New Zealand

AMSTERDAM — A 14-year-old Dutch girl who hopes to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe solo said Monday she will wait until the school year ends before starting her attempt.

Laura Dekker is awaiting a court's decision on whether she can go ahead with her voyage or whether it would be too risky for a girl her age.

The Utrecht court temporarily blocked her departure in August out of concern for her safety. The decision sparked a worldwide debate on how much authorities and parents should limit children's freedom to undertake risky adventures.

"Before I made the plan I didn't expect (so much publicity) but now I'm trying to make the best of it," she told NOS television in an interview Monday.

"It's probably the most prudent if I just finish this school year" which ends in May, she said, citing the arrival of winter weather and a need for preparations before she departs on her 26-foot (8-meter) boat named "Guppy."

WASHINGTON — An earthquake with magnitude 6.0 has struck in the Pacific near Samoa, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

The government seismologists said the quake was at a depth of 6.2 miles and occurred just after 2 p.m. EDT.

Its epicenter was 165 miles northwest of Hihifo, Tonga, and 1,630 miles north northeast of Auckland, New Zealand.

Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, says there is no threat of a tsunami. He says the quake's magnitude did not exceed the threshold for a tsunami.

The USGS announcement did not mention whether a tsunami was expected. An earthquake and a following tsunami killed more than 180 people on Samoa, American Samoa and nearby islands on Sept. 29. That earthquake was at 8.3 magnitude.

— Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:

Oct. 8

The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., on credit card fees:

When it comes to credit card swipe fees, Americans are getting Third World treatment.

U.S. consumers and businesses pay markedly higher charges than those in other developed nations when it comes to purchasing with plastic, according to a report by the Merchants Payment Coalition. ...

JOHANNESBURG — Rene Ngongo, honored with the "alternative Nobel" this week, grew up in a Congo where he could marvel at the wealth of animals and trees.

"Those are memories my children won't have," the father of four told The Associated Press, expressing fears that his work to save the forests may have started too late.

Ngongo won the Right Livelihood Award on Tuesday "for his courage in confronting the forces that are destroying the Congo's rainforests and building political support for their conservation and sustainable use."

A New Zealander, an Australian and a Canadian also won for working to rid the world of nuclear weapons, improving women's health in Africa and raising awareness of climate change. The awards were founded by Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull in 1980 to recognize deeds he felt were being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.

Ngongo said by telephone from Kinshasa, Congo, that his award comes at a "great time," as negotiators prepare to meet in Copenhagen in December to draft a global climate pact.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has nominated a Minnesota policewoman to become the first openly gay person to serve as a U.S. marshal.

Sharon Lubinski is an assistant chief in the Minneapolis Police Department, where she has worked for 20 years.

Obama has had a rocky relationship with gay activists, who want him to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays. He publicly pledged last weekend to do so.

He has picked openly gay people to serve in other positions in his administration, including the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

President Obama plans to nominate openly gay lawyer David Huebner as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, a move that comes just days ahead o...

SEOUL, South Korea – Most Asian stock markets fell Thursday amid a big drop in oil prices and as investors worried that support measures for the fragile global economy will be withdrawn too quickly.

The declines came after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at a regular meeting in Washington Wednesday, as widely expected, and said the pace of economic activity has "picked up" since its last meeting in August.

But the Fed also said it said it would again slow some of its purchases of mortgage-backed securities, which have been part of the extraordinary support the central bank has given the U.S. economy over the past year.

Investors have focused on when central bankers and governments will begin to unwind some of the measures they have taken to boost the global economy since the onset of the global financial crisis one year ago.

"I think people get scared when the central bankers talk about the withdrawal from the market," said Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong "I think investors got coddled by the government for too long."

9/11/09 - On September 5th, 2009, after two weeks of work, Mayan Smith-Gobat of New Zealand redpointed her hardest route yet, L'arcademicien (5.14b or...

The U.S. Geological Survey has issued a tsunami warning after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off New Zealand's western coast.

The USGS says the quake's epicenter was 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of Invercargill, off the west coast of New Zealand's South Island at a depth of 20.5 kilometers (33 kilometers).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii sent an e-mail alert warning of a possible tsunami in New Zealand.

Police in the town of Tuatapere on South Island, where the earthquake was centered, say they have reports of minor cracks in buildings and stock falling from supermarket shelves. But they have received no reports of serious damage or injuries so far.

The quake was felt widely across the South Island.