North, South Korea trade artillery rounds into the sea

North Korea fired more than 100 artillery rounds into South Korean waters as part of a drill on Monday, prompting the South to fire back, officials in Seoul said, but the exercise appeared to be more saber rattling from Pyongyang rather than the start of a military standoff. The North had flagged its intentions to conduct the exercise in response to U.N. condemnation of last week's missile launches by Pyongyang and against what it says are threatening military drills in the South by U.S. forces. North Korea also accused the South of "gangster-like" behavior at the weekend by "abducting" one of its fishing boats and threatened to retaliate. The South said it had sent the boat back after it drifted into its waters. More than 100 North Korean shells out of 500 or so fired landed in South Korean waters, prompting marines from the South to fire back with more than 300 rounds in the North's waters, defense officials in Seoul said. Seoul also scrambled F-15s on its side of the maritime border, they said. "We believe the North's maritime firing is a planned provocation and an attempt to test our military's determination to defend the Northern Limit Line and to get an upper hand in South-North relations," South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. The Northern Limit Line, a maritime border that wraps itself round a part of the North's coastline, has been the scene of frequent clashes and in 2010, four people were killed when North Korea shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. "It's up to the two militaries either to recognize or reject their own claimed line, and challenge the other's - this goes back and forth, so this is probably another episode of that," said Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group. Earlier in 2010, a South Korean naval vessel was sunk close to the line by what an international commission said was a North Korean torpedo, although the North denies involvement. The line was drawn up at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and North Korea does not recognize it. The two sides are still technically at war as the conflict ended in a mere truce, not a treaty. The residents of Baengnyeong island, one of the remote islands close to the firing area, were evacuated to bomb shelters as a precaution, a government official said by telephone. North Korea has ratcheted up its rhetoric in recent weeks and conducted a series of missile launches, mostly short range, in response to what it sees as the threat posed by a series of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that are held annually. The current drill called Foal Eagle ends on April 18. "At a time that South Korea and the United States are conducting military exercises using sophisticated equipment, the North is unlikely to be reckless enough to do anything that will lead to a sharp worsening of situation," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "There is an element of trying to show displeasure at the South Korea-U.S. drills and to pressure the South, but it doesn't seem the North wants this to blow up into something bigger." China, which hosted several rounds of now-defunct multilateral talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program, nevertheless said it was concerned at the exchange of fire and called for restraint from both sides. "The temperature is rising at present on the Korean peninsula, and this worries us," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing. He added that China was also concerned by the North's threat to carry out more nuclear tests. North Korea threatened nuclear strikes against the South and the United States last year after the United Nations tightened sanctions against it for conducting its third nuclear test. Financial markets in South Korea were unmoved by the latest developments with the stock market's benchmark KOSPI turning higher from early losses to finish up 0.2 percent and the won extending gains to end onshore trade up 0.4 percent against the dollar.

Black Box Detector Joining Malaysia Plane Search

Australian authorities say a navy warship with a sophisticated U.S. black box locator heads out Sunday to join the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. It will take a few days for the Ocean Shield and its flight recorder detector to arrive at the location officials say the Boeing 777 may have gone down. Authorities say 10 ships and 10 aircraft are involved in the search Sunday in a vast area of the Indian Ocean far off the coast of the western Australian city of Perth. Newly arrived Chinese relatives of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 shouts slogans as they speak to reporters at a hotel in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, Sunday March 30, 2014. Newly arrived Chinese relatives of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 shouts slogans as they speak to reporters at a hotel in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, Sunday March 30, 2014. Meanwhile, dozens of angry Chinese relatives of missing passengers arrived in Kuala Lumpur Sunday, demanding more information about what happened to the aircraft, accusing Malaysian officials of withholding vital information. Most of the people on board the jet were Chinese. On Saturday, Chinese planes spotted objects in the Indian Ocean bearing the same colors as the missing jet. However, investigators said those objects and others that have been pulled from the water cannot be confirmed as debris from the airliner. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is now into its fourth week. The search shifted more than 1,000 kilometers northeast Friday when investigators determined the plane flew faster and burned fuel more quickly than previously estimated. This means the jet did not fly as far as believed. The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8, thousands of kilometers west of its intended flight path. The jet took off from Kuala Lumpur and was headed to Beijing. Officials believe the aircraft crashed into the southern Indian Ocean far from land. They have not ruled out any cause, including terrorism or a hijacking.

Magnitude-5.1 earthquake shakes Los Angeles area

A magnitude-5.1 earthquake shook the Los Angeles area and surrounding counties Friday night, authorities said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at about 9:11 p.m. and was centered near Brea in Orange County -- about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It was felt as far south as San Diego and as far north as Ventura County, according to citizen responses collected online by the USGS. About an hour earlier, a 3.6 quake hit nearby in the city of La Habra. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it was looking for signs of damage or injuries. Callers to KNX-AM reported seeing a brick wall collapse, water sloshing in a swimming pool, and wires and trees swaying back and forth. The Los Angeles Times reported that residents in La Habra posted pictures on social media showing broken vases, topped furniture and other items scattered in their homes. Power outages were reported in some neighborhoods near the epicenter, according to the report. Broken glass, gas leaks, a water main break and a rockslide were reported near the epicenter, according to Twitter updates from local authorities. Minor injuries were reported as a result of a rockslide that caused a vehicle rollover and closed a portion of Carbon Canyon Road in Brea, authorities said. "A lot of the glass in the place shook like crazy," he said. "It started like a roll and then it started shaking like crazy. Everybody ran outside, hugging each other in the streets." A helicopter news reporter from KNBC-TV reported from above that rides at Disneyland in Anaheim -- several miles from the epicenter -- were stopped as a precaution. Tom Connolly, a Boeing employee who lives in La Mirada, the next town over from La Habra, said the 5.1 quake lasted about 30 seconds. "We felt a really good jolt. It was a long rumble and it just didn't feel like it would end," he told The Associated Press by phone. "Right in the beginning it shook really hard, so it was a little unnerving. People got quiet and started bracing themselves by holding on to each other. It was a little scary." Friday's quake hit a week after a pre-dawn magnitude-4.4 quake centered in the San Fernando Valley rattled a swath of Southern California. That jolt shook buildings and rattled nerves, but did not cause significant damage. Southern California has not experienced a damaging earthquake since the 1994 magnitude-6.7 Northridge quake killed several dozen people and caused $25 billion in damage.

Judge Postpones Oscar Pistorius Defense Hearings

PRETORIA, South Africa — The trial of Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee track star, was adjourned until April 7 on Friday after one of the two judicial assessors was taken ill, the judge said. The announcement came shortly after Mr. Pistorius arrived at the courthouse for the first day of his defense on murder charges and after more than three weeks of prosecution testimony depicting him as spoiled, irascible, jealous and trigger-happy. Mr. Pistorius, 27, has said that he killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, by mistake, shooting her with a handgun in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, but he has denied the charge of premeditated murder, which carries a minimum 25-year jail term. He has said that he shot her through a locked bathroom door believing her to be an intruder at his upscale home in a gated complex in Pretoria. As court officials, lawyers, journalists and Mr. Pistorius gathered in the courtroom on Friday, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial would be postponed until April 7 because one of the two assessors sitting with her was sick. There is no jury trial in South Africa and assessors routinely advise judges. Mr. Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had both legs amputated below the knee in his infancy. Wearing the scythe-like prostheses that inspired his nickname, the Blade Runner, he competed in both the Paralympic Games and against able-bodied athletes in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, cementing his reputation as an emblem of human triumph over adversity. While dating Ms. Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, he also became a well-known figure on South Africa’s celebrity circuit. But after four gunshots echoed around the complex where he lived, his life — and his public image — changed. The prosecution rested its case in the trial on Tuesday after introducing into evidence text messages between Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp designed to bolster its case that the couple had a volatile relationship. At one point, for instance, Ms. Steenkamp told Mr. Pistorius in a text message that his behavior at an engagement party for a friend of hers — in which he accused her of flirting with another man and demanded that they leave early — had been perplexing and upsetting. She also accused him of micromanaging her behavior, criticizing her and holding her to a double standard in which he could talk about past romances but she could not. But in cross-examination, the defense established that of more than 1,000 text messages between the couple, only four had been negative, and that many had been extremely warm and affectionate.

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Barack Obama: US and EU will coordinate deeper sanctions against Russia

EU and US leaders met at a summit to coordinate their steps on imposing harsher sanctions on Russia. "What we're now doing is coordinating around the potential for additional, deeper sanctions, should Russia move forward and engage in further incursions into Ukraine," said Barack Obama, US President. The President also stressed the importance of "collective defence" during a meeting with NATO's Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "We've already made a series of decisions to help underscore the importance of NATO and collective defence in the wake of what has happened in Ukraine. "There will be a ministerial summit coming up in which I have asked the United States delegation to work cooperatively with the Secretary-General's office and evaluate all the additional steps that we might take in order to bolster that confidence among all NATO members."

Mudslide kills 24, nearly 200 feared missing or unaccounted for in Washington

Rescuers found 10 more bodies in the debris of a Washington state mudslide on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the devastating slide to 24, authorities said during an evening press conference. Two bodies were recovered and eight were more located amid the wreckage, Snohomish County Fire District Chief Travis Hots said. More than 200 local, state and federal responders have gathered in rural Oso, north of Seattle, to dig through Saturday's slide, which destroyed 30 homes and left scores still missing. Authorities spoke Tuesday of a slow day of searching - with no signs of life - as rain poured down. At least 176 were unaccounted for, but that number has likely dropped because of repeated reports of the same missing person and updates that other people were safe. Despite some diminishing hope, authorities still called the search a rescue - and recovery - mission for any possible survivors. Survivors recounted terror during the natural disaster that struck Saturday. First there was a “whoosh.” Elaine Young said she thought it might be a chimney fire, a rush of air that lasted about 45 seconds. But when she stepped outside there was ominous silence. Something felt very, very wrong. And then she saw it. Behind the house, a suffocating wall of heavy mud had crashed through the neighborhood. Dark and sticky, the mile-long flow Saturday heaved houses off their foundations, toppled trees and left a gaping cavity on what had been a tree-covered hillside. In the frantic rescue, searchers spotted mud-covered survivors by the whites of their waving palms. Now, days into the search, the scale of the mudslide’s devastation in a rural village north of Seattle is becoming apparent. “We found a guy right here,” shouted a rescuer Monday afternoon behind Young’s home, after a golden retriever search dog found a corpse pinned under a pile of fallen trees. Searchers put a bag over the body, tied an orange ribbon on a branch to mark the site, and the crew moved on. It had been stormy for weeks, but warm sunshine offered a false sense of peace Saturday morning as weekend visitors settled into their vacation homes and locals slept in. Then came “a giant slump,” said David Montgomery, an earth and space sciences professor at the University of Washington, describing the deep-seated slide resulting from long-term, heavy rainfall. A scientist who documented the landslide conditions on the hillside that buckled had warned in a 1999 report filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure,” The Seattle Times reported late Monday.