Pakistanis bury slain teachers, aid workers

SWABI, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of villagers in northwest Pakistan turned out Wednesday to bury five female teachers and two health workers who were gunned down a day earlier by militants in what may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in the country.

The seven had worked at a community center in the town of Swabi that included a primary school and a medical clinic that vaccinated children against polio. Some militants oppose the vaccination campaigns, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

As mourners carried the coffins through the town for burial Wednesday, family and friends expressed horror that such an attack had struck their community.

"I told her many times at home 'be careful as we are poor people and take care of yourself all the time,'" said Fazal Dad, whose daughter was among the seven killed. "And always in response she said: 'Father, if I am not guilty, no one can harm me.'"

The group was on their way home from the community center where they were employed by a non-governmental organization when their vehicle was attacked Tuesday. The four militants on motorcycles spared the young son of one of the women who was riding in the van, pulling him from the vehicle before spraying it with bullets. The driver survived and was being treated at a Peshawar hospital.

There has been no claim of responsibility, and police have not made any arrests.

The director of the NGO said he suspected the attack might have been retribution for the group's work helping vaccinate Pakistani children against polio. Javed Akhtar said the community group has suspended its operations throughout the province.

Despite the killings, polio vaccination workers will be out in force this Saturday in four areas in the northwest considered at high risk for the disease in an effort to keep it from spreading.

Police will give extra protection to the workers taking part in the campaign in Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsadda and Mardan, said the commissioner of Mardan, Adil Khan.

Many local residents view the girls' primary school and medical clinic run by the NGO at the community center as saviors for the community's poor. Now many are worried about what will happen if those services are cut off.

Gul Afzal Khan, a villager whose children studied at a community center run by the group, said the attack was a big loss.

"What is their crime?" he asked. "They were just giving free education and health assistance to our children."

The attack also was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work.

Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed. Four of those shootings were in the northwest where Tuesday's attack took place.

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Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

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Gunmen kill 5 female teachers in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed five teachers and two aid workers from a non-governmental organization Tuesday as they were driving home from work. The group's director said they may have been targeted for their anti-polio work.

Militants in the past have accused health workers of acting as spies for the U.S., alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile. Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed. Four of those shootings were in the northwest where Tuesday's attack took place.

The attack was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work. It was in the same conservative province where militants shot and seriously wounded 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an outspoken young activist for girls' education, in October.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest shootings.

In a separate attack in the southern city of Karachi, also likely to have been carried out by militants, four people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb went off just as a large political rally was dispersing.

The teachers and aid workers in the northwest were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on their way home from a community center where they worked at a medical clinic and primary school.

The director of the group targeted Tuesday said he suspected that the workers were attacked because the non-governmental organization has been active in vaccination campaigns designed to wipe out polio.

Javed Akhtar, from Support With Working Solutions, said the clinic where the aid workers worked had helped vaccinate children, and many of the NGO's staff had taken part in vaccination campaigns.

That attack was in an area where Islamic militants often target women and girls trying to get an education or female teachers.

Militants in the province have blown up schools and killed female educators. They have also kidnapped and killed aid workers, viewing them as promoting a foreign agenda.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly called the Northwest Frontier province, borders the tribal areas of Pakistan along the frontier with Afghanistan to the west. Militant groups such as the Taliban have used the tribal areas as a stronghold from which to wage war both in Afghanistan and against the Pakistani government. Often that violence has spilled over into the mostly Pashtun province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In 2007, the Taliban led by Maulana Fazlullah took over the scenic Swat Valley, marking the height of their strength there. The Pakistani military later pushed the militant group from the valley but the Taliban has repeatedly tried to reassert itself.

The teachers were killed along with two health workers, one man and one woman. Their driver was wounded. They were on their way home from a community center in the town of Swabi where they were working at a primary school for girls and adjoining medical center.

The injured driver told investigators that the gunmen stopped the vehicle and removed a boy — the son of one of the women — before indiscriminately opening fire, said police officer Fazal Malik.

Swabi police chief Abdur Rasheed said most of the women killed were between the ages of 20 and 22. He said four gunmen who used two motorcycles fled the scene and have not been apprehended.

The gunmen on motorcycles opened fire with automatic weapons, said Akhtar. The NGO conducts programs in the education and health sectors and runs the community center in Swabi, he said. The group has been active in the city since 1992, and started the Ujala Community Welfare Center in 2010, he added. Ujala means "light" in Urdu.

The center is financed by the Pakistani government's Poverty Alleviation Program and a German organization, said Akhtar.

He said the NGO also runs health and education projects in the South Waziristan tribal area, as well as health projects in the cities of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan and the regions of Lower Dir and Upper Kurram. All of those cities and regions are in northwest Pakistan, the area that has been most affected by the ongoing fight with militants opposed to the current government.

Aid groups such as Support With Working Solutions often provide a vital role in many areas of Pakistan where the government has been unable to provide services such as medical clinics or schools. In some areas like the northwest, they have had to work to overcome community fears that they are promoting a foreign agenda at odds with local traditions and values.

But many local residents in Swabi said the school and medical center provided a vital service to the community and mourned those who were killed.

Murad Khan said his daughter was studying at the primary school, which provided free books and uniforms to students. He said many people in the area are now worried that the school and clinic will close.

"This school is like a gift for all of us, the poor people of the village," he said. "People in our area are sad."

The NGO director said he has directed staff at all projects to stop working for the time being until security measures are reviewed but vowed that they would resume their work soon.

He said that the NGO had not received any threats before the attack.

In Karachi, senior police officer Asif Ejaz Shaikh said the bomb that killed four was planted in a motorcycle parked amid a crowd of buses for political workers returning from the rally held by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The MQM is the dominant political party in Karachi.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The provincial health minister Dr. Saghir Ahmed said four people were killed and 41 injured.

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Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Adil Jawad in Karachi contributed to this report.

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North Korea cracks down on knowledge smugglers

HUNCHUN, China (AP) — The warning came from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean ruler who sees his isolated nation, just across the border from this busy Chinese trading town, as under siege. The attack, he said, must be stopped.

"We must extend the fight against the enemy's ideological and cultural infiltration," Kim said in an October speech at the headquarters of his immensely powerful internal security service. Kim, who became North Korea's supreme leader after the death of his father a year ago, called upon his vast security network to "ruthlessly crush those hostile elements."

Over the past year, Kim has intensified a border crackdown that has attempted to seal the once-porous 1,420-kilometer (880-mile) frontier with China, smugglers and analysts say, trying to hold back the onslaught.

The assault that he fears? It's being waged with cheap televisions rigged to receive foreign broadcasts, and with smuggled mobile phones that — if you can get a Chinese signal along the border — can call the outside world. Very often, it arrives in the form of wildly popular South Korean soap operas smuggled in on DVDs or computer thumb drives.

In North Korea, a country where international phone calls and Internet connections exist only for a tiny fraction of a tiny elite, and televisions and radios must be permanently preset to receive only state broadcasts, it's Korean-language TV heartache they crave.

"South Korean dramas, that's what everyone wants," grumbled a Seoul-based Christian missionary who runs a string of safe houses in this part of China, where his network helps people living underground after fleeing North Korea. One safe house is reserved for traders who sell everything from electronics to shoes inside North Korea — and who smuggle everything from Bibles to soap operas on the side. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the safety of his network.

There's "Autumn in My Heart," a 12-year-old tear-jerker replete with switched babies, forbidden love, and a comatose heroine. And "Stairway to Heaven," an epic of more forbidden love, more switched identities, blindness, insanity, a brain tumor and an evil stepmother. Everywhere in the soaps, there are tales of unrequited love, conniving rivals and handsome young men who just don't realize they'd find true love with the girl next door.

But if it looks absurd — a Stalinist nation vowing to crush an assault of bad lighting and overacting — the dilemma is deadly serious for Kim, who needs to find a way to modernize his country and its economy while holding onto absolute power.

Today, changing technologies, ambitious smugglers and well-funded critics of Pyongyang mean that everything from DVD melodramas to illegal Chinese cellphones to Korean-language radio news broadcasts funded by the U.S. government make their way into North Korea. Their presence exposes an ever-growing number of North Koreans to the outside world and threatens the underpinnings of the Kim regime.

Kim's crackdown has been largely aimed at the border with China, long the route for much of the outside information making its way into North Korea, as well as for refugees trying to get out.

Entire border security units have been replaced inside North Korea, fences have been strengthened and punishments ramped up for anyone caught trying to get through, according to smugglers, analysts and Chinese with family ties across the border. Meanwhile, special security units have been formed to seek out any contraband information or technology that Pyongyang sees as a threat.

"There has definitely been a push to roll back the tide of the flow of information," said Nat Kretchun, associate director of an international consulting group InterMedia, which released a report earlier this year about information flow into North Korea, based on surveys of hundreds of recent North Korean defectors. The study was commissioned by the U.S. State Department.

His conclusion: North Korea is increasingly anxious to keep information at bay, but has less ability to control it.

People are more willing to watch foreign movies and television programs, talk on illegal mobile phones and tell family and friends about what they are doing, he said.

"There is substantial demand" for things like South Korean movies and television programs, said Kretchun. "And there are intensely entrepreneurial smugglers who are more than willing to fulfill that demand."

For now, though, times are tough along the border, with smugglers saying North Korean guards have become far stricter about searching for contraband.

In a country where one family has held absolute control for more than 60 years, a communist enclave that survived the downfall of the Soviet Union and a devastating 1990s famine, the notion of allowing knowledge of the larger world is deeply feared.

"Even a hint of illusion or submission to the enemy is the shortest road to death and self-destruction," Kim said in his October speech, according to the state news agency KCNA.

The enemy works out of places like Hunchun, a brutally cold, money-hungry border town of car parts shops, cavernous indoor markets piled with shiny polyester clothing and off-brand electronics so cheap it seems almost impossible. Just a few miles from both North Korea and Russia, it's a town where nearly all signs are in three languages — Chinese, Korean and Russian — and where you can find a smuggler in just a few phone calls. Even if they rarely give a name, and are often identified only by their mobile phone numbers.

"Let me worry about how to do it," laughed one smuggler, asked how he gets his goods into North Korea. He is a friendly man, dressed business-casual in black corduroys and a black sweater.

Asked what he could get across the border, he made clear that business was thriving. Televisions, including ones able to pick up foreign stations? No problem. DVD players? Sure. Chinese movies? Yes.

But when asked about South Korean DVDs, the man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His partner spoke up. No South Korean items — not DVDs, thumb drives, cosmetics or food.

"Nothing," the partner said firmly.

Soap operas, at first, might not seem like conduits of underground information. But they are threats nonetheless, offering windows into worlds that North Koreans both lack and desire.

North Korean viewers living in tiny two-room homes and struggling to feed their families can see houses with bedrooms just for children, and dinners with endless food. They see everyday people casually complaining about policemen and politicians. Scenes like that are provocative in a country where defectors say criticizing the ruling family can send entire families to sprawling prison camps, and where bicycles are considered luxury items for many.

Plenty of other smugglers are willing to carry what the man in Hunchun is not.

Millions of foreign TV and movie recordings are thought to be floating around North Korea, though they are most easily available in cities near the Chinese border. With the crackdown, analysts say smugglers appear to have shifted to new techniques, at least for videos: carrying recordings on tiny thumb drives, and then transferring the programs to DVDs inside North Korea.

Because once information starts to flow, information cannot be turned off like a spigot. At most it can be slowed.

In many ways, Kim is facing an authoritarian contradiction.

North Korea has been trying — albeit haltingly and slowly — to revitalize its barely functioning economy and crack open a door to the outside. Foreign tourists are now commonplace in Pyongyang, though on tightly controlled trips, and Kim has told his people that they should never go hungry again. Western movies occasionally are shown on state television. North Korean officials now actively court foreign investors.

As a result, North Korea has found itself flirting with modernity — more than a million of the 24 million North Koreans now have mobile phones, for instance, though they can only place and receive calls domestically — while trying desperately to keep a tight grip on the public.

"They want to modernize but the cost of this effort is information, which could easily destabilize the regime," said Victor Cha, former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, and now a professor at Georgetown University. "Without control of information, there is no regime."

Exactly when the latest crackdown began isn't clear. Many analysts date it to early 2011, as Pyongyang watched the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world. But it also appears to have intensified since the December 2011 death of North Korea's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il, and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Un. The younger Kim, almost completely unknown until late 2010, is believed to be about 29 years old.

In the clearest sign of the crackdown, the number of North Korean refugees reaching South Korea in 2012 has dropped by almost half, to about 1,400, compared to last year. While that statistic doesn't include every North Korean who fled across the border, many of whom spend years living underground in China, it is widely seen as a general indication of the increased frontier security.

But the North Korean market for outside knowledge, nearly all observers say, has become insatiable. It's been more than a decade since everyday North Koreans caught their first real glimpses of the outside world, when a breakdown in government control during the 1990s famine combined with the arrival of cheap Chinese electronics. The hunger for the larger world resembles, in many ways, the appetites in China in the years after Mao Zedong's 1976 death, when Beijing began opening the door for the world's mass media.

Today in North Korea, the idea of winning a fight against information seems an impossible goal.

If nothing else, said a onetime smuggler who eventually fled to South Korea, too many powerful North Koreans are making money in the business. He clearly remembers his early televised revelations, when DVDs showed him so much that his own country didn't have.

"I felt sad about the state of my country when I watched the DVDs," said the defector, who now lives in Seoul and spoke on condition he not be named, fearing retribution against family still living in North Korea. "I could see Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States ... these other places were so much better off."

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Associated Press writers Sam Kim and Hyung-jin Kim contributed from Seoul.

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Follow Tim Sullivan on Twitter at twitter.com/SullivanTimAP.

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Pakistan official: 19 killed in attack on Shiites

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A car bomb targeting a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed 19 people in southwest Pakistan on Sunday, officials and eyewitnesses said.

Earlier Sunday, 21 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan's troubled northwest tribal region, government officials said.

There were conflicting reports about whether the attack on the Shiites was carried out by a suicide bomber, or if the car bomb was detonated by remote control.

Pakistan has experienced a spike in killings over the last year by radical Sunni Muslims targeting Shiites, whom they consider heretics. The violence has been especially pronounced in Baluchistan province, where the latest attack occurred.

In addition to the 19 people killed in the bombing in Baluchistan's Mastung district, 25 others were wounded, many of them critically, said Tufail Ahmed, a local political official. The blast destroyed the bus and damaged a nearby bus carrying Shiites.

Ahmed and a person who was riding in the second bus, Mohammed Ayan Danish, said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

The bomber "rammed a small car into the first bus, which contained 43 pilgrims," said Danish.

But Akbar Durrani, the home secretary in Baluchistan, said the explosion was caused by a car packed with explosives that was parked beside the road and detonated by remote control.

The pilgrims who were targeted were headed to Iran, a majority Shiite country that is a popular religious tourism destination, Ahmed said.

Shiites make up around 15 percent of Pakistan's 190 million people. They are scattered around the country. The province of Baluchistan has the largest community, mainly made up of ethnic Hazaras, easily identified by their facial features, which resemble those of Central Asians.

Sunni extremists have long carried out attacks against Shiites in Pakistan. The sectarian campaign has stepped up in recent years, fueled mainly by the radical group Laskar-e-Jangvhi, aligned to Pakistani Taliban militants headquartered in the tribal region. More than 300 Shiites have been killed in Pakistan this year, according to Human Rights Watch.

The violence has pushed Baluchistan deeper into chaos. The province was already facing an armed insurgency by ethnic Baluch separatists who frequently attack security forces and government facilities. Now the secessionist violence has been overtaken by increasingly bold attacks against Shiites.

The sectarian bloodshed adds another layer to the turmoil in Pakistan, where the government is fighting an insurgency by the Pakistani Taliban and where many fear Sunni hard-liners are gaining strength. Shiites and rights group say the government does little to protect Shiites and that militants are emboldened because they are believed to have links to Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

The 21 tribal policemen who were shot dead were found by officials shortly after midnight Sunday in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar after being notified by one policeman who escaped, said Naveed Akbar Khan, a top political official in the area. Another policeman was found seriously wounded, Khan said.

The 23 policemen went missing before dawn Thursday when militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two posts in Frontier Region Peshawar. Two policemen were killed in the attacks.

Militants lined the policemen up on a cricket pitch late Saturday night and gunned them down, said another local official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Also Sunday, two Pakistani army soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the North Waziristan tribal area, the main sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.

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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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Indian rape victim's condition deteriorates

NEW DELHI (AP) — The victim of a gang-rape in New Delhi fought for her life at a Singapore hospital Friday as officials in the Indian state of Punjab fired and suspended police officers accused of ignoring the rape of another woman, who then committed suicide.

Indian authorities have been accused of belittling rape victims and refusing to file cases against their attackers, further deterring victims — already under societal pressure to keep the assaults quiet — from reporting the crimes.

However, the gang-rape of the 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital two weeks ago has brought new focus on police and community attitudes toward woman in India. Demonstrators in New Delhi have demanded stronger protections for women and stronger punishment for rapists.

After 10 days at a New Delhi hospital, the victim was flown to Singapore on Thursday for treatment at the Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplant. Media reports have said that her assailants beat her and inserted an iron rod into her body during the assault, resulting in severe organ damage.

But by late Friday, the young woman's condition had "taken a turn for the worse" and her vital signs had deteriorated with indications of severe organ failure, said Dr. Kelvin Loh, the chief executive officer of Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital.

"This is despite doctors fighting for her life including putting her on maximum artificial ventilation support, optimal antibiotic doses as well as stimulants which maximize her body's capability to fight infections," he said, adding that family members are by her side.

She had earlier suffered a heart attack, a lung and abdominal infection and "significant" brain injury, according to the hospital.

"The patient is currently struggling against the odds, and fighting for her life," Dr. Loh said.

Police have arrested six people in connection with the attack, which left the victim with severe internal injuries. She was traveling in the virtually empty bus with a male friend when they were attacked. The assailants stripped them both after the assault and threw them out on the road.

"We wish she recovers and comes back to us and that no time is lost in bringing the perpetrators of such a barbaric act to justice," said Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress Party.

Other politicians have come under fire for comments insulting the protesters and diminishing the crime.

On Friday, Abhijit Mukherjee, a national lawmaker and the son of India's president, apologized for calling the protesters "highly dented and painted" women, who go from discos to demonstrations.

"I tender my unconditional apology to all the people whose sentiments got hurt," he told NDTV news.

Separately, authorities in Punjab took action Thursday when an 18-year-old woman killed herself by drinking poison a month after she told police she was gang-raped.

State authorities suspended one police officer and fired two others on accusations they delayed investigating and taking action in the case. The three accused in the rape were only arrested Thursday night, a month after the crime was reported.

"This is a very sensitive crime, I have taken it very seriously," said Paramjit Singh Gill, a top police officer in the city of Patiala.

The Press Trust of India reported that the woman was raped Nov. 13 and reported the attack to police Nov. 27. But police harassed the girl, asked her embarrassing questions and took no action against the accused, PTI reported, citing police sources.

Authorities in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh also suspended a police officer on accusations he refused to register a rape complaint from a woman who said she had been attacked by a driver.

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Tan reported from Singapore.

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China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China's new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors' anxiety about the Internet's potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

"They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet," said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views."

This week, China's legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web's status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.

That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.

Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a reminder of the Web's role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.

Xi and others on the party's ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China's poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.

Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.

Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.

That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.

The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.

A local party official in China's southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.

Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.

The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People's Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers' personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.

The main ruling party newspaper, People's Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.

Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.

That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China's media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.

That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.

In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi's extended family has amassed assets totaling $376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg's website since then.

In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao's relatives had amassed $2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times' Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.

Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.

Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users' names but have yet to finish the daunting task.

Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks — software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.

Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.

In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access "impedes their ability to do business."

Chinese leaders "realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile," said Lam. "There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet."

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Afghan bomber attacks near major US base

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a major U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing the attacker and three Afghans, Afghan police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Police Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai said a local guard who questioned the vehicle driver at the gate of Camp Chapman was killed along with two civilians and the assailant. The camp is located adjacent to the airport of the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan. Chapman and nearby Camp Salerno had been frequently targeted by militants in the past, but violent incidents have decreased considerably in recent months.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email that the bomber targeted Afghan police manning the gate and Afghans working for the Americans entering the base. He claimed high casualties were inflicted.

NATO operates with more than 100,000 troops in the country, including some 66,000 American forces. It is handing most combat operations over to the Afghans in preparation for a pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Militant groups, including the Taliban, rarely face NATO troops head-on and rely mainly on roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

NATO forces and foreign civilians have also been increasingly attacked by rogue Afghan military and police, eroding trust between the allies.

On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said a policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul a day earlier was a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed "unstable behavior" but had no known links to militants.

The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in the spate of insider attacks. Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and shot him once with her pistol.

The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.

The ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago, after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.

A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

The chief investigator of the case, Police Gen. Mohammad Zahir, said that during interrogation, the policewoman said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw "a foreigner" and turned her weapon on him.

There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014, putting the war against the Taliban and other militant groups largely in the hands of the Afghans.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

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Kazakhstan military plane crashes, killing 27

MOSCOW (AP) — Kazakhstan's acting border service chief was among 27 people killed in a military plane crash Tuesday near a southern city, another blow to the agency after he was appointed in June to deal with the aftermath of a mass killing involving a conscript.

The Russian-made An-72 crashed at 1255 GMT (7:55 a.m. EST) about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from the city of Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's Committee for National Security said in a statement.

The fatalities included a crew of seven and 20 border guards, including the acting head of the ex-Soviet nation's border protection service, Col. Turganbek Stambekov, the statement said.

Without specifying further details, authorities said an investigation was opened into the crash. No cause was given, but southern Kazakhstan over recent weeks has been buffeted by winds, heavy snows and low temperatures, causing widespread flight delays.

Stambekov was appointed acting head of the border service in June, after a mass killing of 14 frontier troops in a remote Kazakh outpost near China the month before. Vladislav Chelakh, a 20-year-old conscript, was sentenced earlier this month to life in prison after being found solely responsible for the killings.

The border service has come under close scrutiny in Kazakhstan since the killings, which many argued showed the lack of readiness and professionalism among serving troops. Legislation approved Thursday by the upper house of parliament and supported by Stambekov was designed to improve the process for selecting conscripts for the service.

The Kazakh-Uzbek border stretches 2,200 kilometers (1,350 miles) of Central Asian steppes and deserts.

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Afghan policewoman kills US adviser in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan policewoman walked into a high-security compound in Kabul Monday and killed an American contractor with a single bullet to the chest, the first such shooting by a woman in a spate of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies.

Afghan officials who provided details identified the attacker as police Sgt. Nargas, a mother of four with a clean record. The shooting was outside the police headquarters in a walled compound which houses the governor's office, courts and a prison in the heart of the capital.

A police official said she was able to enter the compound armed because she was licensed to carry a weapon as a police officer.

The American, whose identity was not released, was a civilian adviser who worked with the NATO command. He was shot as he came out of a small shop, Kabul Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa told The Associated Press. The woman refused to explain her motive for her attack, he said.

The fact that a woman was behind the assault shocked some Afghans.

"I was very shaken when I heard the news," said Nasrullah Sadeqizada, an independent member of Parliament. "This is the first female to carry out such an attack. It is very surprising and sad," he added, calling for more careful screening of all candidates, male and female, for the police force.

According to NATO, some 1,400 women were serving in the Afghan police force mid-year with 350 in the army -- still a very small proportion of the 350,000 in both services. Such professions are still generally frowned upon in this conservative society but women have made significant gains in recent years, with most jobs and education opportunities open to them, at least by law if not always in practice.

This is in stark contrast to the repression they suffered under the former Taliban regime, which forced women to be virtual prisoners in their homes, and severely punished them for even small infractions of the draconian codes.

The NATO command said that while the investigation continued, there might be "some temporary, prudent measures put into place to reduce the exposure of our people." But a NATO spokesman, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the vital mission of training the Afghan police "remained unchanged."

There have been more than 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel. They represent another looming security issue as President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepare to meet early next year to discuss the pullout of NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and the size and nature of a residual force the United States will keep in the country.

Insider attacks by Afghan soldiers or police have accelerated this year as NATO forces, due to mostly withdraw from the country by 2014, have speeded up efforts to train and advise Afghan security before the pullout.

The surge in such attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops and has further undermined public support for the war in NATO countries.

It has also stoked suspicion among some NATO units of their Afghan counterparts, although others enjoy close working relations with Afghan military and police.

As such attacks mounted this year, U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington insisted they were "isolated incidents" and withheld details.

An AP investigation earlier this month showed that at least 63 coalition troops — mostly Americans — had been killed and more than 85 wounded in at least 46 insider attacks. That's an average of nearly one attack a week. In 2011, 21 insider attacks killed 35 coalition troops.

There have also been incidents of Taliban and other militants dressing in Afghan army and police uniforms to infiltrate NATO installations and attack foreigners.

In February, two U.S. soldiers died from an attack by an Afghan policeman at the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The incident forced NATO to temporarily pull out their advisers from a number of ministries and police units and revise procedures in dealing with Afghan counterparts.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. Taliban militants claim such attacks reflect a growing popular opposition to both foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

In the latest attack, the governor said Nargas, who like many Afghans goes by one name, had asked bystanders where the governor's office was located before confronting the American.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said she fired only one shot that struck the American in the chest. He died either on the way or just upon arrival at a hospital, the spokesman added, describing her act as a "huge crime." He said the woman attempted to run away, pistol still in hand, after the shooting. But she was subdued by police.

She was taken into Afghan custody and Sediqi said she refused to answer questions after hours of interrogation aimed at determining her motives.

Nargas had worked with a human rights department of the police for two years and had earlier been a refugee in Pakistan and Iran, Kabul Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin said.

She could enter the compound armed because as a police officer, she was licensed to carry a pistol, Amin said. He said he did not know whether the killer and victim were acquainted.

"Her background is very clean. We don't see that she had any connection with armed insurgent groups," Sediqi said. He added that she aroused no suspicion because she frequently went back and forth on business between the compound and the Interior Ministry where she worked.

Canadian Brig. Gen. John C. Madower, another NATO command spokesman in Kabul, called the incident "a very sad occasion" and said his "prayers are with the loved ones of the deceased."

The killing came just hours after an Afghan policeman shot five of his colleagues at a checkpoint in northern Afghanistan late Monday. The attacker then stole his colleague's weapons and fled to join the Taliban, said deputy provincial governor in Jawzjan province, Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani.

Separately, U.S. military officials were investigating the apparent suicide of a Navy SEAL commander in Afghanistan. A U.S. military official in Washington said Cmdr. Job W. Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pa., died Saturday of a noncombat-related injury in Uruzgan province. The official said the death "appears to be the result of a suicide."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the death is still being investigated.

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Associated Press reporters Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.

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Taliban not demanding Afghan power monopoly

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban representatives at a conference did not insist on total power in Afghanistan and pledged to grant rights to women that the militant Islamist group itself brutally suppressed in the past, according to a Taliban statement received Sunday.

The pledges emerged from a rare meeting last week involving Taliban and Kabul government representatives.

The less strident substance and tone came in a speech delivered at a conference in France. The French hosts described it as a discussion among Afghans rather than peace negotiations.

It was hard to determine whether the softer line taken by the Taliban representatives reflected a real shift in policy or a salvo in the propaganda war for the hearts and minds of Afghans.

The speech said that a new constitution would protect civil and political rights of all citizens. It promised that women would be allowed to choose husbands, own property, attend school and seek work, rights denied them during Taliban rule, which ended with the 2001 U.S. invasion. The speech was emailed from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

"We are not looking to monopolize power. We want an all-Afghan inclusive government," the speech said. It was delivered by two Taliban officials, Mawlawi Shahbuddin Dilawar and Muhammad Naeem during the conference on Thursday and Friday.

Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government welcomed such talks but did not expect them to bridge the gap between the warring sides.

The United States started to embrace the idea of peace talks after President Barack Obama took office, but discussions stalled in recent years, despite the formation of an Afghan government council tasked with reaching out to the Taliban and the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar.

"The peace initiative is a process, and one or two or three meetings are not going to solve the problems. But we are hopeful for the future," Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said. He said the government's preconditions for the talks with the Taliban have not changed: a cease-fire, recognition of the Afghan constitution, cutting ties with international terrorists and agreeing to respect the rights of Afghan citizens including women and children.

The Taliban speech reiterated the group's own longtime policies, declaring that the current constitution was "illegitimate because it is written under the shadow of (U.S.) B-52 aircraft" and that the Taliban remained the legitimate government of the country, a reference to the U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power.

It also called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and said a 2014 national election was "not beneficial for solving the Afghan quandary" because it would take place while the country was still under foreign occupation.

Most NATO forces are scheduled to be withdrawn by 2014. The Kabul government and its international backers hope that a peace deal can be brokered with the Taliban and other militant groups before the pullout. NATO still has more than 100,000 troops, including 66,000 U.S. soldiers, on the ground. Washington is now determining the size of a scaled down force the United States will keep in Afghanistan after 2014.

"The occupation must be ended as a first step, which is the desire of the entire nation, because this is the mother of all these tragedies," the speech said.

The conference was also attended by the Hezb-e-Islami group, which is allied with the Taliban, and political opponents of President Hamid Karzai, whom the Taliban regard as a puppet of Washington.

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Bombing at political rally kills 9 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed nine people including a provincial government official at a political rally held Saturday by a party that has opposed the Taliban, officials said.

The rally in Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was held by the Awami National Party, whose members have been repeatedly targeted by the Taliban.

Among the dead was Bashir Bilour, the second most senior member of the provincial Cabinet, said Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the politician's brother and federal railways minister.

Over 20 others were wounded by the blast, said local police officer Sabir Khan.

Bilour was leaving the rally after delivering the keynote speech when the attack occurred, said Nazir Khan, a local Awami National Party leader.

"There was smoke and dust all around, and dead and wounded people were lying on the ground," he said.

The suicide bomber was on foot, said another police officer, Imtiaz Khan.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information minister and a member of the Awami National Party, said both he and Bilour had repeatedly received threats from militants. He condemned the attack and said the government needed to intensify its battle against the Taliban.

"Terrorism has engulfed our whole society," said Hussain. "They are targeting our bases, our mosques, our bazars, public meetings and our security checkpoints."

Ten Taliban militants attacked the military area of an international airport in Peshawar with rockets and car bombs a week ago, killing four people and wounding over 40 others. Five of the militants were killed during the attack, and five others died the next day in a gunbattle with security forces.

Also Saturday, police said a mob in southern Pakistan stormed a police station to seize a mentally unstable Muslim man accused of burning a copy of Islam's holy book. The crowd beat him to death, and then set fire to his body.

The case is likely to raise further concerns about the country's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in a death sentence or life in prison to anyone found guilty. An accusation or investigation alone can lead to deaths, as people take the law into their own hands and kill those accused of violating it. Police stations and even courts have been attacked by mobs.

Police arrested the man on Friday after being informed by residents that he had burned a Quran inside a mosque where he had been staying for a night, said local police official Biharud Deen.

An angry mob of more than 200 people then broke into the police station in the southern town of Dadu and took the accused man, who they say was under questioning. Deen said police tried their best to save the man's life but were unable to stop the furious crowd.

Police have arrested 30 people for suspected involvement in the attack, said Deen. The head of the local police station and seven officers had been suspended, he said.

Past attempts by governments in predominantly Muslim Pakistan to review these laws have met with violent opposition from hardline Islamist parties.

In southwestern Pakistan, gunmen late Friday killed 11 Pakistanis and Afghans who were trying to cross into neighboring Iran to travel on to Europe as illegal immigrants, said local government official Zubair Ahmed. The shooting took place in Sunsar town in Baluchistan province, he said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but hundreds of Pakistanis and Afghans are captured by Iranian border guards every year for illegally trying to travel to Europe to find better jobs.

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Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, and Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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US budget negotiations setback drives stocks down

PARIS (AP) — A failed attempt find a compromise in U.S. budget negotiations sent global stock markets plummeting Friday, as investors feared the world's largest economy could teeter into recession if no deal is found.

Without an agreement, the U.S. economy will fall off the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1 when Bush-era tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in automatically. The measures were designed to have a negative effect on the U.S. economy, in the hopes that the feared outcome would push lawmakers and President Barack Obama to find a deal.

"We've seen Europe's politicians repeatedly flirt lemming-like with cliff-diving in 2012, and now it's the turn of U.S. 'leaders,'" said Kit Juckes, an analyst with Societe Generale. "The nagging fear is always there that someone, on one side of the Atlantic or the other, will forget to let rational thought take over at the last second."

Amid the uncertainty, European shares fell. France's CAC dropped 0.15 percent to close at 3,661, while the DAX in Germany dropped 0.5 percent to end the day 7,636. The FTSE index of leading British shares retreated 0.3 percent to 5,939.

The euro also fell sharply, dropping 0.5 percent to $1.3159.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index closed 1 percent lower at 9,940.06. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.7 percent to 22,506.29. South Korea's Kospi shed 1 percent at 1,980.42. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2 percent to 4,623.60. Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed.

U.S. stock futures tumbled after rank-and-file Republican lawmakers failed to support an alternative tax plan by House Speaker John Boehner late Thursday in Washington. That plan would have allowed tax rates to rise on households earning $1 million and up. Obama wants the level to be $400,000.

In midday trading trading in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1.25 percent to 13,147, while the broader Standard & Poor's index fell 1.3 percent at 1,424.

"The fiscal cliff is a real threat not just for U.S. growth next year but for the outlook for global growth," said Jane Foley, currency analyst with Rabobank.

When growth slows, energy demand does, too, and oil prices fell in anticipation.

Benchmark crude for February delivery fell $1.78 to $88.35 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok and Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed to this report.

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Indian women live in fear of violence

NEW DELHI (AP) — It is almost every Indian woman's nightmare, lived daily when in public — a stream of obscene comments, unwanted hands being placed on them and then being blamed for causing the sexual violence.

The gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old student by six men on a bus in New Delhi may have sparked days of protests and demands for authorities to take tougher action, but for women in India it is just an extreme example of what they have to live with.

Many in India's capital and across the country say they are constantly on guard, fearing everything from the routine gropings they suffer on public buses to far more violent assaults. Some say they have structured their entire lives around protecting themselves and their children.

Here are the stories of three women:

Gita Ganeshan, a 52-year-old bank worker, moved to New Delhi with her husband four years ago from the central city of Bhopal to protect their oldest daughter after she was attacked in the Indian capital, where she was studying.

The young woman had been out for a morning walk in a park near her house when four men surrounded her and began tormenting her, Ganeshan said.

"One of the men squeezed her breast. She screamed and kept screaming and running till she came home," she said.

She said she and her daughter would go to the park when she visited the city.

"This was a park where we would walk every day. The girls would jog or run and we would walk along," she said. "Just that one day, she went alone and this happened and it changed our outlook as far the safety of our girls was concerned."

Her daughter gave up jogging and wouldn't leave the house alone for months. Her parents got themselves transferred to the city to look after her.

"That was when we decided that protecting our children had to be our first priority. We've given them a good education. We cannot now tell them now not to pursue their careers because it is not safe to be out working late," she said.

She has trained the young woman to be alert: "Never let your guard down."

Now, Ganeshan is thinking of moving to the central city of Indore to protect her younger daughter, who got a job there.

But for now, she has arranged a special plan to watch over her from far away.

Every evening, her daughter calls as soon as she gets off the bus on her way home from work. The two talk for the next 15 minutes while the young woman walks the kilometer to her home, Ganeshan said.

"Every day, I wake up and my first thought is of my daughters and their safety. I call them up, or they call me," she said. "It is a real fear we confront when, even for a few hours, we are not in touch over the telephone."

Sandhya Jadon, 26, a lawyer from the northern town of Agra, said the harassment starts as soon as she leaves her home.

"For most men, any woman who is out of the four walls of her house is fair game," she said.

Last week, she was repeatedly groped on a public minibus.

"It was broad daylight. I was heading to court, and this man kept trying to touch my thigh. I shouted at him and he had the gall to ask me, 'So what can you do to stop me?'" she said.

She shouted, made the driver stop and got off. But the man continued sitting in the bus and grinning at his audacity. Not one of the 10 other passengers came to her help. Most looked away, she said.

"All day that day I was disturbed. I was shaking inside but also angry. Why do we women have to suffer this?" she asked.

For the next few days, she avoided public buses for fear she would run into the man again.

She feels relatively safe at court, in her lawyer's robes. But she still doesn't stay late at work and asks her parents to meet her at the bus stop to walk her home.

"But the fear — that something bad will happen if you are not careful — is always with you. It hangs over your work; it hangs over everything you do — what you wear, or don't wear; how you talk or how you walk. It is like this big suffocating cloud hanging over you every single day of your life," she said.

Priyanka Khatri, a 21-year-old college student, said fear of attack has forced her to limit her world.

There are no movies in the evening, no late-night parties, no outside activity at all after sundown. College events are cut short because she has to get home.

"Whatever happens, I have to be home before dark. Otherwise, my parents get so worried and they will keep calling me on my cell phone till they know I'm safe," she said.

Khatri said she will only go out in the evening accompanied by her parents to a nearby temple or a family wedding.

She is shadowed by fear when she gets dressed in the morning.

"I wouldn't dream of wearing shorts or skirts in public," she said.

She is petrified by her daily commute to school on public buses.

"Usually I carry a safety pin with me, because in buses there are always men who will try to touch you," Khatri said. "Some men are so brazen, you tick them off and they will persist on groping you. Then you feel you have to do something. So I stick my pin into them, or I use my elbow, and just jab them with my elbow. But that too makes you afraid."

And she has tempered her dreams to fit the reality of life in Delhi. The outgoing badminton enthusiast longed to be an event planner. Instead, she is looking for teaching jobs, "because then I can be home before dark."

If her precautions fail and she is attacked, Khatri has a backup plan, she said.

"I will scream. I always have a scream."

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Park Geun-hye elected SKorea's 1st woman leader

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Park Geun-hye, daughter of a divisive military strongman from South Korea's authoritarian era, was elected the country's first female president Wednesday, a landmark win that could mean a new drive to start talks with rival North Korea.

After five years of high tension under unpopular incumbent Lee Myung-bak, Park has vowed to pursue engagement and send greater aid to North Korea, despite a widely condemned long-range rocket launch last week. Pyongyang's state media, however, has repeatedly questioned the sincerity of her North Korea policy since she and Lee are from the same conservative party.

Huge crowds lined up throughout the day, braving frigid weather to choose between Park and liberal candidate Moon Jae-in, the son of North Korean refugees. Both candidates steered away from Lee's policies, including, most strikingly, his hard-line stance on North Korea.

Turnout was the highest in 15 years, and some analysts thought that might lift Moon, who is more popular with younger voters. Despite moving to the center, however, Park was carried by her conservative base of mainly older voters who remember with fondness what they see as the firm economic and security guidance of her father, the late President Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

Ties between the Koreas plummeted during Lee's term. Many voters link Lee's tough North Korea policy to nuclear and missile tests — including a rocket launch last week by Pyongyang that outsiders call a cover for a banned long-range missile test. Some also say ragged North-South relations led to two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

North Korea forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with the rocket launch, although many voters said they cared more about economic worries.

Park has said she is open to dialogue with North Korea, but she has also called on Pyongyang to show progress in nuclear dismantlement for better relations with Seoul. North Korea describes Park's stance as "deceptive," saying her North Korea policy is the same as Lee's.

Park has also raised the possibility of a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but only if it's "an honest dialogue on issues of mutual concern."

After Moon conceded defeat, Park said that she would dedicate herself to improving public livelihood and achieving national unity.

"I really thank you. This election is the people's victory," Park told a crowd packing a Seoul plaza.

With about 98 percent of votes counted, Park had won 51.6 percent to Moon's 47.9 percent, according to the state-run National Election Commission. Park is to take office in February when Lee ends his single five-year term.

No Korean woman is believed to have ruled since the ninth century. Park becomes the most powerful figure in a country where women are often paid less than men, are often trapped in low-paying jobs, despite first-class educations, and often struggle to raise families and pursue careers.

Analysts said her victory shows women can thrive in South Korea's tough political world.

Park will govern under the shadow of her father, who is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he's also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

Park's win means that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father's strong charisma as president and settle the country's economic and security woes, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

"Park is good-hearted, calm and trustworthy," 50-year-old housewife Lee Hye-Young said at a polling station at a Seoul elementary school. "Also, I think Park would handle North Korea better. Moon would want to make too many concessions to North Korea."

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Associated Press writers Youkyung Lee and Sam Kim contributed to this story.

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Both SKorean presidential hopefuls promise change

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The liberal son of North Korean refugees faces the conservative daughter of a late dictator in South Korea's presidential election Wednesday. For all their differences, they hold similar views on the need to engage with Pyongyang and other issues.

One big reason: Voters are deeply dissatisfied with current President Lee Myung-bak, including with his hardline stance on the country's authoritarian rival to the north. Park Geun-hye, who belongs to Lee's party, has had to tack to the center in her bid to become South Korea's first woman president.

Polls showed Park and Moon Jae-in in a dead heat ahead of elections to lead Asia's fourth-largest economy and an important U.S. security bulwark in the region.

There's deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals.

Many voters blame Lee's hardline views for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests — including Pyongyang's rocket launch last week. Some also say the chill in North-South relations led to two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

The effort to create distance with Lee has been difficult for Park, whose popularity rests on a staunchly conservative, anti-North Korea base.

Both candidates propose pulling back from Lee's insistence that engagement with North Korea be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang. Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, who wants to restore large-scale government aid.

Moon is a former chief of staff to Lee's predecessor, late President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Moon said on the eve of the election that he envisions a "politics that integrates all people. Politics that does not divide."

He wants an early summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Park has also held out the possibility of such a meeting, but only if it's "an honest dialogue on issues of mutual concern."

Whoever wins the presidential Blue House will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy not just in Seoul but in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. All those governments have recently undergone an election, a change of leadership or both, and they have been waiting for a new South Korean leader before making any big decisions on North Korea policy.

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon and Park also agree on the need to fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Moon wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

Both candidates also have promised to strengthen the traditional alliance with the United States while boosting economic ties with booming China.

Park is aiming to make history as the first female leader in South Korea — and modern Northeast Asia. But she also works under the shadow of her father, Park Chung-hee, who imposed his will on South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

"I will become a president of the people's livelihoods, who thinks only about the people," Park was quoted Tuesday by the Yonhap news agency. "I will restore the broken middle class."

Park's father is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he's also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

"Nostalgia for Park Chung-hee still runs deep in our society, particularly in the older generation," Chung said.

A Park win would mean that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father's strong charisma as president and settle the country's economic and security woes, Chung said.

Moon, on the other hand, was a young opponent of Park Chung-hee. Before working for Roh, whom Lee replaced in 2008, Moon was a human rights lawyer. He also spent time in jail for challenging the government of Park.

Moon's parents lived in the North Korean port city of Hungnam before fleeing to South Korea aboard a U.S. military ship in December 1950, six months after the Korean War broke out. They were among an estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees transported by the United States from Hungnam to South Korea in daring evacuation operations that month.

Moon's parents lived in an interim shelter on South Korea's southeastern Geoje Island and later moved to a nearby village where Moon was born in 1953. Moon's father, a former agriculture official at Hungnam city hall, did manual labor at the camp while his mother peddled eggs.

A Moon win would be a clear judgment against the Lee government, said Hahm Sung Deuk, a political scientist at Korea University in Seoul. Moon's appeal is that he "appears to be nice, honest and clean."

With South Korea's economy facing a 2 to 3 percent annual growth rate for this year and the next, the presidential candidates have focused on welfare and equality and fairness issues. Neither, however, has matched Lee's campaign promise to boost South Korea's economy by an ambitious 7 percent growth annually, apparently aware of the global economic challenges that beset the country's export-driven economy.

Economic worries may be the focus of many voters, but North Korea has forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with its rocket launch last week, which the United States and others call a cover for a banned test of technology that could power a missile to the U.S. mainland. North Korea says it sought only to put a peaceful satellite into orbit.

The launch won't be a major election influence, but it will consolidate conservative votes in favor of Park, said Hahm. He said the launch will remind South Korean voters that "the North Koreans are unpredictable and belligerent."

The rocket launch could make it harder to quickly mend relations with North Korea, especially if Park wins.

"She has a firm stance on national security, but she has few ideas on how to establish a peace regime and lacks the determination to do so," said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. "If Park becomes president, South-North relations would get better, but a big improvement in ties would be difficult."

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AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this story.

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Bangladesh probe: Fire sabotage, owner negligent

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A Bangladesh government committee investigating the garment factory fire that killed 112 people last month said in its findings Monday that the blaze was sabotage, probably by someone who worked there.

But the panel said that no matter who set the fire, the owner of the factory also should be punished for the deaths because he neglected worker safety.

"If someone is responsible for such a huge number of deaths, that's him. He has failed to ensure safety," committee head Mainuddin Khandaker said of factory owner Delwar Hossain.

Some government and garment industry officials had alleged soon after the Nov. 24 fire that it was an act of sabotage, though a fire official said casualties would have been greatly reduced if the factory had followed safety rules.

The factory lacked emergency exits and Hossain has said only three floors of the eight-story building were legally built. Surviving employees said gates had been locked and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm went off.

The four-member committee submitted its report to the government Monday. At least two other investigations are continuing.

Khandaker, an official with the Ministry of Home Affairs, told The Associated Press that committee members believe some people who worked at the factory were involved in the sabotage.

"Otherwise, how come they locked the gates? How come they asked the workers to go back to work even after the fire alarm?" he said.

Three factory officials suspected of locking workers inside the building were arrested days after the fire and remain in custody.

Khandaker said the panel recommended further investigation through a "powerful intelligence agency" to unearth the insiders.

No matter who is responsible for setting the fire, Khandaker said, "We can't spare the owner of the factory. He is responsible for his failure to ensure safety. I have recommended specifically to bring the owner under the purview of law."

Hossain "tried to defend himself" under questioning from the committee, Khandaker said. "But I can tell you clearly that he had serious negligence as he has failed to follow existing building code and safety rules."

A phone call seeking comment from Hossain rang unanswered Monday night.

The committee recommended that the government form a "powerful task force" to ensure safety at garment factories across the country. The garment industry accounts for about 80 percent of Bangladesh's exports, and workers' rights groups say existing regulations have gone unenforced because officials fear the industry's power.

The Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory made clothing for several major U.S. retailers, including Wal-Mart, which had received a 2011 audit warning about the factory's conditions. Wal-Mart and other companies said suppliers had used the Tazreen factory without their knowledge.

Retailers, fashion labels, labor groups and local officials meeting in 2011 in Dhaka, the capital, had discussed an agreement to improve fire safety at Bangladesh's roughly 4,000 garment factories. The proposal went nowhere after a Wal-Mart representative said it was "not financially feasible," according to meeting minutes and witnesses.

Khandaker said the government would now examine his committee's report and take further steps in line with their recommendations.

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Conservative LDP wins landslide in Japan

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in a landslide election victory Sunday after three years in opposition, exit polls showed, signaling a rightward shift in the government that could further heighten tensions with rival China.

The victory means that the hawkish former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will get a second chance to lead the nation after a one-year stint in 2006-2007. He would be Japan's seventh prime minister in six-and-a-half years.

Public broadcaster NHK's exit polls projected that the LDP, which ruled Japan for most of the post-World War II era until it was dumped in 2009, won between 275 and 300 seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament. Official results were not expected until Monday morning. Before the election, it had 118 seats.

The results were a sharp rebuke for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's ruling Democratic Party of Japan, reflecting widespread unhappiness for its failure to keep campaign promises and get the stagnant economy going during its three years in power.

With Japan stuck in a two-decade slump and receding behind China as the region's most important economic player, voters appeared ready to turn back to the LDP.

A serious-looking Abe characterized the win as more of a protest vote against the DPJ than a strong endorsement of his party.

"I think the results do not mean we have regained the public's trust 100 percent. Rather, they reflect 'no votes' to the DPJ's politics that stalled everything the past three years," he told NHK. "Now we are facing the test of how we can live up to the public's expectations, and we have to answer that question."

The ruling Democrats, which won in a landslide three years ago amid high hopes for change, captured less than 100 seats, exit polls indicated, down sharply from its pre-election strength of 230.

Calling the results "severe," Noda told a late-night news conference he was stepping down to take responsibility for the defeat.

"I apologize deeply for our failure to achieve results," he said. "It was the voters' judgment to our failure to live up to their expectations during our three years and three months of leadership."

The LDP will stick with its long-time partner New Komeito, backed by a large Buddhist organization, to form a coalition government, party officials said. Together, they will probably control about 320 seats, NHK projected — a two-thirds majority that would make it easier for the government to pass legislation.

Noda said a special parliamentary session would be held before year-end to pick a new prime minister. As leader of the biggest party in the lower house, Abe will almost certainly assume that post.

The new government will need to quickly deliver results ahead of upper house elections in the summer. To revive Japan's struggling economy, Abe will likely push for increased public works spending and lobby for stronger moves by the central bank to break Japan out of its deflationary trap.

Still, some voters said they supported the LDP's vows to build a stronger, more assertive country to answer increasing pressure from China and threats of North Korean rocket launches. Abe has repeatedly said he will protect Japan's "territory and beautiful seas" amid a territorial dispute with China over some uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

"I feel like the LDP will protect Japan and restore some national pride," Momoko Mihara, 31, said after voting for the Liberal Democrats in the western Tokyo suburb of Fuchu. "I hope Mr. Abe will stand tall."

The LDP may also have benefited from voter confusion over the dizzying array of more than 12 parties, including several news ones, and their sometimes vague policy goals.

One of the new parties, the right-leaning, populist Japan Restoration Party, won between 40 to 61 seats, NHK projected. The party, led by the bombastic nationalist ex-Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto — both of whom are polarizing figures with forceful leadership styles — could become a future coalition partner for the LDP, analysts said.

Ishihara was the one who stirred up the latest dispute with China over the islands when he proposed that the Tokyo government buy them from their private Japanese owners and develop them.

In this first election since the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, atomic energy ended up not being a major election issue even though polls show about 80 percent of Japanese want to phase out nuclear power.

In the end, economic concerns won out, said Kazuhisa Kawakami at Meiji Gakuin University.

"We need to prioritize the economy, especially since we are an island nation," he said. "We're not like Germany. We can't just get energy from other countries in a pinch."

The staunchly anti-nuclear Tomorrow Party — which was formed just three weeks ago —captured between six and 15 seats, NHK estimated.

Tomorrow Party head Yukiko Kada said she was very disappointed to see LDP, the original promoter of the nuclear energy policy — and still the most pro-nuclear party — making a big comeback.

Abe, 58, is considered one of the more conservative figures in the increasingly conservative LDP.

During his previous tenure as prime minister, he pursued a nationalistic agenda pressing for more patriotic education and upgrading the defense agency to ministry status.

It remains to be seen how he will behave this time around, though he is talking tough toward China, and the LDP platform calls developing fisheries and setting up a permanent outpost in the disputed islands, called Senkakus by Japan and Daioyu by China — a move that would infuriate Beijing.

During his time as leader, Abe also insisted there was no proof Japan's military had coerced Chinese, Korean and other women into prostitution in military brothels during Japan's wartime aggression in Asia. He later apologized but lately has suggested that a landmark 1993 apology for sex slavery needs revising.

He has said he regrets not visiting Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Japan's war dead, including Class-A war criminals, during his term as prime minister. China and South Korea oppose such visits, saying they reflect Japan's reluctance to fully atone for its wartime atrocities.

The LDP wants to revise Japan's pacifist constitution to strengthen its Self-Defense Forces and, breaching a postwar taboo, designate them as a "military." It also proposes increasing Japan's defense budget and allowing Japanese troops to engage in "collective self-defense" operations with allies that are not directly related to Japan's own defense.

It's not clear, however, how strongly the LDP will push such proposals, which have been kicked around by conservatives for decades but usually make no headway in parliament because they are supported only by a fairly small group of right-wing advocates.

"The economy has been in dire straits these past three years, and it must be the top priority," Abe said in a televised interview. "We must strengthen our alliance with the U.S. and also improve relations with China, with a strong determination that is no change in the fact the Senkaku islands are our territory."

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AP writers Elaine Kurtenbach, Mari Yamaguchi and Eric Talmadge contributed to this report.

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Rockets fired at airport in Pakistan, 3 killed

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants fired three rockets at an airport in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Saturday night, killing three people and wounding over 30 others, officials said.

Peshawar is located on the edge of Pakistan's tribal region, the main sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the country. The city has been hit by repeated attacks in the past few years, but an attack on the airport is rare.

None of the rockets landed inside the main airport area, which is jointly used by civilian authorities and the air force, said Pervez George, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority.

Two of the rockets damaged a wall that surrounds the airport, and a third landed near a government building outside the premises, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is the capital. A gunbattle broke out between security forces and militants after the rocket attack, said Hussain.

No militants were able to enter the airport, said the air force in a statement sent to reporters. No air force personnel were injured and none of their planes were damaged, it said.

The dead and wounded from the attack came from the neighborhoods located near the airport, said Umar Ayub, a local hospital official. The wounded included women and children, and several people were in critical condition, said Ayub.

Local TV footage showed people in the neighborhoods near the airport rushing for safety as the attack occurred. One car was damaged by the rocket fire and another was set on fire. A house was also damaged.

The airport has been closed, and flights are being diverted to other cities, said George, the civil aviation spokesman.

Also Saturday, police said a judge freed a couple on bail who confessed to killing their 15-year-old daughter in October by pouring acid on her after their other children pardoned them.

The girl's parents, Mohammad Zafar and his wife Zaheen, said in a televised interview that they killed her because she sullied the family's honor by looking at a boy.

They were freed from a jail in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Friday after their other children, who are minors, said they forgave their parents, said police officer Tahir Ayub. The children spoke through their guardian, who is also a relative, said Ayub.

The police officer said authorities had evidence to prove the murder charge against the parents, but by law, their children had the right to forgive them. The murder charge will likely be dropped, said Ayub.

The girl's death underlined the problem of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan, where women are often killed for marrying or having relationships not approved by their families or because they are perceived to have somehow dishonored their family.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 943 women were killed in the name of honor last year. The real toll is believed to be higher because many of the crimes go unreported.

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Associated Press writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Roshan Mughal in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country's young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday's rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father's death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un's father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country's international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea's military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim's rule.

The launch's success, 14 years after North Korea's first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

"North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader" who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers' Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that "hostile forces" had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the "cunning" critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or "Lode Star" — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to "Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il."

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

"It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space," Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday's ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

"The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again," she told The Associated Press. "And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future."

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

"Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige," according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the "Machiavellian argument" that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — "the only real threat to his rule."

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father's legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea's political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea's nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, "it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger," Snyder said.

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Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.

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