Twin bombs strike Afghan checkpoint, killing 1

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two bombs exploded at a checkpoint outside a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least one police officer, an official said.

The explosions struck in the early morning in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province. The first bomb wounded a policeman, and the second was remotely detonated minutes later as police swarmed to the blast scene to secure it.

The second explosion killed one police officer and wounded at least five policemen and three civilian passers-by who were on their way to a nearby park, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor

The head of the provincial health department, Dr. Baz Mohammad Shirzad, said 11 victims were taken to a local hospital where one, the police officer, died of his injuries.

At the scene later Wednesday, dried blood stained the sidewalk next to the checkpoint and the makeshift police shelter was reduced to a pile of rubble.

Abdulzai said authorities were investigating how insurgents were able to plant the bombs despite heavy security near the governor's compound.

The Taliban have been ramping up attacks on government forces lately, seeking to destabilize Afghanistan as more foreign troops prepare to draw down from the 12-year war.

Another roadside bomb in Nangarhar on Saturday ripped through a police vehicle, killing two and wounding three others.

Meanwhile, NATO said a fourth U.S. soldier died as a result of a deadly Tuesday attack on a convoy in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban.

The attack involving small arms fire and a suicide bomber in the Zhari district of Kandahar initially killed three U.S. soldiers. The fourth soldier died on Wednesday, said the NATO report.

So far this year, 58 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count. Of that tally, 44 are U.S. service members.

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Military says Guantanamo hunger strike rises to 92

MIAMI (AP) — A U.S. military spokesman says the number of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay labeled as hunger strikers has been raised to 92 based on evaluations by medical personnel at the U.S. base in Cuba.

The new figure is up by eight from a day earlier and represents more than half of the 166 men held there.

Lt. Col. Samuel House says the military arrived at the new figure Wednesday because doctors have been able to evaluate prisoners more closely after moving them to single cells out of a communal area. That move sparked a brief clash between guards and prisoners on April 13.

Lawyers for prisoners have been saying since the strike began in February that the military was undercounting the men refusing to eat in protest of their confinement.

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US military says Guantanamo hunger strike edges up

MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. military says a hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison has grown to include at least 28 prisoners.

A prison spokesman says 28 men held at the U.S. base in Cuba meet the military's definition of a hunger striker. Navy Capt. Robert Durand said Monday that 10 of those men are being force-fed liquid nutrients to prevent dangerous weight loss. Three hunger strikers are at the hospital being treated for dehydration.

Defense lawyers say prisoners began the strike began on Feb. 6 to protest what they say are more intrusive searches of their cells and of their indefinite confinement. The lawyers say the strike involves most of the 166 men held at Guantanamo.

A Red Cross delegation is visiting Guantanamo this week.

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US says hunger strike grows to 21 at Guantanamo

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A Guantanamo Bay prison spokesman says 21 men are on hunger strike in a widening protest at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Navy Capt. Robert Durand says eight men are being fed with a liquid nutrient mix to prevent dangerous weight loss. Two men are at the prison hospital being treated for dehydration. The military says none are in immediate danger from the strike.

Lawyers for prisoners say the men are protesting their indefinite confinement and what they consider intrusive searches of their Qurans.

Durand said previously that only a handful of prisoners met the military definition of hunger strike, which includes missing nine consecutive meals. The number grew to 14 on Friday and reached 21 on Monday. Lawyers say the strike is more widespread than the military acknowledges.

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Indian woman on 12-year hunger strike charged

NEW DELHI (AP) — Irom Sharmila has not eaten a meal in 12 years. The 40-year-old woman has been on a hunger strike — and force fed through a tube by authorities — to protest an Indian law that suspends many human rights protections in areas of conflict.

Sharmila was charged Monday with attempted suicide in a case likely to bring major attention to her quiet protest in the tiny northeastern state of Manipur against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Under the law, in effect in Indian-ruled Kashmir and parts of the country's northeast, troops have the right to shoot to kill suspected rebels without fear of possible prosecution and to arrest suspected militants without a warrant. It also gives police wide-ranging powers of search and seizure.

Dubbed the "Iron Lady" by her supporters, Sharmila has become a rallying point for those demanding the law's repeal.

Sharmila had her last voluntary meal on Nov. 4, 2000, in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, one of several northeastern states facing insurgencies. She was arrested three days later and has been force fed through a tube in her nose ever since. Under law, she has to be released once a year to see if she will start eating. When she doesn't, she is taken back into custody and force fed.

The current charges stem from a 2006 protest she attended in New Delhi. Police took her from the protest venue, hospitalized her and registered a case of attempted suicide against her.

Magistrate Akash Jain charged her Monday with attempted suicide. Appearing in court with her nose tube in place, she pleaded not guilty.

"I love life. I do not want to take my life, but I want justice and peace," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted her as saying in court, which she attended after flying in from Manipur over the weekend.

Jain set her trial for May 22. If convicted, she faces one year in prison.

She remained unbowed as she left the courtroom.

"I will continue my fast until the special powers act is withdrawn," she said.

Sharmila's supporters held a demonstration outside the court demanding the repeal of the act.

"The Indian army should leave Manipur state and authorities should withdraw all the cases against her," said one protester, Sucheta Dey.

Human rights workers have accused Indian troops of using the law to detain, torture and kill rebel suspects, sometimes even staging gun battles as pretexts to kill.

The army opposes any weakening of the act, saying it needs extraordinary powers to deal with insurgents.

Indian Law Minister Ashwini Kumar defended the act, saying it is needed for conflict zones where the onus and burden of proof were not easy to resolve.

"Therefore, the opinion of the defense establishment and intelligence agencies was critical in such matters," Kumar was quoted as saying by The Hindu newspaper on Monday.

Student activists in Manipur said they disagree and complain the Indian army misuses the extraordinary powers and treats civilians as insurgents.

Kennedy Sanabam, a member of the Manipur Students Association, said the military has failed to contain the insurgency despite its powers, and instead "the number of insurgents has gone up."

The arrest last week of an army officer with illegal drugs worth millions of dollars in Manipur suggests the special powers are misused to carry out extortion and drug trafficking, said Pranshu Prakash, a research scholar at a New Delhi university.

The law has come under fire amid India's re-evaluation of its sexual violence laws following the gang rape and killing of a student on a bus in New Delhi in December. Women's rights activists have said the law allows troops to rape women without fear of arrest or punishment.

A panel appointed by the government recommended in January that the law be re-examined and that protections be removed for soldiers accused of sexual violence. The government declined to amend the law when it approved new measures to protect women.

The law prohibits soldiers from being prosecuted for alleged rights violations unless granted express permission from the federal government. According to official documents, the state government in Indian-ruled Kashmir has sought permission to try soldiers in 50 cases in the last two decades. The federal government has refused every one.

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Cambodia Khmer Rouge tribunal staff go on strike

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian translators angry that they have gone without pay for three months stopped working at the U.N.-backed genocide trial of former Khmer Rogue leaders on Monday, a new setback for an international justice effort that has been hobbled by conflicts with the Cambodian government.

Khmer Rouge tribunal spokesman Neth Pheaktra said that about 30 Cambodian staff members from the translation section announced they were going on strike just before the court was to hear testimony from a foreign expert. Testimony that had been scheduled to be given this week and next has been postponed until the dispute can be resolved, he said.

Pheaktra said local staff members who worked at the tribunal have not been paid since December because the countries that have agreed to fund the tribunal have not contributed on time. Foreign workers involved in the trial are paid through a separate budget.

The court has appealed to donors for more money, Pheaktra said, but he added that it was unclear when the workers might be paid.

The tribunal, which formed in 2006, is tasked with seeking justice for atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge during its four years in power in the late 1970s. An estimated 1.7 million of Cambodians died under the radically communist regime from forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and execution.

Three former leaders have been on trial since November 2011, charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and other offenses: Khieu Samphan, the 81-year-old former head of state, Nuon Chea, the 86-year-old chief ideologist of the group, and Ieng Sary, 87, the former foreign minister. A fourth defendant, former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed mentally unfit and set free.

The defendants' age and infirm health has raised concerns they may not live long enough to hear a verdict. Just one person, chief Khmer Rouge jailer Kaing Guek Eav, has been convicted by the tribunal so far; he is serving a life sentence.

Tribunal officials have sought to prosecute other former Khmer Rouge leaders, but Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, has warned that more trials will "not be allowed." Many people in Cambodia's government, including Hun Sen himself, are former Khmer Rouge officials. Frustration over government pressure prompted Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet to resign from the tribunal last year.

Pheaktra said translators are essential to the proceedings, which used three languages: English, French and Cambodian. About $9.3 million is needed for salaries and daily operating costs in 2013 for the Cambodian component of the operation, he said.

The tribunal spent $141.1 million from 2006 through 2011. It expects to spend $230 million by its projected conclusion this year, and has warned that it faces severe budgetary shortfalls.

Pheaktra said the budgets for international staffers are adequate at the moment but will last only until the middle of this year. Japan is the biggest contributors to the tribunal with nearly $80 million in total, while France, Germany and Britain are also major donors.

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Strike ends in Malawi with pay rise

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — The Malawi government has agreed to raise public workers' salaries by 60 percent, ending a two-week old strike, a union leader said.

Civil Service Trade Union (CSTU) president Eliah Kamphinda Banda told a press conference in the capital, Lilongwe, Thursday that his team has agreed with the

government negotiating team to end the strike. Banda called on all civil servants to return to work Friday.

According to the agreement, lowest-paid civil servants get a 61 percent pay hike while the highest paid have been given a 5 percent salary increase.

Earlier in the day, police in Lilongwe and the commercial capital of Blantyre used tear gas to break up demonstrations by hundreds of school

children. The students, from public primary and secondary schools, had gone two weeks without attending classes following the public workers' strike.

"We are marching to State House because we are not learning. ... We are tired of not attending classes for two weeks," said 15-year-old Ella Chilenje in Blantyre.

The civil servants say last May's 49 per cent devaluation of the Malawi currency, the kwacha, has eaten into their buying power.

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