(CNN) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday praised the recent purge of his uncle and former protector, saying it brought greater unity within the secretive, nuclear-armed state.
"In the seething period of the effort for building a thriving country last year, we took the resolute measure of removing the factionalists lurking in the Party," Kim said in a New Year's address, referring to the North's ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
"As our Party detected and purged the anti-Party, counterrevolutionary factionalists at an opportune time and with a correct decision, the Party and revolutionary ranks were further consolidated and our single-hearted unity was solidified to the maximum," Kim said, according to the text of the speech carried by North Korean state media.
Phnom Penh (AFP) - Cambodian human rights campaigners denounced a crackdown Thursday on striking garment workers by a special military unit, describing it as a "disturbing new tactic" by the authorities.
Seven months after NSA contractor Edward Snowden stole more than a million classified documents and released some of them to the press, the editorial boards of The New York Times and The Guardian are urging the Obama administration to offer Snowden clemency as a whistleblower. (The Guardian has worked with Snowden from the beginning.) The Times declared: “Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear, and flight.†The Guardian called what Snowden did, “an act of courage.†One imagines the administration disagrees.
More than 900 flights for Thursday have already been canceled as the Northeast prepares for a storm system that will unload as much as a foot of snow and have sub-zero wind chills. The weather “will lead to whiteout conditions making travel extremely dangerous. Do not travel,†said the National Weather Service. New York's Long Island will be under a blizzard warning from Thursday through Friday. Boston is supposed to get five to 11 inches of snow and temperatures as low as three degrees below zero.
As people around the world partied their way into the new year, two mothers gave birth to two of the last babies of 2013 and two of the first babies of 2014
Wall Street ends down on first trading day of 2014
U.S. stocks fell on their first day of trading in 2014 as investors booked profits in the wake of the S&P 500's best yearly advance since 1997, with many of last year's strongest performers down on the day.