A strong earthquake shook southern and central Mexico Friday, causing panic -- but no major damage, according to early reports -- less than six months after two devastating quakes that killed hundreds of people.Both Mexico's National Seismological Service and the US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 7.2.It triggered Mexico City's alarm system and caused buildings to sway in the capital. It was also felt in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Puebla and Michoacan.Panicked residents

PYEONGCHANG, Gangwon Province -- Defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin vomited and complained of virus-like symptoms after a disappointing first leg in Friday's Olympic slalom.Shiffrin, who claimed gold in Thursday's giant slalom, finished fourth and said she had vomited at the start gate."Not very well," she said when asked how she felt at the start."I don't know, it was kind of sudden. It almost felt like a virus kind of puking, less about nerves."USA's Mikaela Shiffrin reacts after competing in

PARKLAND, US (AFP) - A former student armed with an AR-15 rifle opened fire at a Florida high school on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, officials said, in a harrowing shooting spree that saw terrified students hiding in closets and under desks as they texted for help.　Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel identified the gunman as Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland who had been expelled for “disciplinary reasons.”　Cruz was arrested without

PYEONGCHANG, Gangwon Province -- Olympics chief Thomas Bach on Monday dismissed concerns that North Korea has tried to “hijack” the Winter Games for political purposes, as officials revealed he will visit the isolated country after the tournament in South Korea.Bach said he regarded North Korea’s participation purely in sporting terms despite the rapid round of diplomacy between the two Koreas during the opening days of the Games.“This is about sport and this the IOC made very clear,” Bach told

TAIPEI, Taiwan --  A 6.4-magnitude quake on the east coast of Taiwan has left two dead and more than 200 injured, the government said, after buildings crumbled and trapped people inside. A hotel and an apartment block were the worst hit by the quake in the port city of Hualien, according to the national fire agency. Five more buildings including a hospital have also been damaged with roads strewn with rubble, cracks along highways and damaged buildings tilted at angles.The worst-hit Marshal Hote

Japan said Monday it had lodged a protest with South Korea over the "unacceptable" use of a unified Korean Olympic flag that features a set of disputed islands.The two Koreas have agreed to march together under the unification flag -- a pale blue silhouette of the peninsula -- at the Games' opening ceremony on February 9, and to form a combined women's ice hockey team.The flag shows a blue dot indicating the islands in the Sea of Japan controlled by South Korea but claimed by Tokyo. (yonhap)They

Germany's domestic intelligence agency chief has revealed North Korea has been acquiring equipment and technology for its nuclear and weapons programmes through its Berlin embassy.BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said: "We have noticed that so many procurement activities have taken place from the embassy.""From our point of view, they were for the missile programme but also partly for the nuclear programme," Maassen added in an interview with German public television channel ARD, to be aired on Monda

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Friday attacked leaders of his own Justice Department and the FBI as politically biased in favor of Democrats.   "The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans," Trump tweeted in the latest example of open conflict with the two bodies.   The message came as Trump was expected to approve the release of a confidential Republica

The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday lifted life bans on 28 of the 43 Russians accused of doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.In a decision that could allow some of them to compete in this month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, sport's top court ruled there was "insufficient" evidence that the athletes had benefited from a system of state-sponsored doping at the last Winter Games, hosted by Russia. This file photo taken on December 12, 2017 shows a man talking on the phone in fro

WASHINGTON -- Amid nuclear tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, US President Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of honoring a North Korean defector Tuesday as he delivered his State of the Union speech before Congress.Ji Seong-ho, who escaped from North Korea in 2006, was given a place of honor just seats away from First Lady Melania Trump, as the president told the his story to lawmakers near the end of his 80-minute speech.Trump recounted the suffering of Seong-ho, who had a foot a

North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump's administration as a "gross violator of human rights", its state media reported Wednesday.The official Korean Central News Agency released its English-language report on Pyongyang's annual white paper on US human rights violations as Trump began his State of the Union speech, in which he condemned the North.North Korea's rights rights record is heavily criticised by both the United States and the United Nations, and it is estimated to have up

SEOUL (AFP) -- The unified Korean women’s ice hockey team faced an unexpected challenge at their first joint training session, reports said Monday -- vastly different hockey terminology on either side of the divided peninsula.　Seven decades of almost total separation after the 1950-53 Korean War, with all ordinary civilian contact blocked between North and South, has seen their once common language diverge in many respects.　The two Koreas still share the same writing system, known as Hangul -- a

HONOLULU - The United States and South Korea are going to keep tightening the screws on Pyongyang so that the hermit state gives up its nuclear program, Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Friday."As two peace-loving nations, the Republic of Korea and America welcome the Olympic Games talks between the ROK and DPRK while at the same time remaining steadfast with the international economic pressure campaign to denuclearize the Korean peninsula," Mattis said in Honolulu.The defense secretary was speaki

A cosmic event not seen in 36 years -- a rare "super blood blue moon" -- may be glimpsed January 31 in parts of western North America, Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Australia.The event is causing a buzz because it combines three unusual lunar events -- an extra big super moon, a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse. "It's an astronomical trifecta," said Kelly Beatty, a senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine.A blue moon refers to the second full moon in a month. Typically, a blue moon hap

MELBOURNE -- Roger Federer hailed Chung Hyeon as a future top 10 player Friday after the South Korean's Australian Open came to a painful end at the hands of the Swiss maestro.The defending champion was leading 6-1, 5-2 and in full control when Chung retired with foot blisters, bringing the curtain down on a breakout tournament in which he announced himself as a future star in the making. The 21-year-old sent 12-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic packing in the quarter-finals, although the Se

HONG KONG (AFP) - A senior United States official warned Hong Kong authorities Wednesday they must stop the city being used as a “safe harbour” for illicit trade with North Korea, in violation of United Nations sanctions.　The warning came weeks after a Hong Kong-flagged ship was seized in South Korea for transferring oil products to another vessel.　The UN -- at the urging of the US -- has imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea aimed at tightening the economic screws on Pyongyang over

MELBOURNE (AFP) - World number one Rafael Nadal faces three weeks out after being diagnosed with a torn inner hip muscle during his Australian Open quarter-final defeat, his management said Wednesday.   The 16-time Grand Slam champion had a scan in a Melbourne hospital after he retired early in the fifth set of his match with Croatia's Marin Cilic on Tuesday.   "The MRI (scan) showed a grade one injury of his illiopsoas on his right leg," his management said in a statement. (Yonhap)   "He will b

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.9 struck off the coast of Alaska early Tuesday, January 23, prompting tsunami warnings or watches as far away as California.The quake struck at 9:31 a.m. in the Gulf of Alaska, 280 kilometers southeast of the town of Kodiak, the US Geological Survey said, revising a preliminary estimate of 8.2 magnitude. The epicenter was 10 kilometers under the seabed. A handout map image made available by the United States Geological Survey shows the loc

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) -- A Japanese soldier was killed Tuesday and several other people injured after a volcano erupted near a popular ski resort, sparking an avalanche and leaving scores stranded -- including tourists from Britain and Taiwan.Footage broadcast on Japanese television showed thick black smoke interspersed with falling rocks rolling down the snow-covered side of the volcano towards a ski slope.Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters that one of eight members of the Self Defen

LAUSANNE -- North Korea will send 22 athletes to next month's Winter Games in the South, the International Olympic Committee said Saturday, approving a landmark deal between two nations still officially at war. North Korean pairs figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok (L) and Kim Ju-sik perform their short program during the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany in 2017. (Yonhap)South Korea had hoped that the Games which begin in Pyeongchang on Feb. 9 could help ease the crisis on the peninsula plagued by