Six In The Morning

U.S., allies warn North Korea against 'provocative' moves

By Matt Smith, CNN

(CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts warned North Korea against any "provocative" moves Sunday ahead of a possible new nuclear bomb test by Pyongyang.

In a round of calls Sunday, Kerry, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea's Kim Sung-hwan all agreed the North must understand "that it will face significant consequences from the international community if it continues its provocative behavior," according to a summary of the calls from the U.S. State Department.

Earlier Sunday, North Korea announced that its leader, Kim Jong Un, "has made an important decision" that would strengthen the country. The brief statement on the state-run news agency KCNA provided no details, but it said the decision was made at a meeting of the reclusive Stalinist state's Party Central Military Committee.

EUROPEAN UNION

European Parliament president offers stark warning on EU

Days before a crucial EU summit the president of the European Parliament has offered a dire warning over the state of the bloc. Martin Schulz told a German newspaper that the very future of the EU is may be at risk.

In an interview published in Monday's edition of Bonn's General Anzeiger newspaper, the German politician who was also elected president of the European Parliament in January last year, warned that the EU's very survival was "under threat." He added that it had lost a great deal of public support.

"When people turn away from a project or an idea, then at some point it will come to an end," Martin Schulz said.

Timbuktu tried passive resistance on Islamists

Sapa | 04 2月, 2013 07:25

Timbuktu has been part of three empires, survived invasions and had countless rulers, and it met its 10-month occupation by Islamist extremists with the stoicism of a city that has seen centuries of history.

The insurgents of Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) ruled Timbuktu under a brutal form of Islamic law, or sharia, from the time they seized the city in the chaotic aftermath of a March military coup until French-led troops reclaimed it last week.

Unlike Gao, which reacted to the Islamists' rule of northern Mali with violent protests, Timbuktu chose "a form of passive resistance", said Abdoul Salam Ascofare, a 67-year-old retired schoolteacher.

"We had the experience of our grandparents, who had lived through colonisation" by France from 1893, said Ascofare as he had his white beard trimmed at a salon on a sandy street off the fabled city's main market.

Musicians caught up in Mexico's drug wars

The violent deaths of all but one member of a musical band in northern Mexico have thrown a spotlight on the murky world of musicians who play for the country's drug gangs, says the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City.

When the families and the authorities arrived at the scene of the party in the northern Mexican town of Hidalgo, they found it deserted.

There were bottles of beer and whisky strewn around on the ground, and the cars belonging to members of the musical band, Kombo Kolombia, had been left open and abandoned.

But there was no sign of the missing musicians.

Prosecutors grill nuclear safety chief over Fukushima

In a possible prelude to criminal charges, prosecutors have questioned Haruki Madarame, former chief of the now-dissolved Nuclear Safety Commission, about delays in announcing radiation fallout data when the Fukushima crisis began and the failure to protect power plants against tsunami, news reports said Sunday.

Madarame was responsible for giving the government technical advice on the crisis, NHK quoted sources as saying. He appeared voluntarily for questioning and was apparently asked to explain how he dealt with the disaster, the public broadcaster said.

Is piracy a Mega problem for Hollywood?

By Alex HudsonBBC News

File-hosting site Mega has faced intense criticism about the sort of files it has been storing in the cloud, but the sharing of copyrighted content illegally is a problem far more widespread.

The launch of Mega was meant to be founder Kim Dotcom's big return.

Dotcom - originally called Kim Schmitz - is still awaiting a hearing relating to criminal charges, in part, about the "massive scale" of copyright infringement and pirated material on his original site Megaupload - charges he denies.

Megaupload became one of the most popular websites on the web before it was shut down but Mega is meant to be bigger, better and - most importantly - legally watertight.