The young dentist was uncuffed and led to his seat in the courtroom. A few rows back, his mother watched motionlessly, her hands gently clasped together as if in prayer.Jeon Seong-Jin is being punished for a crime that is not a crime at all in most of the world. A Jehovah's Witness, he has refused to become a soldier in South Korea, where all able-bodied male citizens are required to serve about 21 months in the army.More than 660 conscientious objectors have been jailed each year in South Korea

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AP) -- Let the robot race begin.Expectations are high for RoboEarth, a new European-funded system to speed the development of human-serving robots. Scientists from five major European technical universities have gathered in the Netherlands this week for its launch and to demonstrate possible applications.The first: the deceptively simple task of delivering a glass of milk to a patient in a mock-up hospital room.The system is sometimes billed as a kind of Wikipedia for rob

JERUSALEM (AP) -- An Israeli draft law that would criminalize the use of the word Nazi in most cases has sparked a debate on freedom of speech in a state that was founded out of the ashes of the Holocaust.Seven decades later, memories of the extermination of millions of Jews during World War II permeate virtually every aspect of life in Israel. Public figures and interest groups frequently invoke the World War II genocide to score political points, and the word and Nazi symbols have slipped into

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After last fall's tumultuous, bitterly partisan debt ceiling and government shutdown battles, a sense of fiscal fatigue seems to be setting in among many U.S. policymakers as President Barack Obama prepares for his fifth State of the Union address later this month.A declining U.S. budget deficit, still-accommodative Federal Reserve and a small-bore budget deal negotiated last month _ given final approval Thursday in Congress _ are helping to temper partisan rhetoric in the sho

BEIJING (AP) -- The number of online microblog users in China dropped by more than 27.8 million last year, marking the first major decline in popularity of a social media genre that has offered a way to share unfiltered information in a country with strict controls.The drop comes amid a crackdown on microblogs deemed sensitive by government authorities and new controls on what can be posted and reposted, and reflects an overall decline in use of traditional social media in China that once had ex

BEIJING (AFP) - China will next week hold the trial of Xu Zhiyong, a long-time campaigner for legal-reform, prosecuted as part of what is seen as a government-led crackdown on dissent, his lawyer said Friday.The announcement came as the European Union's outgoing ambassador to China criticised growing curbs on human rights in the country, raising several individual cases including Xu's and a Uighur academic who was detained this week.Xu -- one of more than two dozen members of the loosely-connect

JODA, Sudan (AFP) -- Some walked, others were luckier and hitched a ride, but all ended up in the open at a Sudanese border checkpoint, waiting to cross and leave South Sudan's war behind.Hundreds of crying children and exhausted adults have converged on the border post at Joda, where Sudan's White Nile state meets the South's Upper Nile, which saw heavy fighting this week.They are among an estimated 10,000 who have fled north to Sudan in an exodus that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says has see

JAKARTA (AFP) -- Indonesia on Friday demanded Australia suspend its military-led operation to halt the flow of asylum-seekers in a furious response after Canberra apologised for intrusions by its navy into Indonesian waters.Jakarta also pledged to step up navy patrols in its southern maritime borders, saying it "deplores and rejects the violation of its sovereignty" caused by the Australian incursions.It came after Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison expressed regret after revealing t

JUBA (AFP) -- Battles raged Friday in South Sudan, as the army said it had lost contact with forces in the key oil-town of Malakal, which both rebels and the government claim to control.The United Nations has accused both sides of carrying out atrocities in the conflict that started on December 15 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup.The UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic, who visited South Sudan recently to prepare a r

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel called in European ambassadors in a tit-for-tat move Friday after four EU states lodged formal protests against the rightwing government's drive to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the European Union of a "hypocritical" attitude toward the Middle East process, saying it should be more concerned by Palestinian militancy than Israeli housing construction.The new spat with Europe follows a furious public row with key al

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Syria said on Friday it was ready to swap prisoners with the rebels and would take swift steps that could lead to the first such mass exchange in nearly three years of fighting.The announcement by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Moscow could mark another diplomatic success for Russia after the Kremlin managed to convince its ally Damascus to renounce its chemical weapons in order to avert imminent US air strikes.It also came just as the war-torn country's divided opposit

BEIJING (Yonhap News) -- South Korea and China agreed to forge closer cooperation in television and radio broadcasting, including the joint development of technology related to ultra-high definition TVs, Seoul's top media regulator said Friday.The agreement was reached after a meeting in Beijing earlier in the day between Lee Kyeong-jae, chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, and Cai Fuchao, head of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, Lee said.The memorandum of

The floor leaders of the rival parties agreed on Wednesday to pass key pending bills on the 2014 budget and spy agency reform next week in a move that effectively breaks the parliamentary deadlock.Choi Kyoung-hwan, the floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Pary, and the main opposition Democratic Party's floor leader Jun Byung-hun made the agreement to pass the two bills in a general National Assembly session to be held on Dec. 30.The agreement came after the parties' persistent conflict over the c

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Militants in Iraq targeted Christians in two separate bomb attacks in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, officials said.In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church during Christmas Mass in the capital's southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.A little bit earlier, a bomb ripped through an outdoor market in the nearby Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer added.There w

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russia was on Wednesday dropping most of the cases against 30 Greenpeace crew members of an Arctic protest ship, marking the "final chapter" of a three-month criminal probe, the environmental group said.Twenty five foreigners were summoned to the Investigative Committee where they expect to receive confirmation that the hooliganism probes launched after their September protest against oil drilling in the Barents Sea are dropped, Greenpeace said."The final chapter in the legal ord

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- In his speech on Christmas Day, Pope Francis said he hopes for a better world, including successful Middle East negotiations in the land of Jesus' birth, peace for Syria and several war-torn African countries, and dignity for refugees fleeing misery and conflict.Francis spoke from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to some 70,000 cheering tourists, pilgrims and Romans in the square below.  He said he was joining all those hoping `'for a better world.''Among places r

LONDON (AFP) -- Christians in the Middle East are being "attacked and massacred" and driven into exile, the leader of the world's Anglicans said Wednesday in his first Christmas sermon.Justin Welby used his first Christmas Day address as Archbishop of Canterbury to remember those suffering for their faith in the cradle of Christianity."Today, singing of Bethlehem, we see injustices in Palestine and Israel, where land is taken or rockets are fired, and the innocent suffer," he told the congregati

SHAOSHAN, China (AFP) -- Thousands of admirers of Communist China's founder Mao Zedong flocked to his home town Wednesday to bow before his graven image -- including one statue of solid gold -- before the 120th anniversary of his birth.Pilgrims from across the country lit firecrackers and offered flowers in Shaoshan, where Mao was born 120 years ago Thursday, to celebrate a man blamed for tens of millions of deaths but widely viewed as the father of modern China."He is a great leader who sacrifi

TOKYO (AFP) -- The long-stalled move of a US military base in Okinawa looked set to overcome a huge hurdle this week after a meeting Wednesday between the island's pugnacious governor and Japan's prime minister.Premier Shinzo Abe pledged an unheralded cash bonanza for the archipelago, in the form of stimulus spending that commentators say could help persuade governor Hirokazu Nakaima to drop his longstanding opposition to construction of a new airbase."You presented surprisingly impressive propo

TACLOBAN, Philippines (AFP) -- Survivors of the Philippines' deadliest typhoon spent a gloomy Christmas Day surrounded by mud Wednesday as heavy rain drove many inside their flimsy shelters, dampening efforts at holiday cheer in the deeply devout nation.Groups of children in plastic raincoats braved the incessant rain in the devastated central city of Tacloban, knocking on doors in trick-or-treat fashion and beseeching pedestrians for candies, coins and other Christmas presents.But housewife Sus