State Media

BEIJING - North Korea tested a nuclear device Tuesday, state media said, defying international pressure to stop such activities and drawing quick condemnation from the White House. State media said North Korea successfully detonated a miniature atomic bomb underground in a test geared toward protecting its safety and sovereignty from the United States. The White House, meanwhile, issued a statement saying "these provocations do not make North Korea more secure. " “Far from achieving its stated goal of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, North Korea has instead increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," the White House statement said.

BEIJING - North Korea tested a nuclear device Tuesday, state media said, defying international pressure to stop such activities and drawing quick condemnation from the White House. State media said North Korea successfully detonated a miniature atomic bomb underground in a test geared toward protecting its safety and sovereignty from the United States. The White House, meanwhile, issued a statement saying "these provocations do not make North Korea more secure. " “Far from achieving its stated goal of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, North Korea has instead increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," the White House statement said.

BEIJING — The Chinese state media left no doubt Wednesday about their view of Bo Xilai, the charismatic son of a revolutionary and until recently one of China's most powerful people. "Bo Xilai's conduct has seriously violated the party's disciplinary rules, damaging the affairs of the party and the country and badly harming the image of the party and country," said an editorial Wednesday morning in the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. "There are no citizens who are privileged before the law, and the party does not allow privileged members who stand above the law. " Bo a day earlier was suspended from his political positions and his wife was placed under arrest on suspicion of killing a British man who'd been a family friend.

BEIJING - Xi Jinping has a secret admirer and Chinese are yearning to find out who he (or she) is. Since Xi was named Communist Party general secretary in November, a mysterious blogger has been chronicling his every move. There are photographs of Xi on his computer, Xi at a vegetable market, Xi serving meals to the poor, Xi napping on a bus. Not the most scintillating coverage, but it is remarkable in China, where the movements of the leadership are choreographed down to the last handshake and released only to the tightly controlled state media.

Dictators toppled! London burning! United States broke! On second thought, scratch the exclamation points. Except maybe for the bit about London burning. So far, 2011 has been a challenging year for the Chinese media on the news front, not to mention the existential one, as they walk a fine line to satisfy both their political masters and an increasingly savvy public with growing access to honest news reporting on the Internet. Perhaps not since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has there been as much international news so inherently threatening to the Chinese Communist Party.

The terror attacks have prompted Iran's official media to provide a rare glimpse of America's human side after two decades of demonizing the U.S. as the "great Satan" and a "paragon of pagan decadence." State TV has been giving full coverage of the events, complete with details of human suffering. Iranian leaders, from reformists to conservatives, have strongly condemned the attacks in an unprecedented expression of sympathy and offered cooperation to fight terrorism.

Authorities in the Chinese capital are using the case of a slain policeman and his wounded partner to sound the alarm about urban lawlessness and violence here. But the campaign also carries a larger appeal for law and order, directed at the country's emerging middle class, that is changing the shape of politics in China. The shooting death last month of police officer Cui Daqing by a man wanted in eight other killings has been featured prominently in the Chinese press.

The pitch was tantalizing: Just a little training and you too could hack websites, earning thrills, power and, in many cases, money. "Guaranteed successful attack tools!" is how Black Hawk Safety Net advertised its online academy for hackers. "Spare one minute to learn and you'll make your life more exciting." Police in Hubei province announced to the Chinese media over the weekend that they had closed down the operation, which state media said was the largest training site for Chinese hackers, and arrested three of its ringleaders.

BEIJING - For members of a doomsday cult in China, the end may indeed be near. Authorities have in recent weeks arrested more than 100 members of a fringe Christian-inspired group known as Almighty God that is prophesying the world will end Dec. 21, according to state media. Members of the group had been distributing apocalyptic literature and sending text messages throughout China when the government began detaining them this month. On Dec. 8, police arrested 34 members in Fujian province, which lies on China's southeastern coast. On Thursday, they arrested 37 members, including seven leaders in Xining, a city in the west-central province of Qinghai.

Chinese officials detained four people over the beating death of a man who had recorded a clash between villagers and authorities, state media said. Wei Wenhua, 41, was driving by Wanba, a village on the outskirts of Tianmen in Hubei province, on Monday and stopped when he saw villagers squaring off against 50 urban inspectors, his family and state media said. After Wei took out his cellphone to record the demonstration, officials turned on him, the New China News Agency said. The agency cited Tianmen's vice mayor as saying that those under investigation included a leading city bureaucrat.

Vietnam on Monday sentenced the head of an organization accused of “smearing the current system” and trying to topple the government to life behind bars, state media reported. The official Vietnam News Agency reported that Phan Van Thu headed the “reactionary political organization” that planned to establish a new state “led by Thu and his accomplices,” writing documents that attacked state policies and tried to erode trust in the Communist Party of Vietnam. Twenty-one other people in Bia Son Council for Laws and Public Affairs were handed jail terms ranging from 10 years to 17 years, according to state media.

JERUSALEM - Amid rising fear that Syrian President Bashar Assad could lose control of his nation's stockpiles of chemical and advanced weapons, Israel bombed and destroyed a military research center outside Damascus, the capital, Syrian state media reported Wednesday. Israeli and U.S. military and government officials declined to comment on the report. If it occurred, the attack would mark Israel's most aggressive military strike against its neighbor during the Syrian uprising against Assad's rule that began nearly two years ago. Earlier in the day, international news agencies and Arab news outlets reported that the Israeli strike had targeted a weapons convoy along the Syrian-Lebanese border as it attempted to deliver cargo to the militant group Hezbollah.

As a devastating year in Syria drew to a close, armed rebels and government forces continued to battle over the bloodied country, state media and opposition activists reported Monday. Government forces have seized weapons and killed and arrested “a number of terrorists” in the province of Homs, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported , using its usual term for the armed rebels. State media also carried a military statement claiming that army units had killed “huge numbers of terrorists” in the Damascus countryside and the areas surrounding the Aleppo airport, stressing “its resolve to continue cracking down on the terrorists.” The agency did not offer an estimated count of the number killed.

North Korea said Friday that it had detained an American citizen who had committed an unspecified crime but gave few details. State media appeared to confirm reports that emerged in recent weeks that U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae was being held, identifying the detainee by the Korean name Pae Jun Ho. The Korean Central News Agency said the American citizen had “admitted his crime,” which was “proven through evidence,” but gave no details about...

BEIJING - For members of a doomsday cult in China, the end may indeed be near. Authorities have in recent weeks arrested more than 100 members of a fringe Christian-inspired group known as Almighty God that is prophesying the world will end Dec. 21, according to state media. Members of the group had been distributing apocalyptic literature and sending text messages throughout China when the government began detaining them this month. On Dec. 8, police arrested 34 members in Fujian province, which lies on China's southeastern coast. On Thursday, they arrested 37 members, including seven leaders in Xining, a city in the west-central province of Qinghai.

It's prime-time TV in Venezuela and the host is saying that opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, whose grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, is a Nazi and Hitler cultist. "You can say what you want about your ancestors, but you are a Nazi," host Miguez Perez says of Capriles, who has Jewish ancestry but is a practicing Roman Catholic. The program is not some renegade gossip show but one earning pride of place on Venezuela's state-owned VTV channel, which is seen as closely reflecting the views of leftist President Hugo Chavez.

A man armed with explosives who took 28 children hostage in a kindergarten in central China was shot dead by a policewoman who sneaked into the classroom disguised as a teacher, state media said Saturday. The man forced his way into a kindergarten in a suburb of the Henan provincial capital, Zhengzhou, on Wednesday, and took hostage 28 children and two teachers. He asked for a ransom and threatened to detonate explosives.

Sudan released opposition leader Hassan Turabi without charges after questioning him about a Darfur rebel attack on the capital, Khartoum, according to his party and state media. Turabi and at least 10 other members of his Popular Congress Party members were detained in a government sweep across the city, said Awadh Ba Bakr, a relative and close aide to Turabi.

BEIRUT - Even with the commander of the United Nations monitoring mission in place in Syria, explosions and attacks continued Monday as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition groups appeared no closer to a cease-fire after 13 months of unrest. In the northern city of Idlib, two early-morning car bombings killed at least eight people and injured more than 100, according to state media and activists. The explosions targeted the air force security and other military security buildings in the southern part of the city dominated by government buildings.

BEIJING — The Chinese state media left no doubt Wednesday about their view of Bo Xilai, the charismatic son of a revolutionary and until recently one of China's most powerful people. "Bo Xilai's conduct has seriously violated the party's disciplinary rules, damaging the affairs of the party and the country and badly harming the image of the party and country," said an editorial Wednesday morning in the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. "There are no citizens who are privileged before the law, and the party does not allow privileged members who stand above the law. " Bo a day earlier was suspended from his political positions and his wife was placed under arrest on suspicion of killing a British man who'd been a family friend.