President Hu Jintao has stepped aside as Communist Party leader to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take the helm in China, delegates to the party's national congress said Wednesday.Hu was not re-elected a member of the party's Central Committee on the final day of the gathering, showing that he's no longer in the leadership, said two delegates, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official list of members had not yet been released. Xi was re-elected along with other lead

U.S. researchers say they've created an artificial lens that could lead to implantable lenses to replace damaged or diseased human eye lenses.Nearly identical to the natural lens of the human eye, the technology behind the artificial lens is called "GRIN" or gradient refractive index optics.The lens is made up of thousands of nanoscale polymer layers that bend, or refract, light by varying degrees as it passes through it."The human eye is a GRIN lens," Michael Ponting, a polymer scientist at Cas

The independent counsel investigating alleged irregularities in the purchase of land for President Lee Myung-bak’s retirement home on Wednesday referred his son Si-hyung to tax authorities on suspicion of evading the gift tax. Wrapping up its one-month investigation, the team also indicted without detention Kim In-jong, the former chief of the Presidential Security Service, and presidential security official Kim Tae-hwan on charges of misappropriation, and another security official Shim Hyeong-b

The African Union has endorsed a plan for military intervention in Mali, where Islamists have seized control of its desert north, the AU's Commissioner for Peace and Security said Tuesday.The AU Peace and Security Council "has decided ... to endorse a harmonized concept of operations for the planned deployment of AFISMA, which is the African-led mission in support of Mali," Ramtane Lamamra told reporters, speaking after an AU peace and security meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.Lamamr

BEIRUT (AP) -- France on Tuesday became the first Western country to formally recognize Syria's newly formed opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.The U.S. also recognized the leadership body announced in Qatar on Sunday as a legitimate representative, but stopped short of describing it as a sole representative, saying the group must first demonstrate its ability to represent Syrians inside the country."We look forward to supporting the national coalitio

Two people have come forward to reveal that Japanese soldiers during World War II slaughtered Koreans who were forced into overseas labor under Japanese colonialism, the first testimony to give details of a massacre that has been vague until now, a government agency said Tuesday.According to the National Archives of Korea (NAK), an agency charged with preserving government records, two Koreans living in Sakhalin, off Russia's east coast, have testified they heard accounts from eyewitnesses at th

North Korea has conducted motor tests to improve its long-range missiles after a failed launch in April, a U.S. think tank said Monday after reviewing new satellite images.Since the embarrassing flop in April, the communist regime appears to have carried out at least two tests of large motors needed for rockets and worked on a launch platform, the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said.The institute examined commercial images of the Sohae satellite launch station between April and

Canadian researchers say they have identified fossils found more than 50 years ago as a new species of horned dinosaur that roamed Alberta 78 million years ago.Xenoceratops foremostensis, identified from fossils originally collected in 1958, was around 20 feet long and weighed more than 2 tons and represents the oldest known large-bodied horned dinosaur from Canada, paleontologists said.Writing in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, researchers said the new dinosaur was identified from skull

The United States was re-elected Monday to another three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council in the only contested election for the organization's top human rights body.The U.S. was competing with four countries for three open seats belonging to the Western Group on the council. Germany and Ireland were also elected by the 193-member General Assembly. Greece and Sweden lost out.U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said her country was “pleased and proud to have been re-elected to a seco

South Korea won another term on the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday.South Korea's re-election reflects its efforts for promoting human rights around the world as a member of the 37-member council, South Korean diplomats here said.The U.N. General Assembly voted to pick South Korea and 17 other nations as members of the Geneva-based council for three-year terms beginning on Jan. 1, 2013.South Korea first became a member of the organization in 2006, when it was created to replace the U.N. Huma

A Florida woman was named Sunday as the recipient of allegedly harassing emails from former CIA Director David Petraeus' female biographer.Petraeus, 60, resigned this week after admitting he "showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair" with his 40-year-old biographer, Paula Broadwell, who is married to a doctor and has two children.The Los Angeles Times reported Jill Kelley of Tampa, who it described as a State Department liaison to the military's Joint Special Operatio

The Palestinians will submit a bid to the General Assembly this month for non-state membership of the United Nations, despite U.S. opposition, president Mahmud Abbas said on Sunday.Abbas also spoke out in favour of the exhumation of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's body to establish the cause of his death and revealed Russia was involved in the efforts."We're going to the United Nations in November 2012, not 2013, or 2014," Abbas said at an event commemorating the eighth anniversary of

The “Gangnam Style” phenomenon continued to forge ahead as Psy yet again added more notches to his global superstardom belt. The ubiquitous smash hit won the Best Video award at the 2012 MTV European Music Awards on Sunday in Frankfurt, Germany, while Psy became the first Korean artist ever to perform at the annual awards ceremony. David Hasselhoff, well known for his role as a lifeguard on the popular U.S. TV series “Baywatch,” presented Psy with his award. “Can I have a minute? Because I am a

Greek lawmakers approved the country's 2013 austerity budget early Monday, an essential step in Greece's efforts to persuade its international creditors to unblock a vital rescue loan installment without which the country will go bankrupt.The budget passed by a 167-128 vote in the 300-member Parliament. It came days after a separate bill of deep spending cuts and tax hikes for the next two years squeaked through with a narrow majority following severe disagreements among the three parties in the

South Korea said Friday minor cracks were found at a nuclear reactor that have not caused a leak but still mean the facility will be kept offline, prompting fears of power shortages in the coming winter.The cracks were found during maintenance work on control rod tubes at a unit in the Yeonggwang nuclear complex, where two other reactors were recently shut down for several months to replace unvetted components.Half of Yeonggwang's six reactors will now be offline until January at the earliest, t

Crocodile and alligator jaws are more sensitive than human fingertips and their sense of touch is among the most acute among animals, U.S. researchers say.Scientists, writing in the Journal of Experimental Biology, say the animals' jaws, covered with small, pigmented bumps that dot their skin, particularly around the face, are extremely sensitive to pressure and vibration, Discovery News reported.A previous study suggested the bumps -- known technically as "integumentary sensor organs" or ISOs -

A former congresswoman badly wounded in a shooting rampage two years ago came face to face with her attacker as he was sentenced Thursday to seven consecutive life sentence plus 140 years in prison for killing six people and wounding 13.Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, partially blind, her right arm paralyzed and limp, attended the sentencing, standing beside her husband as he spoke of her struggles to recover from being shot in the head.Jared Lee Loughner, 24, pleaded guilty under an agreement that gua

Interpol on Thursday elected a French police commissioner known for her drive against organized crime in Bordeaux and Corsica as its first female president at its general assembly in Rome."Mireille Ballestrazzi of France becomes first woman to be elected president of Interpol," the world's top association of crime-fighters said on Twitter.Ballestrazzi, 58, became a police commissioner in France in 1975 and was already vice-president for Europe on Interpol's executive committee.She is particularl

Key greenhouse gas emitter Australia on Friday announced it was ready to sign up for a second round of the Kyoto Protocol environmental protection treaty."Today I can announce that Australia is ready to join a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," Climate Minister Greg Combet said in a speech.Australia is among the world's worst per capita polluters, with a heavy reliance on coal mining and exports. Most of its electricity comes from coal-fired power stations.Combet's announcement com

The bravado sounded familiar. Like the leaders of other countries swept away by Arab Spring uprisings, Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to never be forced into exile and to die in his homeland.Assad dug in his heels even as world powers move to boost the opposition in Syria's civil war _ the latest turn in a nearly 20-month-old crisis so overwhelming that even the Red Cross says it can no longer cope.“I am not a puppet, I was not made by the West for me to go to the West or any other country,