and trapped others who had moved into damaged buildings that collapsed Wednesday, the Turkish media ...

China protests Mongolia visit by Dalai Lama

China said today that it had lodged a complaint with the Mongolian government about a visit to the vast and remote country by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who Beijing considers a dangerous separatist.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China had made “stern representations” to the government in Ulan Bator about the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

“We have always opposed any country providing a platform for the Dalai Lama to engage in activities to split China in any form,” he told a daily news briefing.

Cemetery collector with 29 bodies arrested

A still image taken from undated police footage shot inside the flat of Anatoly Moskvin and released to Reuters on November 8, 2011. It shows books, clothes and dressed figures, reportedly mummified bodies desecrated from cemeteries.


Russian police have arrested a man described by local media as the "cemetery collector" for digging up 29 corpses and dressing the remains in female clothing to display around his flat.

Grainy police video images of the man's cramped flat showed what look like several life-sized female dolls without faces, some with platinum blond wigs.

Thai PM pledges flood relief as fight for Bangkok goes on

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra pledged more than US$4 billion (RM12.47 billion) today to help Thailand recover from the worst floods in half a century, as workers slowed the flow of water threatening the commercial heart of the capital, Bangkok.

Evacuation orders have spread to a third of Bangkok’s districts, mostly in the north of the densely populated city of 12 million people, since late October, as floodwater strewn with trash slowly seeps in from northern and northeastern provinces.

Big asteroid has close encounter with Earth

This NASA radar image showing asteroid 2005 YU55 was obtained on November 7, 2011, at 11.45am PST (2.45pm EST/1945 UTC), when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometres, from Earth.


A black asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier has zoomed past Earth, delighting astronomers who trained telescopes on the ancient body in hopes of learning more about its composition and origin.

With a diameter estimated at 400 metres, or about a quarter of a mile, Asteroid 2005 YU 55 is the biggest asteroid to make a close pass by Earth since 1976.

During its closest approach, which occurred at 6.28pm EST (2328 GMT) yesterday, it was inside the orbit of the moon, about 322,000km above the planet. It posed no threat to either.

Zsa Zsa Gabor returns to hospital

Gabor and husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt celebrate his 68th birthday, on June 18, 2011.



Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was rushed to a hospital yesterday for the second time in less than a month after complications arose from her recently replaced feeding tube, her husband said.

‘Her stomach is bleeding and her feeding tube is coming out,” Frederic Prinz von Anhalt told Reuters. “It’s not good.”

The 94-year-old actress was hospitalized just over two weeks ago due to complications with a feeding tube attached to her stomach. The tube was replaced and she returned home.

Gabor has been in and out of hospitals numerous times since July 2010, when she fell out of bed and broke her hip. Last January, doctors amputated a portion of her leg and in February, she was treated for a lung infection.

Woman accuses US presidential candidate Cain of groping

Radio talk show host and former chief executive officer of Godfather's Pizza Herman Cain, speaks during the Reagan Centennial GOP presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California September 7, 2011.


A woman accused US Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain yesterday of reaching under her skirt in 1997, adding to sexual harassment allegations that are threatening to derail his campaign.

Cain, a former pizza company executive, has led many opinion polls in the race to be the Republican nominee to face President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in next year’s election.

Sharon Bialek said Cain made the unwanted advance after dinner in Washington when she asked for help finding a job after she was laid off by the National Restaurant Association, which he then headed.

Bialek, who identified herself as a registered Republican and single mother from Chicago, put a public face on a growing problem for Cain’s campaign. The 65-year-old candidate quickly denied her account, saying all allegations of sexual harassment against him were “completely false.”

Bialek, looking composed and confident before a phalanx of television cameras, said she had not filed a complaint against Cain but was now coming forward to “give a face and a voice to those women” who did not wish to go public.

Meet the last surviving master of the Sikh warrior art: He lives in Wolverhampton and he is on the lookout for an apprentice * But former factory worker, 45, says learner warrior must come to Midlands * 'I am the last known remaining master - it is my mission in life now to find a successor to carry on this great martial art. If I die with it, it is all gone'

Nidar Singh Nihang has devoted his life to the mysterious Sikh martial art of Shastar Vidiya.

Having learned his skills from an 80-year-old Indian guru, he is now seeking an apprentice to keep the ancient art alive.

But he insists that any budding warrior wanting to follow in his footsteps must travel to his home - in Wolverhampton.

Berlusconi’s top ally tells him to resign

Silvio Berlusconi’s closest coalition ally Umberto Bossi told him to resign today in what could be a mortal blow to the Italian prime minister.

Bossi, head of the devolutionist Northern League, said the 75-year-old media magnate should be replaced by Angelino Alfano, secretary of the premier’s PDL party.

“We asked the prime minister to stand down,” Bossi told reporters outside parliament.


Berlusconi (picture) has until now remained defiant ahead of a key parliamentary vote today afternoon, refusing calls from all sides to step down, but Bossi’s call could tip the balance against him.

The League, together with many members of the PDL, are believed to want Berlusconi to make way for a new centre-right government capable of facing a huge economic crisis and restoring the confidence of markets without handing power to a transitional administration.

Agents intercept military flare in mail

Federal agents at Chicago's O'Hare Airport averted "a potential catastrophic event" when they stopped a package containing a live military flare from being loaded onto a flight to Japan, says a federal agency.

The Customs and Border Protection said the Vietnam War-era device, identified as an M49A1 phosphorous trip flare, was found in the mail as it was passing through the busy facility on Thursday.

Brian Bell, a customs supervisor, said he did not know whether the package that contained the device would have been routed onto a passenger or cargo plane.

China warns of turmoil over Iran, mute on sanctions

A general view shows the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, about 1,215km south of Tehran, in this file photo of November 30, 2009. China warned on November 9, 2011 against turmoil in the Middle East from action over Iran’s nuclear programme.


China warned today against turmoil in the Middle East from action over Iran’s nuclear programme, but declined to comment on the possibility of new sanctions following a UN report that Iran appears to have worked on designing an atomic weapon.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was “studying” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, and repeated a call to resolve the issue peacefully through talks.

UN report reinforces worries over Iranian threat

Germany says it will push for resolution urging Iran to return to negotiating table; Hague: Britain considering how to raise pressure on Iran.

China shuts 50 microblogs for porn, vulgarity

China has shut 50 microblogs for distributing pornography and carrying “vulgar content,” state media said today, as the government steps up monitoring of the internet.

“The microblogs were shut down for violations that include carrying pornographic images and videos, information for prostitution, as well as illegal advertising for sex-related drugs and productions,” Xinhua news agency said.

“Members of the public reported the microblogs, which were then investigated and closed by authorities,” it added, citing an unidentified official at one of the country’s internet regulators, the State Internet Information Office.

Dr. Conrad Murray considers testifying about Michael Jackson's death

Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician charged in Michael Jackson's death, says he is still undecided about whether he will take the stand.

In Tripoli, Nato chief hails ‘free Libya’

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen listens to journalists questions during a Nato conference in Budapest on November 19, 2009


Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen yesterday hailed the end of the alliance’s military intervention in Libya, which helped bring about the death of deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“It’s great to be in Libya, free Libya,” Rasmussen told a news conference in the capital Tripoli. “We acted to protect you. Together we succeeded. Libya is finally free, from Benghazi to Brega, from Misrata to the Western Mountains and to Tripoli.”

He said he was proud of the part Nato had played in the seven-month insurgency against Gaddafi, in which Nato planes and ships turned their firepower on his forces.

Shortly after Rasmussen spoke, members of the ruling National Transitional Council elected a new interim prime minister, whose predecessor resigned after Libya was officially declared liberated.

As Floods Drag on in Thailand, Displaced Grow Restless

As Floods Drag on in Thailand, Displaced Grow Restless Ron Corben | Bangkok In Thailand, local aid groups are calling on authorities to better manage and support local communities that are struggling to cope after spending weeks under ...

US soldier sentenced to 10 years in S.Korea rape case

Protesters stage a rally denouncing the crime of US soldiers in Seoul November 1, 2011.

A South Korean court today sentenced a US Army private to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a local teenage girl in one of the heaviest punishments handed to an American serviceman stationed on the divided peninsula.

Obama planning next steps in Afghan drawdown

US President Barack Obama delivers remarks on education at the University of Colorado in Denver on October 26, 2011

The White House has asked the Pentagon for initial recommendations for the US troop presence in Afghanistan in 2014, a first step in planning the final US drawdown there despite a bleak security outlook.

Sources familiar with the discussions said President Barack Obama’s top aides have asked for scenarios for 2014. As part of that process, the Pentagon must look at troop levels for 2013 ― suggesting deeper withdrawals beyond the removal, by next September, of the 33,000 surge troops Obama deployed in a bid to turn around the flagging decade-old conflict.

“Planning for troop levels in 2013 and 2014 is now in a preliminary phase,” said Bruce Riedel, the former CIA officer who chaired the review of Afghan policy Obama ordered when he took office in 2009 and retains close White House ties.

US cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian vote

David Killion, center, permanent delegate of the United States to UNESCO, reacts as delegates vote on Palestinian membership to the UN cultural agency in Paris

Thai flood frustration grows, Cabinet eyes recovery

Airplanes are reflected in flood waters in Bangkok’s domestic Don Muang airport at dawn on November 1, 2011. Nearly 400 people have been killed in months of floods that have disrupted the lives of more than 2 million. Don Muang, used by budget airlines for domestic flights and by private planes, has been closed since Oct. 25.


Anger mounted among victims of Thailand’s catastrophic floods today as water flooded new neighbourhoods as it made its way to sea and the government plotted a recovery aimed at securing the long-term confidence of investors.

The floods began in July and have devastated large parts of the central Chao Phraya river basin, killed nearly 400 people and disrupted the lives of more than 2 million.

Inner Bangkok, protected by a network of dikes and sandbag walls, survived peak tides on the weekend and remains mostly dry.

Kim Kardashian Divorce INSANITY at LAX - Was Kardashian Wedding a Stunt? - Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries File For Divorce

A sad-looking Kim Kardashian faced the media last night ... a MASSIVE swarm of paparazzi waiting for her at LAX, which fired off questions faster than Kim could end a marriage.

Prosecutors ridicule Jackson self-injection scenario

Defence attorney J. Michael Flanagan and Dr. Conrad Murray (right) wait to take their seats after a lunch recess yesterday



An expert defence witness suggested yesterday that Michael Jackson could have risen from his bed, picked up a syringe left by his doctor and given himself a fatal dose of a powerful anaesthetic in 2009.

But the testimony by Dr. Paul White in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray was ridiculed by prosecutors in an aggressive cross-examination of the key witness for the defence.

As the trial, now in its sixth week, began drawing to a close, Murray told the judge he was still considering testifying in his own defence, despite previous assurances by his lawyers that they did not plan to call him.