South Korea has stopped calling North Korea an "enemy" in its biennial defense document in an apparent effort to continue reconciliation with Pyongyang.
The development comes as US and North Korean leaders are looking to set up their second summit to defuse an international standoff over the North's nuclear program.
South Korea's defense white paper published Tuesday doesn't include its typical term labelling North Korea its "enemy, "present enemy" or "main enemy."
The terminologies have been a source of animosity between the Koreas because the North called it a provocation that demonstrated how hostile the South was.
South Korea first called North Korea a "main enemy" in its 1995 document, a year after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into "sea of fire.

South Korea defense report doesn't refer to North as enemy

PTI Automatic

The number of airport security screeners failing to show up for work around the country is soaring as the partial government shutdown goes into its fourth week.
No-shows among screeners jumped Sunday and again Monday, when the Transportation Security Administration reported a national absence rate of 7.6 per cent compared with 3.2 per cent on a comparable day a year ago. Monday marked the first business day after screeners did not receive a paycheck for the first time since the shutdown began.
At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, some passengers waited more than an hour to get through checkpoints. The airport reported the long lines on its website Monday morning, showing the hour-plus waits at all three checkpoints in the domestic terminal.
"It's chaos out here," passenger Vincent Smith said as he stood in a line that snaked through the Atlanta airport's atrium and baggage claim areas.
"This line, I've been here about 15 minutes and it has moved 2 .

No. of no-show airport security screeners soars in shutdown

The warring parties in Yemen have refused to talk face-to-face during two meetings to discuss the redeployment of forces from the key port of Hodeida, which is to be overseen by a U.N. monitoring team, the United Nations said Monday.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said retired Dutch Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, the head of the monitoring team, had to shuttle between representatives of Yemen's government and Houthi Shiite rebels who were in different rooms.
Their refusal to sit in the same room was another indication of the lack of trust between the warring parties, and the difficulty in implementing the full agreement that Houthi and government leaders reached in Sweden on December 13.
Dujarric said Cammaert is trying to find "a mutually acceptable way forward" to redeploy forces from Hodeida, whose port handles 70 per cent of the food and humanitarian aid imported into Yemen, as well as the smaller ports of Salif and Ras Isa and parts of Hodeida city that are critical for ...

UN says Yemen's warring parties refuse to meet together

A top Russian diplomat says he and his American counterpart are set to meet Tuesday to discuss the dispute over a Cold War-era arms control treaty that Washington has threatened to abandon.
Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying he would sit down with Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson in Geneva.
The meeting concerns the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The 1987 pact between the United States and the Soviet Union bans production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 500 and 5500 kilometres.
President Donald Trump declared his intention in October to withdraw from the treaty over alleged Russian violations.
The US gave Russia a February deadline to address its objections and come into compliance.

Russian, US diplomats to meet on endangered missile treaty

Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control cannot be enforced anywhere in the nation, a federal judge wrote Monday in a decision blocking the rules from taking effect.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced.
Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs associated with unintended pregnancies.
The rules would have allowed more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also object on moral grounds.
The rules had been scheduled to take effect Monday. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the ruling a "victory for the health and ...

Trump birth control coverage rules blocked nationwide

The United Nations says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and stressed again that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only path to peace.
Guterres' strong backing for an independent Palestinian state came ahead of the release of a long-awaited U.S. plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace and Israeli elections in April.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric says Guterres also congratulated Abbas during Monday's meeting on the election of the Palestinians to preside over the Group of 77, a bloc of 134 mainly developing nations and China that promotes their collective interests at the United Nations. Abbas will take over the chairmanship from Egypt on Tuesday.
As Abbas and his entourage left U.N. headquarters, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters: "It was a good meeting.

UN chief backs 2-state solution in talks with Palestinians

Antarctica is melting more than six times faster than it did in the 1980s, a new study shows.
Scientists used aerial photographs, satellite measurements and computer models to track how fast the southern-most continent has been melting since 1979 in 176 individual basins.
They found the ice loss to be accelerating dramatically  a key indicator of human-caused climate change.
Since 2009, Antarctica has lost almost 278 billion tons (252 billion metric tons) of ice per year, the new study found.
In the 1980s, it was losing 44 billion tons (40 billion metric tons) a year. The recent melting rate is 15 per cent higher than what a study found last year.
Eric Rignot, a University of California, Irvine, ice scientist, was the lead author on the new study in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
He said the big difference is that his satellite-based study found East Antarctica, which used to be considered stable, is losing 56 billion tons (51 billion metric tons) of ice a ..

Antarctica is losing ice 6 times faster today than in 1980s

Stormy Daniels is suing the police department in Ohio's capital for USD 2 million over her arrest at a strip club last summer.
The federal defamation lawsuit filed Monday alleges that Columbus officers conspired to retaliate against the porn actress over her sex allegations concerning Donald Trump before he became president.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was arrested in July on suspicion of inappropriately touching a female undercover officer. Two other club employees also were arrested.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Daniels hours later, saying the law cited in her arrest applied only to those who regularly performed at the club.
The city prosecutor later said the law was "glaringly inequitable" and should no longer be enforced.
Messages were left for the police department and for the city prosecutor Monday.

Stormy Daniels sues police over her arrest at strip club

A New York woman with a rare blood type is donating two units to help save a 2-year-old South Florida girl who is battling cancer.
News outlets report the woman had donated her own blood while pregnant in case she needed a transfusion during her delivery.
Luckily, she didn't need it, and has agreed to give it to Zainab Mughal, who has neuroblastoma.
Susan Forbes of Florida-based OneBlood says that transfer still needs approval from the FDA, and the woman isn't eligible to donate yet after giving birth.
OneBlood is asking for donors for the girl, whose blood lacks an antigen most people carry. The donor must be Pakistani, Indian or Iranian, and even within these groups, fewer than 4 percent have the genetic variation.

Some help, more needed for Florida girl with rare blood type

British Prime Minister Theresa May offered both a promise on workers' rights and a reassuring letter from European Union leaders on Monday as she implored British lawmakers to support her floundering Brexit deal.
But the British leader had few concrete measures up her sleeve a day before a vote in Parliament which looks likely to see her Brexit deal rejected. A defeat on Tuesday would throw Brexit plans into disarray just weeks before the UK is due to leave the bloc on March 29.
May warned that the only alternatives to her agreement were an economically damaging, chaotic "no-deal" exit from the EU or a halt to Britain's departure that would defy British voters' decision in 2016 to leave the bloc.
In a speech Monday at a ceramics factory in the pro-Brexit central England city of Stoke-on-Trent, May said "people's faith in the democratic process and their politicians would suffer catastrophic harm" if her deal is rejected and Brexit was abandoned.
The other option, leaving the EU ...

UK leader mounts last-ditch bid to win Brexit deal backing

Unusually high levels of smog worsened by weather patterns are raising alarm across Asia, with authorities in Thailand's hazy capital Bangkok handing out face masks and preparing to seed clouds for rain to clear the air.
A combination of construction dust, auto exhaust and other pollutants, lingering over Bangkok due to prevailing weather patterns, has taken air quality to unhealthy levels in recent days.
"I admit these are temporary solutions but we have to do it. Other long term measures will also be implemented, Police Gen. Aswin Kwanmuang told a meeting of army, police, pollution control and other officials on Monday.
The city was handing out some 10,000 face masks, spraying water to help settle dust and tightening controls on when big trucks can use city streets  the Thai Pollution Control Department said that about half of the high levels of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that can dangerously clog lungs, was due to diesel engine emissions.
The Department of Royal Rainmaking and 

Heavy smog, worsened by weather, raises alarm across Asia

A decades-old Iranian Boeing 707 military cargo plane reportedly carrying meat from Kyrgyzstan crashed on Monday while trying to land west of Iran's capital, killing 15 people on board and leaving a sole survivor, authorities said.
The crash of the jetliner marked just the latest aviation disaster for Iran, which hoped to replace its aging fleet under terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
But instead, President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the accord in May scuttled billions of dollars in planned sales by Airbus and Boeing Co. to the Islamic Republic, only increasing the danger for passengers in Iran planes.
The aircraft, which bore the paint scheme of the Iranian air force's Saha civilian airline, was making emergency landing around 8:30 am Monday at Fath Airport, an airfield controlled by Iran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The plane skidded off the runway, crashed through a perimeter fence and into a residential neighbourhood.
Iranian state television ...

Cargo plane crash in Iran kills 15, leaves 1 survivor

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is attacking the country's current leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, for breaking with Israel's ambiguity over its strikes against Iranian targets in Syria.
Barak's comments on Monday came a day after Netanyahu's abrupt confession that Israel had struck hundreds of Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent years, including a weapons facility over the weekend.
Israel has generally refrained from commenting about its covert activities for fear of triggering a reaction and being drawn into the deadly fighting in neighboring Syria's civil war.
Barak, a former military chief, told Israel's Army Radio that "exposing it was completely unnecessary" and increased the chances of a deterioration.
He insinuated that Netanyahu's considerations in doing so may have been political ahead of Israel's upcoming April election.

Barak slams Netanyahu for breaking Israel ambiguity on Syria

Singapore's foreign minister says there will be "consequences" if neighbouring Malaysia continues to escalate a dispute over waters that are claimed by Singapore.
In a speech to Parliament on Monday, Vivian Balakrishnan reported "daily intrusions" by Malaysian government vessels which have been in the waters off western Singapore since November. He also raised a widely publicized visit by a Malaysian chief minister, who boarded one of the vessels last week.
The visit came a day after Balakrishnan and his Malaysian counterpart met in Singapore. They announced a working group for tensions in the waters, which are less than 24 nautical miles, or around 44 kilometers, wide.
The two countries, which were briefly merged in 1963, have agreed to peacefully resolve disputes over territorial waters and airspace.

Singapore: Malaysia to bear 'consequences' of actions at sea

An Iranian Boeing 707 cargo plane coming from Kyrgyzstan crashed on Monday while trying to land west of Iran's capital, state media reported, with an emergency official saying only one person of the 16 on board was known to have survived.
Fire immediately engulfed the aircraft after it skidded off a runway and crashed into a wall separating the Fath Airport from a residential neighborhood. Images carried by Iran's state-run media showed the burned-out tail of the plane sticking out, surrounded by charred homes.
The plane crashed at Fath Airport, which belongs to Iran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, when it was meant to land at the nearby Payam International Airport, about 40 kilometers west of Tehran, the Iranian capital.
Authorities did not immediately offer a reason for the crew's decision to land there, though they said the crew had declared an emergency prior to land.
Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of the country's emergency medical services, said of the 16 people on .

Cargo plane crashes in Iran; 1 survivor from 16 on board

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Saudi Arabia for talks on a range of Mideast crises topped by the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, threats from Iran and the Saudi response to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.
Pompeo was meeting with the Saudi king and crown prince on Monday, the latest stop of a Middle East tour that has so far been dominated by questions and concerns about the withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
Speaking with senior Saudi officials on his arrival in Riyadh late Sunday, Pompeo stressed the importance ending fighting in Yemen and keeping up pressure Iran.
The State Department said Pompeo also made clear the importance of a credible investigation into Khashoggi's killing at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey in October.

Yemen, Iran, Khashoggi murder top Pompeo's talks in Saudi Yemen,

The wife of Nissan's former chairman Carlos Ghosn has written a letter to Human Rights Watch, a global advocacy group, criticizing her husband's long detention and Japan's criminal justice system as unfair and harsh.
"My husband's is a case study in the realities of this draconian system," Carole Ghosn wrote in a nine-page letter Monday to the Tokyo branch of the organisation.
Carlos Ghosn was arrested Nov. 19 and has been charged with falsifying financial reporting in underreporting his income and with breach of trust in having Nissan Motor Co. shoulder his personal investment losses and make payments to a Saudi businessman.
Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades and rescued the Japanese automaker from near-bankruptcy, asserted his innocence in a Tokyo court last week. It was his first public appearance since his arrest.
Carole Ghosn's letter describeshow prosecutors interrogateprisonerswithout a lawyer present in an apparent effort to get a confession conditions that are routine for .

Ghosn's wife slams Japan detention as 'draconian' in letter

Navy divers have located the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said Monday, in a possible boost to the accident investigation.
Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location.
"We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee's chairman," he said.
A spokesman for the Indonesian navy's western fleet, Lt Col Agung Nugroho, said divers using high-tech equipment found the voice recorder beneath 8 meters (26 feet) of seabed mud. The plane crashed in waters 30 meters (98 feet) deep.
The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29, killing everyone on board.
The cockpit data recorder was recovered within days of the crash and showed that the jet's airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four 

Indonesia finds Lion Air jet's cockpit voice recorder

Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema had to be substituted at half-time of Sunday's Spanish league match at Real Betis after hurting his right hand.
Madrid coach Santiago Solari said Benzema had fractured his hand.
"He was in a lot of pain," Solari said.
Madrid was already without Gareth Bale, Toni Kroos, Marco Asensio, Mariano Diaz and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois due to injury.
Benzema needed to be attended by team doctors when he fell after a brush with a Betis defender in first-half stoppage time. He was replaced by reserve-team player Cristo Gonzalez during the break. Benzema leads Madrid in scoring with 12 goals in all competitions this season.

Madrid striker Karim Benzema injures right hand

There were too many saves for Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea to even remember.
Everyone else was certainly counting: Eleven. The most by any goalkeeper in a Premier League match this season. And they were all in the second half to thwart a Tottenham comeback.
The Spaniard's virtuoso goalkeeping performance protected a 1-0 victory in the Premier League on Sunday after Marcus Rashford's first-half strike, giving United a sixth successive victory in all competitions since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replaced Jose Mourinho.
"I said to David at halftime, 'You might have to make a save here, you have to keep your concentration,'" Solskjaer said.
"He didn't have to keep his concentration because he was never allowed to relax. He is a fantastic goalkeeper. I think he's the best in the world."
Few would dispute that on Sunday as De Gea was masterful with his hands and feet  particularly frustrating efforts by Harry Kane and Dele Alli to equalize.
"I don't even remember some of them," De ...

De Gea's saves help United beat Tottenham in Premier League

A winter storm that contributed to at least five deaths in the Midwest pummeled the mid-Atlantic region for a second day Sunday, bringing with it an icy mix that knocked out power, cancelled flights and contributed to hundreds of car accidents.
Virginia State Police said the driver of a military surplus vehicle was killed late Saturday after he lost control on Interstate 81 because of slick road conditions.
Police said Ronald W. Harris, 73, of Gainesville, Georgia, died after his vehicle was struck by two tractor-trailers. The two tractor-trailer drivers were taken to a hospital for injuries that were not considered life-threatening. The state medical examiner was expected to determine later whether Harris' death was storm-related.
Virginia State Police said they responded to more than 230 traffic crashes and helped more than 100 disabled vehicles in Virginia from midnight to noon Sunday.
The storm knocked out power for nearly 200,000 people in Virginia and North Carolina on Sunday, ..

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