A North Korean court has sentenced a U.S. citizen to 15 years of hard labor, saying he committed "hostile acts" against the secretive state.
The country's Supreme Court delivered the sentence against Pae Jun Ho, known as Kenneth Bae by U.S. authorities, on Tuesday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday.
The KCNA article said Bae a Korean-American, was arrested November 3 after arriving as a tourist in Rason City, a port in the northeastern corner of North Korea. It didn't provide any details about the "hostile acts" he is alleged to have committed.
FULL STORYNorth Korea on Thursday set out demanding conditions for any talks with Washington and Seoul, calling for the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions against it and a permanent end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
The United States and South Korea "should immediately stop all their provocative acts against the DPRK and apologize for all of them," the North's National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by state-run media, using the shortened version of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
FULL STORYAuthorities including bomb experts searched an apartment in Revere, Massachusetts, and removed items, after two deadly bombs struck the Boston Marathon. But investigators remained mum about just how the search may be linked to the bombing investigation.
A law enforcement official said the search was not a suggestion that police may have a suspect. At this point there is no suspect and no leading theory on motive, the official said.
FULL STORYNorth Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position Wednesday, raising concerns that a launch was imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday.
This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive regime, and just a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was due to arrive in the region.
It's not known by the United States why the regime did not proceed with the firing.
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The Obama administration calculates it's likely North Korea may test fire mobile ballistic missiles at any time, based on the most recent intelligence showing Pyongyang probably has completed launch preparations, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The administration believes a test launch could happen without North Korea issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping warning them to stay away from the missile's path, according to the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, on Tuesday called repeated North Korean violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions forbidding the "building and testing" of long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons "a clear and direct threat to U.S. national security and regional peace and stability."
FULL STORYNorth Korea issued its latest dispatch of ominous rhetoric Tuesday, telling foreigners in South Korea they should take steps to secure shelter or evacuation to protect themselves in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
The unnerving message came as Japan set up missile defenses in Tokyo, and North Korean workers failed to turn up for work in the industrial complex jointly operated by North and South Korea.
In the statement published by state-run media Tuesday, the North's Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee reiterated accusations that Washington and Seoul were seeking to provoke a war with Pyongyang.
North Korea kept tensions around its borders simmering Thursday, reviving the alarming but improbable threat of a nuclear attack against the United States and continuing to put pressure on a joint industrial complex where hundreds of South Koreans work.
Pyongyang's latest salvo of ominous rhetoric, warning that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast," came soon after the United States had announced it was sending ballistic missile defenses to Guam, a Western Pacific territory that's home to U.S. naval and air bases. North Korea has cited those bases among possible targets for missile attacks.
FULL STORYNorth Korea on Wednesday stirred up fresh unease in Northeast Asia, blocking hundreds of South Korean workers from entering a joint industrial complex that serves as an important symbol of cooperation between the two countries.
The move comes a day after Pyongyang announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor it shut down five years ago and follows weeks of bombastic threats against the United States and South Korea from the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un, and his government.
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[Updated at 8:22 a.m. ET] North Korea's announcement that it would restart all the facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex was followed by a plea for calm from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is himself South Korean.
Ban said he was "deeply troubled."
"The current crisis has already gone too far," he said in a statement from Andorra. "Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.
[Posted at 2 a.m. ET] North Korea said Tuesday that it plans to restart all the facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, including a uranium enrichment plant and a reactor that was shut down in 2007.
The announcement follows a new strategic line set out at a recent meeting of a key committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Sunday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday.
FULL STORYTwo people in China have died and another remains critical after falling ill with a strain of bird flu not detected before in humans, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
Both of those who died, men aged 27 and 87, lived in Shanghai, while a 35-year-old woman in Chuzhou city in nearby Anhui province is in the hospital, the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission said Sunday, according to Xinhua.
FULL STORYThe death toll from sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar has risen to 40, state media reported Tuesday.
Authorities clearing up the wreckage from the riots last week in the city of Meiktila have found eight bodies among the debris, increasing the number of dead from 32, the New Light of Myanmar, a state-run newspaper, reported in its Tuesday edition.
FULL STORYAfter nearly 15 months being held captive by suspected Islamic militants in the southern Philippines, Warren Rodwell is emaciated, exhausted but delighted to be free at last.
Philippine authorities found Rodwell, a 54-year-old Australian, early Saturday in the port city of Pagadian on the island of Mindanao.
FULL STORYNorth Korea reacted with indignation to a United Nations decision to investigate allegations of human rights abuses inside the isolated state, claiming it has one of the best systems worldwide for protecting citizens' rights.
The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva said delegates agreed Thursday to set up a commission of inquiry to examine what it called "grave, widespread and systematic" violations of human rights in North Korea.
FULL STORY[Updated at 11:52 a.m. ET] South Korean investigators now believe computer outages at South Korean banks and broadcasters Wednesday were caused by cyberattackers, though they're still not sure who those attackers were, South Korean officials and the semiofficial Yonhap News Agency reported.
[Posted at 2:42 a.m. ET] South Korean police said Wednesday they are investigating a computer outage that is affecting servers at three leading television broadcasters and a large bank.
Customers of Shinhan Bank are unable to log into the lender's website at the moment, the company said in an online statement.
And the broadcaster YTN reported that 500 of its computers had been disabled by the outage. Police didn't immediately provide a reason for the server failure.
FULL STORYThe United States' plans to beef up its missile defenses against North Korea are likely to inflame tensions that are running high over Pyongyang's nuclear program, China said Monday.
"Bolstering missile defenses will only intensify antagonism, and it doesn't help to solve the issue," Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular news briefing in Beijing.
FULL STORYPolice have arrested six men following the gang rape of a Swiss woman in central India, officials said Monday.
Investigators have also recovered valuables stolen from the woman and her husband during the attack, Inspector-General S.M. Afzal said.
FULL STORYThe U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday for a resolution strengthening sanctions on North Korea.
The Security Council resolution targeting North Korea and its nuclear program includes tough new financial sanctions, travel restrictions, and inspection powers.
"These sanctions will bite and bite hard," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice told reporters after the unanimous resolution vote on Thursday.
FULL STORYOne of the leaders of a clan from the southern Philippines called for a ceasefire Thursday amid deadly clashes in the Malaysian state of Sabah between armed clan members and Malaysian security forces.
The call for the ceasefire was made at a news conference in Manila by Abraham Idjirani, the spokesman for one of the leaders of the Sultanate of Sulu, a now defunct kingdom in the southern Philippines whose followers arrived in a remote corner of Sabah last month and claimed sovereignty over the area.
After failing to persuade the scores of clan members to leave peacefully, Malaysian security forces launched an offensive using fighter jets and mortar shells on Tuesday. But the clan's leadership said its followers hadn't suffered casualties from the attack.
FULL STORYA day after launching airstrikes and mortar shells in a remote part of the island of Borneo, Malaysian security forces searched house-to-house Wednesday for gunmen from the Philippines who infiltrated the area last month and clashed with police.
The group of Filipino men is believed to number between 100 and 300.
It arrived three weeks ago on the east coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah, on Borneo, demanding recognition as representatives of an old sultanate that once ruled the area.
FULL STORYBangladesh on Monday entered the second day of a strike amid clashes between protesters and security forces that have killed dozens of people after an Islamist party leader was sentenced to death last week for war crimes.
The violence, which has shaken the South Asian country in recent days, left 21 people dead Sunday, authorities said, after supporters of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami attacked police stations and government offices.
The unrest flared after a war crimes tribunal on Thursday handed down a death sentence to Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a top Jamaat leader, for war crimes committed during the country's nine-month war of independence in 1971.
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