Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
World Oct 1, 2013
Germany admits chemical exports to Assad in '11
The German government admits it had approved as recently as 2011 the export to Syria of chemicals that could be weaponized, and in larger quantities than previously known.
World Oct 1, 2013
Syria foreign minister likens civil war to 9/11
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem on Monday pledged to cooperate with international inspectors charged with dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program, but he vowed to crush a rebellion that he said has drawn strength from al-Qaida and other internationalist jihadists. Addressing a gathering of world ...
World Oct 1, 2013
U.S. Marine generals fired for Afghan security lapses
The commandant of the Marine Corps on Monday took the extraordinary step of firing two generals for not adequately protecting a giant base in southern Afghanistan that Taliban fighters stormed last year, resulting in the deaths of two marines and the destruction of a ...
Asia Pacific | Focus Sep 30, 2013
Troop command top issue as Hagel visits South Korea
Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and South Korea still cannot agree on who should take charge if another war breaks out with the communist neighbor to the north. For years, Washington has been trying to persuade the ...
World Sep 30, 2013
Chemical inspectors detail Syria arms plan
Syria's government has been "businesslike and efficient" ahead of meetings this week to lay the groundwork for the destruction of the country's chemical weapons, officials charged with overseeing the effort said say.
Politics & Diplomacy Sep 29, 2013
Politics and pride drive Putin's anti-U.S. shift
by Kathy Lally
First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must ...
World Sep 28, 2013
U.N. passes resolution on Syrian chemicals
The U.N. Security Council approves an ambitious plan for Syria to surrender its chemical arms but does not spell out penalties if Damascus fails to comply.
World Sep 25, 2013
Searchers comb Kenya mall for dead
Kenyan troops and rescue workers scour the wreckage of a Nairobi shopping mall for bodies and booby traps after a four-day siege by Islamist gunmen.
World Sep 25, 2013
Kenya attack unfolds in real time on Twitter
As the deadly attack unfolded inside Kenya’s Westgate Mall, the militants who claimed responsibility for the spreading mayhem sent out tweet after tweet, taunting the country’s military, defending the mass killings and threatening more bloodshed. Each time Twitter shut the account down — a ...
World | Focus Sep 25, 2013
Nairobi mall visit becomes a trip to hell
“You’re a very bad man,” a brave 4-year-old British boy told one of the Islamist gunmen in the bloody siege of a Nairobi mall, one of the many poignant tales emerging from the attacks that have horrified the world. It was a Saturday and ...
World Sep 25, 2013
Dozens of young American jihadists recruited by al-Shabab
Dozens of Americans have been lured away from comfortable homes to join Somalia’s al-Shabab insurgents, the Islamist group behind the bloody attack on a Kenyan mall. While the FBI said Tuesday it has not yet been able to confirm reports that two or three ...
World Sep 24, 2013
Confusion engulfs Kenya mall siege
Sporadic gunfire rang out Tuesday from inside a Nairobi mall as Kenyan security forces battled al-Qaida-linked terrorists into a fourth day in what they said was a final push to rescue the last few hostages in a siege that has left more than 60 ...