WASHINGTON - North Korea has fired two more short-range missiles into waters off its eastern coast, making six launches in three days.
 South Korea’s Defense Ministry said North Korea fired one missile on Monday morning and another in the afternoon into the East Sea - also called the Sea of Japan.
 The latest launches follow three on […]

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was arrested Friday in connection with his dismissal of top judges while he was president. Musharraf did not resist the detention, and plans to appeal his case to the Supreme Court.
 
 Several cars of armed police escorted Pakistan’s former military strongman Pervez Musharraf to court early Friday from […]

WASHINGTON - United States Secretary of State John Kerry has urged North Korea to stop threatening the region’s peace and prosperity and end its nuclear missile program.  During a speech in Tokyo the top U.S. diplomat said region-wide cooperation is needed in Asia, and that includes trying to build a partnership with North Korea.
 At the […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has offered to negotiate with North Korea for a peaceful resolution of tensions on the Korean peninsula if Pyongyang takes steps toward abandoning nuclear weapons.
 The top U.S. diplomat said Pyongyang has a “clear course of action available to it” and will find a “ready partner” for negotiations […]

SEOUL - North Korea on Monday marked the birth of its founder amid regional worries it would use the occasion to provocatively test-fire one or more medium-range missiles.
 On what it calls the Day of the Sun, North Korea honored the 101st birth anniversary of its founder and eternal president Kim Il Sung, who died in […]

WASHINGTON - North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong Un is using his forebears’ time-tested “crazy-guy-in-the-neighborhood’’ strategy, senior U.S. officials say, but with a provocative new twist - aiming Pyongyang’s threats directly at the United States.
 There are indeed signs of an earlier method in what might seem like Kim’s rhetorical madness, which U.S. policymakers say is […]

WASHINGTON - The United States says Pakistan may face economic sanctions over a gas pipeline project with Iran. The $7 billion project is meant to help reduce Pakistan’s crushing energy deficit.
 After nearly 20 years, there is considerable progress on the Iran-to-Pakistan “peace pipeline,” with Iranian contractors starting work on Pakistani sections of the project, having […]

SEOUL - South Korea is not sounding any alarms after North Korea’s war declaration, saying it does not denote a new threat. But U.S. officials say they are taking it seriously.
 South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense has issued a statement calling on Pyongyang to stop making what it calls unacceptable threats.
 The ministry also warns that […]

SEOUL - North Korea claims its leader has put the military’s rocket forces on standby to strike the United States. It is the latest threat from Pyongyang as tension continues to tighten on the Korean peninsula.
 South Korea’s ministry of national defense says it cannot confirm a report of increased activity Friday among North Korea’s mid-and-long […]

WASHINGTON - Afghanistan has taken full control of a controversial detention center from the United States.
 Bagram military prison was handed over to Afghanistan in a ceremony Monday.
 The transfer was scheduled to happen earlier this month, but was abruptly canceled just before a ceremony was to begin.
 A NATO spokesman said then that the transfer would proceed […]

SEOUL - North Korea says it has put its rocket units on the highest combat readiness level. The announcement includes fresh threats to strike U.S. military bases and South Korea.
 The official North Korean news agency and state radio Tuesday afternoon carried the latest announcement from the army’s supreme command that all field artillery units, including […]

TOKYO - Authorities at Japan’s tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have partially restored a crucial cooling system after it was shut down by an unexplained power outage.
 The plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), says equipment used to inject cooling water into spent fuel pools lost power late Monday, raising fears that temperatures […]

SEOUL - A top U.S. defense official is visiting South Korea, where he says North Korea’s recent provocations are only further isolating Pyongyang from the rest of the world.
 Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests, as well as recent threats to launch a nuclear strike and attack frontier islands in the […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama is calling for North Korea to take “confidence building measures” aimed at diffusing tensions, such as ending its nuclear and missile testing.
 In an interview Wednesday with the U.S. television network ABC, Mr. Obama said countries would reciprocate if they saw any kind of responsible behavior from the North Korea. […]

NEW YORK - President Obama’s National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said Monday the United States refuses to reward what he called “bad behavior by North Korea,” and announced the imposition of U.S. sanctions against North Korea’s primary foreign exchange bank.
 
 Donilon said the United States has made clear it is open to authentic negotiations with North […]

SEOUL - North Korea is threatening a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States, as the U.N. Security Council prepares to approve tough new sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test.
 The North’s foreign ministry on Thursday said the country would exercise its “right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor.” It […]

SYDNEY - Australia’s parliament passed legislation this week that will criminalize forced marriages and forced labor.  The laws are aimed at protecting what activists call a “silent army” of victims, many of them migrants.
 The measures will supplement existing anti-slavery laws by criminalizing forced labor, human trafficking and forced marriage.
 Anti-slavery campaigners believe the number of prosecutions […]

NEW YORK - North Korea this month set off its third nuclear test device of the past decade.  And like the previous tests, this one created vibrations in the earth that could be detected around the world.  Now, seismologists - scientists who normally study earthquakes - are analyzing the explosion’s impact. 
 It’s been almost 70 years […]

WASHINGTON - A U.S. based Internet security group is accusing the Chinese government of involvement in a sophisticated campaign of cyber attacks against American businesses, government and critical infrastructure.
 A 60-page report released Tuesday by Mandiant details dozens of attacks by a prolific, China-based hacker group it says is using “direct government support” to wage a […]

SEOUL - North Korea is being sharply criticized for conducting a third nuclear test Tuesday. The underground explosion is in defiance of previous United Nations Security Council resolutions that followed similar nuclear tests. One immediate result is tough talk by South Korea and Japan  — both U.S. allies — about bolstering their defensive capabilities.
 North Korean […]

WASHINGTON - North Korea defied international warnings Tuesday and carried out its third nuclear test, drawing immediate condemnation from leaders around the globe.
 Pyongyang said the “successful” test was in response to what it called the “reckless hostility” of the United States, which has led the global charge toward expanding sanctions against the communist state.
 State media […]

SEOUL - South Korea for the first time has successfully sent a satellite into space from its own soil, joining an exclusive club that only 12 other nations in history have entered.
 South Korea failed previously to achieve a flawless launch, allowing impoverished North Korea to beat its rival into space.
 During South Korean launches in 2009 […]

SEOUL - North Korea issued new threats against the South and its allies on Tuesday, saying it views a recent expansion of United Nations Security Council sanctions as an act of war.
 In a commentary filled with typically inflammatory language, the official Korean Central News Agency promised “merciless retaliatory blows” and a “grand and just war […]

SEOUL - North Korea has reacted swiftly to additional sanctions imposed on it by the United Nations Security Council.  Pyongyang is remaining defiant and hinting of a third nuclear test.
 North Korea’s foreign ministry says the U.N. Security Council was acting as a marionette (puppet) of the United States Tuesday when it adopted this new resolution […]