North Korean leader vows to take strong action in sign nuclear test may be imminent
By ,
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened top security and foreign affairs officials and ordered them to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures,” state media said Sunday, indicating that he plans to push forward with a threat to explode a nuclear device in defiance of the United Nations.
The meeting of top officials led by Kim makes clear that he backs Pyongyang’s defiant stance in protest of U.N. Security Council punishment for a December rocket launch. The dispatch in the official Korean Central News Agency did not say when the meeting took place.
Last week, the Security Council condemned North Korea’s Dec. 12 launch of a long-range rocket as a violation of a ban against nuclear and missile activity. The council, including North Korea ally China, punished Pyongyang with more sanctions and ordered the regime to refrain from a nuclear test — or face “significant action.”
Diesel fumes more damaging to health than petrol engines
Ministry report says 'green' cars contribute significantly to air pollution and lung diseases
Diesel fumes are significantly more damaging to health than those from petrol engines, according to research which shows that related airpollution contributes to lung disease, heart attacks, asthma and other respiratory problems.
The findings, published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, are an embarrassment for successive governments, which have encouraged a switch to diesel since 2001 by linking road and company car tax to CO2 emissions. Diesel engines have been billed as "green" by car makers, governments and environmental groups because they are more fuel-efficient and emit less CO2 than petrol. Vehicles with low fuel economy and high CO2 emissions are further penalised by higher fuel duty tax, while diesels with the lowest CO2 emissions are not subject to road tax or congestion charges. Insurance premiums are also affected by cars' CO2 status. Last year diesel car sales overtook those of petrol-fuelled cars for the first time. Petrol car sales are now 15% lower than in 2011.
Why Suu Kyi still loves Burma's army
One of her Desert Island Discs? A Tom Jones song she's never heard
Years of house arrest held no fear for Aung San Suu Kyi, thanks to an authoritarian mother who toughened her up. And she remains "fond" of the Burmese military despite the atrocities it committed. "The truth is that I am very fond of the army because I always thought of it as my father's army," she says.
Ms Suu Kyi was only two when her father, General Aung San, the leader of Burma's struggle for independence, was assassinated in 1947. Speaking at her home in the Burmese capital, Naypyitaw, where two paintings of her father are on the wall, she says: "My father is my first love and my best love."
Haiti looks to tourism as way forward
Still struggling to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haiti's prime minister declared it 'open for business.' Rather than depending on international aid, Haiti hopes to attract tourism and investments.
By Angela Charlton, Associated Press / January 26, 2013
Haiti's prime minister says his country is hoping to attract high-end tourists and multinational investors — instead of constant aid handouts — so it can get on its feet after the devastating 2010 earthquake.
Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said Saturday he recognizes that's an ambitious dream for a country where 52 percent of the people live below the poverty line and where infrastructure is desperately lacking.
Still, he pushed that concept — and a bid to build up Haiti's tourism industry — in meetings with CEOs this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland.
"Haiti is open for business," Lamothe said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Haiti still has huge humanitarian needs and little more than half of the $5.3 billion in aid promised after the earthquake has been disbursed.
Lamothe, however, said "we are not going to depend on handouts indefinitely."
27 January 2013 Last updated at 00:44 GMT
Warsaw Ghetto: The story of its secret archive
Throughout the bitter days of the Warsaw Ghetto, a clandestine group of researchers compiled a vast archive detailing every aspect of life in this prison city built and then obliterated by the Nazis. Led by a historian, Emanuel Ringelblum, the group then buried the archive for for future generations.
On the hot night of 3 August 1942, 19-year-old David Graber signed his name on a piece of paper and put it inside a metal box at 68 Nowolipki Street, in the heart of the Warsaw Ghetto.
"I would love to see the moment in which the great treasure will be dug up and scream the truth at the world," he wrote. "May the treasure fall into good hands, may it last into better times, may it alarm and alert the world to what happened… in the 20th Century… May history be our witness."
David knew that he might have only hours, or minutes. German soldiers had arrived in the next street.
Venezuela urged to address prisons; 55 reported dead in riot
Violence that broke out Thursday continues at the severely crowded prison in Barquisimeto, in western Venezuela.
By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
CARACAS, Venezuela — Human rights groups Saturday urged Venezuela's government to take action to improve conditions in the nation's overcrowded prisons, described as some of the worst in Latin America, as the unofficial death toll from several days of rioting at one facility rose to 55.
National Guard members and police at midday were still trying to quell the riot at the Uribana prison in the western city of Barquisimeto, where violence broke out Thursday night when authorities began searching cells for hidden weapons.
Uribana is one of many severely crowded prisons in Venezuela reputed to be under the sway of armed gangs whose tentacles extend to criminal enterprises across the country, including the sale of drugs and control of buildings and farms occupied by squatters.
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