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...

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Pakistan: Gunmen kill 7 teachers, aid workers

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Gunmen on motorcycles sprayed a van carrying employees from a community center with bullets Tuesday, killing five female teachers and two aid workers, but sparing a child they took out of the vehicle before opening fire.The director of the group that the seven worked for says he suspects it may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in Pakistan. Some...

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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...

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Afghan violence falls in 2012, insider attacks up

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Violence in Afghanistan fell in 2012, but more Afghan troops and police who now shoulder most of the combat were killed, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.At the same time, insider killings by uniformed Afghans against their foreign allies rose dramatically, eroding confidence between the two sides at a crucial turning point in the war and when NATO...

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Paintings outrage Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's leading arts college has pushed boundaries before in this conservative nation. But when a series of paintings depicting Muslim clerics in scenes with strong homosexual overtones sparked an uproar and threats of violence by Islamic extremists, it was too much.Officials at the National College of Arts in the eastern city of Lahore shut down its academic journal, which...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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NKorea says it has detained a US citizen

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing to unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week.The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang....

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Pakistani polio workers get police protection

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Under police guard, thousands of health workers pressed on with a polio immunization program Thursday after nine were killed elsewhere in Pakistan by suspected militants who oppose the vaccination campaign.Immunizations were halted in some parts of Pakistan and the U.N. suspended its field participation everywhere until better security was arranged for its workers. The violence...

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UN suspends polio drive in Pakistan after killings

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The United Nations suspended its polio vaccination drive in Pakistan on Wednesday after eight people involved in the effort were shot dead in the past two days, a U.N. official said.The suspension was a grave blow to the drive to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease still survives.On Wednesday, gunmen shot...

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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...

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N. Korea displays Kim Jong Il a year after death

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous...

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Conservative LDP returns with 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, according to early returns, signaling a rightward shift in the government that could further heighten tensions with China, a key economic partner as well as rival.The victory means that the hawkish former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will get a second chance...

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