New North Korea video shows ‘defeat’ of U.S. troops

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 3 hrs ago

Rocket fire seen in a North Korea propaganda video (YouTube)

North Korea has submitted yet another entry to its ongoing propaganda film festival. This time, it has released a video that threatens an attack on U.S. forces using "powerful weapons of mass destruction" and depicts an invasion of Seoul in which 150,000 American citizens are taken hostage.

Posted on North Korea's official Uriminzokkiri website andYouTube channel, the video comes less than a week after one showing the White House in its crosshairs and the explosion of the U.S. Capitol building.

The film, titled "A Short, Three-Day War," opens with rockets firing into South Korea from the north followed by thousands of North Korean troops crossing the border.

"The crack storm troops will occupy Seoul and other cities and take 150,000 U.S. citizens as hostages," a narrator says in a voice-over, according to a translation by the Telegraph.

[Related: Rodman returns from N. Korea, says Kim wants Obama to 'call him']

Last month, North Korea produced a bizarre video of a dream sequence that imagined a U.S. city resembling New York under an apparent missile attack and the Empire State Building shown in flames. The soundtrack to that three-and-a-half-minute video was an instrumental version of "We Are the World," and the attack footage appeared to have been taken from the video game "Modern Warfare 3." It was eventually removed from YouTube.

Watch North Korea's latest propaganda video:

C. African rebel: "Consider me head of state"

In this photo taken on Friday March 22, 2013 and provided on Monday March 25, 2013 by the French Army Communications Audio visual office, French soldiers arrive at Bangui airport, Central Africa Republic. Rebels overthrew Central African Republic's president of a decade on Sunday, seizing the presidential palace and declaring that the desperately poor country has "opened a new page in its history." The country's president fled the capital, while extra French troops moved to secure the airport, officials said. (AP Photo/Elise Foucaud, ECPAD)

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Two days after sweeping into the capital of the Central African Republic and overthrowing the nation's president, one of the leaders of the rebel coalition has already declared himself president, saying he considers himself to be the new head of state.

However, another rebel leader told reporters his group does not recognize Michel Djotodia as president, and says they will challenge his attempt to install himself at the helm.

Djotodia was asked by a French radio station if they should address him as Mr. President? He answered in an interview broadcast by RFI radio on Monday: "I can consider myself to be, at this moment, the head of state."

Asked how long he would stay in power, Djotodia suggested that he would stay as long as three years, the time remaining in the unfinished term of President Francois Bozize, who fled the capital over the weekend and whose whereabouts are now unknown.

"We've just barely started, and you are asking me how long I plan to stay in power? (laughs) I can't say because you know full well that we need time to bring back peace. There is insecurity ... It was said in Libreville that we should respect the three year timeline for organizing free and transparent elections. We won't stay any longer," he told RFI.

In Paris, Nelson N'Jadder, the president of the Revolution for Democracy, one of the rebel groups belonging to the Seleka rebel coalition which invaded the capital, said that his fighters do not recognize Djotodia. He claimed the members of the rebel coalition had agreed that their aim was to push to the presidential palace and then announce an 18-month-long transition before new elections are held. There was never a consensus around appointing Djotodia as their overall leader, he said.

"We do not recognize him as president," N'Jadder told The Associated Press by telephone from Paris. "We had agreed that we would push to Bangui in order to arrest Bozize and that we would then announce an 18-month transition, a transition that would be as fast as possible — and not one that would last three years," he said. "For your information, I have enough soldiers loyal to me to attack Djotodia. I am planning to take the Wednesday flight to Bangui."

N'Jadder said that rebels had been pillaging people's homes in Bangui, including the homes of French expatriates. He said that on Monday, he had received a phone call from France's ambassador to Bangui and had presented his apology, explaining that those doing the pillaging were mostly Djotodia's men. "We came to liberate the people, not to steal from them. This is shameful. Unacceptable," he said.

The Seleka rebel coalition is made up of several rebel groups, which last December began their rapid sweep into the Central African Republic, a nation of 4.5 million located at the heart of the continent. The rebels pushed all the way to a town just outside Damara, 75 kilometers (47 miles) from the capital, before entering into talks with the government. In January, they signed a peace deal in Libreville, the capital of the neighboring nation of Gabon, agreeing to allow Bozize to carry out the last three years of his term, in return for a number of concessions.

Last week, they declared the peace deal void, saying Bozize had failed to free their prisoners and had refused to send back the South African troops that were guarding him, two of the points of the accord. In just three days, they swept past Damara, marking the "red line" set up by a regional force to divide rebel-held territory from the area under government control, and advanced all the way to a checkpoint, PK12, just outside the capital. Bozize fled with a coterie of loyalists, leaving by car across the border into neighboring Congo, said N'Jadder and others. It was unclear if he remained in Congo or if he had traveled onward to another nation.

The speed of the rebel advance, and the fact that they succeeded in pushing past the South African troops stationed in Bangui suggests they were well-armed, and likely benefiting from the support of neighboring nations. There has been speculation that either Chad, or Sudan or Gabon provided the rebels with arms and logistical support. Djotodia rejected the claim.

"If we picked up arms, it's not because we were pushed by this or that person," he told RFI. "It's poverty simply put that pushed us to pick up arms — that's all."

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Rukmini Callimachi can be reached at www.twitter.com/rcallimachi

Foreign maids lose court fight for HK residency

Top Hong Kong court rules unanimously to deny permanent residency bid by foreign maids

HONG KONG (AP) -- Hong Kong's top court ruled against two Filipino domestic helpers seekingpermanent residency Monday, the final decision in a case that affects tens of thousands of other foreign maids in the southern Chinese financial hub.

In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Final Appeal sided with the government's position that tight restrictions on domestic helpers mean they don't have the same status as other foreign residents, who can apply to settle permanently after seven years. Lawyers for the two had argued that an immigration provision barring domestic workers from permanent residency was unconstitutional.

The court also rejected the government's request for Beijing to have the final say in the matter, which had sparked fears of interference by China's central government in the semiautonomous region. Some saw the request as a backhanded attempt by the government to get Beijing to halt the flow of another group of unwanted migrants — children of mainland Chinese parents — while putting the city's prized judicial independence at risk.

In the ruling, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma wrote that foreign domestic helpers "are told from the outset that admission is not for the purposes of settlement and that dependents cannot be brought to reside in Hong Kong."

The decision means Evangeline Banao Vallejos and Daniel Domingo cannot apply for permanent residence even though Vallejos has worked in Hong Kong since 1986 and Domingo since 1985. Neither appeared at court.

"We are very disappointed," said Mark Daly, a lawyer for the pair.

He said Vallejos was speechless after learning about the decision.

"While we respect the judgment, we disagree with it," Daly said.

He added that the ruling is "not a good reflection of the values we should be teaching youngsters and people in our society."

The case has split the city, home to nearly 300,000 maids from Southeast Asian countries. The vast majority are from Indonesia and the Philippines. Some argue that barring maids from applying for residency amounts to ethnic discrimination. But other groups have raised fears that the case would result in a massive influx of maids' family members arriving in Hong Kong, straining the densely populated city's social services, health and education systems. Supporters of the maids, who earn at least $500 a month and get room and board, say those fears are overblown.

Members of an activist group briefly chanted "We are workers, not slaves" and others slogans on the courthouse's front steps after the ruling was released.

"Today is a very sad day for migrant workers in Hong Kong," said Eman Villanueva, secretary-general of United Filipinos in Hong Kong. "With the court's ruling today, it gave its judicial seal to unfair treatment and the social exclusion of foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong."

Hong Kong is a former British colony that has been a special administrative region of China since 1997 and permanent residency is the closest thing it has to citizenship.

Along with the foreign maids, Hong Kong is also home to tens of thousands of expatriates working in professions like banking, accounting or teaching. They can apply after seven years for permanent residence, which allows them to vote and work without needing a visa.

Government figures cited by a lower court in this case said an estimated 117,000 foreign maids had been in Hong Kong for that length of time as of 2010.

In rejecting the maids' application, the court said it did not need to grant a controversial government request for Beijing to reinterpret residency rights outlined in the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Such a reinterpretation could have also taken away the right to residency from children born in the city to mainland Chinese parents, which they were granted in an earlier ruling.

That's made Hong Kong a popular place for mainland Chinese to give birth but it's also added to growing anger from residents upset about a growing influx of mainlanders, including pregnant women crossing the border to give births, straining local hospitals. Some in Hong Kong have dubbed mainland visitors "locusts," accusing them of hogging all the baby formula sold in stores and pushing up property prices through their voracious buying of apartments.

Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok said the government "welcomes" the decision and is studying the court's judgment while it considers further options it can take regarding the children, known as "double negatives" because neither parent is from Hong Kong.

"In the meantime, the government will continue to adopt robust administrative measures" to enforce a policy of not allowing any mainlanders to give birth in private hospitals, Lai told reporters.

The request had raised fears about Beijing interfering in Hong Kong, which prides itself on having a strong rule of law with a separate legal system from mainland China and under the Basic Law is granted a high degree of autonomy until 2047.

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Online:

Hong Kong legal judgments: http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk

Rallies planned outside Supreme Court during gay marriage hearings

By Chris Moody, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 12 hrs ago

Thousands of activists on both sides of the gay marriage question are poised to rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., starting on Tuesday while the justices hear oral arguments for two cases concerning same-sex marriage.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the court will hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a 2008 voter-approved law in California that banned gay marriage. On Wednesday the court will consider the Defense of Marriage Act, a law passed by Congress in 1996 that restricts the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.

Supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage are planning major rallies near the building to voice their views.

As early as last Thursday—five days before oral arguments begin—people began lining up near the court steps to secure seats inside, sitting through freezing temperatures, rain and snow over the weekend.

On Tuesday they will be joined by thousands more, some who are flying in from around the country for the hearings.

The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, will hold a rally on the National Mall, a few blocks from the Supreme Court. The organization has a permit for 5,000 attendees to rally before marching together toward the court building. NOM has organized with church congregations from 15 states that have confirmed their planned attendance.

Supporters of same-sex marriage will also be on hand outside the court. The Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay advocacy group, is planning a diverse lineup of speakers throughout the morning, including a few Republicans who have crossed party lines to support extending marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples.

District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton will address the pro-gay marriage rally, as will David Frum, a conservative journalist and former speechwriter for former President George W. Bush.

Yahoo News will be on hand both inside the court for hearing coverage and outside for the rallies. Follow live updates throughout the day on Flickr and join a live chat about the cases on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. ET.