Pakistani government to ban air conditioners

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister has decided to ban the use of air conditioners by government offices to help cope with the country's pervasive energy shortages.

A statement issued Wednesday from Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso's office says the ban will go into effect on May 15 and will continue until the energy situation improves.

Pakistan faces serious shortages of electricity and natural gas.

The ban could make for a very uncomfortable summer since temperatures in Pakistan often reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The prime minister also issued a summer dress code recommending light-colored, loose-fitting clothing to help combat the heat.

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Bolivia president expels US government aid agency

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — President Evo Morales acted on a longtime threat Wednesday and expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development for allegedly seeking to undermine Bolivia's leftist government, and he harangued Washington's top diplomat for calling the Western Hemisphere the "backyard" of the U.S.

Bolivia's ABI state news agency said USAID was "accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organizations."

In the past, Morales has accused the agency of funding groups that opposed his policies, including a lowlands indigenous federation that organized protests against a Morales-backed highway through the TIPNIS rainforest preserve.

In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly inciting the opposition. On Wednesday, he said Washington "still has a mentality of domination and submission" in the region.

"They surely still think they can manipulate here politically and economically," Morales said. "That belongs to the past."

While Morales did not provide evidence of alleged USAID meddling, funds channeled through it have been used in Bolivia and its leftist ally Venezuela to support organizations deemed a threat by those governments.

But there is not much aid left to cut.

As U.S.-Bolivian relations soured and Washington canceled trade preferences, total U.S. foreign aid to the poor, landlocked South American nation has dropped from $100 million in 2008 to $28 million last year. Amid mutual distrust on drug war politics, U.S. counter-narcotics and security aid are on track to all but disappear in the coming fiscal year for Bolivia, a cocaine-producing country along with Colombia and Peru.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called Morales' allegations "baseless" and said the purpose of USAID programs in Bolivia has been, since they began in 1964, "to help the Bolivian government improve the lives of ordinary Bolivians" in full coordination with its agencies.

"The current Bolivia portfolio consists of health and environment efforts and the overall size and scope of the mission is a shadow of what it once was," said Mark Lopes, USAID's deputy assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

An agency statement said the expulsion means the end of programs that have helped tens of thousands of Bolivians, particularly children and new mothers in underserved rural areas who have benefited from health, nutrition, immunization and reproductive services.

Analyst Kathryn Ledebur of the nonprofit Andean Information Network in Bolivia was not surprised by the expulsion, but by the fact that Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats, which she believes diminishes its political impact.

"USAID alternative development efforts tied to forced coca eradication provoked his mistrust," she said of Morales, a longtime coca-growers union leader before his December 2005 election as Bolivia's first indigenous president. Since U.S. assistance has "dwindled to a trickle," the financial impact will be limited as well, she said.

Ledebur said Morales was also upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments he accused of trying to overthrow him in 2008. Lopez said all agency democracy-promotion programs in Bolivia ended the following year.

In a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, The Associated Press asked USAID for descriptions of the Bolivian recipients of grant money. The response did not go into detail but did include such items as $10.5 million for "democracy-building" awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 "to support improved governance in a changing political environment."

A related USAID brochure said components of the three-year "Strengthening Democratic Institutions" program included "teaching basic citizenship principles and skills" in all of Bolivia's nine states, including the lowlands opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz.

A similar program in Venezuela, bearing the same name, was described by then-U.S. ambassador to Caracas William Brownfield in a November 2006 diplomatic cable as being aimed at countering attempts by that country's late president, Hugo Chavez, to centralize power and suppress civil liberties.

The cable, classified as secret, was published by WikiLeaks, and the program was administered by USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives, whose web page says it operates "in priority countries in crisis."

Morales made Wednesday's announcement to a crowd outside the presidential palace during a rally to mark International Workers' Day.

Morales told the crowd that he "laments and is condemning" U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's remark, in April 17 testimony to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that "the Western Hemisphere is our backyard. It's critical to us."

Many Latin Americans, leftists in particular, are sensitive to descriptions of their nations as a "backyard," or other phrases that could imply hegemonic designs, especially in light of Washington's 20th-century history of backing repressive regimes in the Americas.

"The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire and that's why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia," Morales told the crowd, turning to his foreign minister, David Choquehuanca and ordering him to inform the U.S. Embassy.

Ventrell, the State Department spokesman, dismissed the criticism as misdirected. "It's about us being neighbors," he said, echoing President Barack Obama's 2009 statement that the U.S. considers its Latin American neighbors "equal partners."

Morales has been especially vocal lately in his rejection of Washington's support for a full recount of the results of April 14 elections in Venezuela.

Chavez's hand-picked heir, Nicolas Maduro, won that election by fewer than 250,000 votes in balloting that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles was stolen from him by a government criticized by international human rights groups as repressive.

Morales was an especially close ally of Chavez, who died of cancer in March, leaving the ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American nations that includes Bolivia without a dominant voice.

Bolivia' Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that Morales can run for a third consecutive term in December 2014. It interpreted the country's 2009 constitution, which set a two-term limit, as not being retroactive.

Morales won re-election by a landslide in 2009 and his approval rating was 55 percent in a January opinion poll, the latest available.

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Associated Press writer Carlos Valdez reported this story in La Paz and Fran Bajak reported from Lima, Peru. AP writers Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

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Local government says 21 dead in west China clash

BEIJING (AP) — A violent clash between authorities and assailants described as a terrorist gang left 21 people dead in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, the local government said Wednesday.

Among the dead in the Tuesday afternoon fighting were 15 police officers and local government officials, the Xinjiang government propaganda office said in a news release. It said six assailants were killed on the spot and another eight were captured alive.

"Initial investigations show this was a gang plotting to carry out terrorist acts and the case is now being further cracked open," the release said.

A leading activist from the region's indigenous Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group questioned the official account, saying local sources said that police sparked the incident by shooting a Uighur youth during an illegal search of homes.

The death toll was the highest for a single incident in months in Xinjiang, which sees recurrent outbreaks of violence pitting Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) against the authorities and majority ethnic Han Chinese migrants. Rioting in July 2009 between Uighurs and Han killed nearly 200 people in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, and there have been sporadic attacks since, all of them quickly suppressed with overwhelming force by local paramilitary units.

The U.S. State Department expressed deep concern over the violence and said it was seeking more information about what happened. Spokesman Patrick Ventrell called for a thorough and transparent investigation and for Chinese officials to take steps to reduce tensions and promote long-term stability in Xinjiang.

U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke is currently in Xinjiang, leading a trade delegation of energy, rail and transportation companies. Ventrell said he was not sure if Locke was near the violence.

Tuesday's violence appeared to point to the chaotic nature of much of the Xinjiang violence, as well as problems with how authorities respond. It began when three local officials reported a group of suspicious men armed with knives hiding inside a home in Selibuya township outside the city of Kashgar, the news release said.

The three were then grabbed by the men in the house and local police and officials rushing to the scene were taken by surprise and attacked, it said. Those inside the house killed their three captives and set fire to the building, while the fighting ended only after armed units — who are often stationed in larger towns and barracks and must be specially summoned by commanders — arrived and began firing on those continuing to resist, the report said.

The release said 10 of those killed on the government side were Uighurs, three were Han, and two were from the Mongolian ethnic group. It said two other Uighurs were injured. The ethnicity of the assailants wasn't given and local police and government officials reached by phone said they had no additional information to give.

"We know only what is in the release and have no more to add," said an officer with the Xinjiang regional police, who gave only his surname, Meng, as is common with Chinese officials.

Xinjiang, a sprawling region that borders Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is home to millions of Uighurs, many of whom complain of tight restrictions on religious and cultural life by Beijing and say they have been marginalized by policies favoring Han migrants.

China claims much of the violence is orchestrated by Uighur activists based in the West or in Pakistan and other neighboring countries, but has provided little evidence publicly. The U.S. initially placed one group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, on a terrorist watch list following the 9/11 attacks, but later quietly removed it amid doubts that it existed in any organized manner.

Uighur activists say violence largely results from heavy-handed policing by the authorities, including the frequent detention of Uighur men with little or no due process.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress, said repression has intensified in the area around Kashgar, with an unknown number of Uighurs detained. He denied those involved in Tuesday's clash were part of an organized group and dismissed the government's terrorism claims.

"They always use such labels as a way of justifying their use of armed force," Raxit said in a phone interview.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

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Afghan government says airstrike kills 11 children

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A fierce battle between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan left nearly 20 people dead, including 11 Afghan children killed in an airstrike and an American civilian adviser, officials said Sunday.

The fighting along a main infiltration route from Pakistan on Saturday was indicative of a surge in hostilities as Afghanistan's spring fighting season gets underway. This year's will be closely watched because Afghan forces are having to contend with less support from the international military coalition, making it a test case of their ability to take on the country's resilient insurgency.

The U.S.-led coalition confirmed that it launched airstrikes in Kunar province where the deaths occurred, stressing that they were requested by international forces. The coalition said it was assessing the incident, but could not confirm that civilians were killed.

The battle unfolded on Saturday, the same day that a total of six Americans, including three U.S. soldiers, died in violent attacks. In addition to the U.S. adviser killed during the operation in the east, two others — a female foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department and an employee with the U.S. Defense Department — died in a suicide bombing in southern Zabul province during a trip to donate books to Afghan students.

The deaths capped one of the bloodiest weeks of the nearly 12-year-old war. On Wednesday, insurgents ambushed a courthouse in the relatively safe west, killing more than 46 people.

The death of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire has been a major point of contention between international forces and the Afghan government. Earlier this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai banned his troops from requesting coalition airstrikes.

In the latest incident, Associated Press photos showed villagers gathered for the funerals of the children whose bodies were swaddled in blankets. A garland of flowers adorned the head of a dead baby.

Afghan officials said the airstrike occurred after a joint U.S.-Afghan force faced hours of heavy gunfire from militants. The joint force was conducting an operation targeting a senior Taliban leader that began around midnight Friday in the Shultan area of Kunar's Shigal district, according to tribal elder Gul Pasha, who also is the chief of the local council.

The remote area is one of the main points of entry for Taliban and other insurgents trying to move across the mountainous border from neighboring Pakistan, where they enjoy refuge in the lawless northwestern area.

"In the morning after sunrise, planes appeared in the sky and airstrikes started," Pasha said in a telephone interview, adding that the fighting didn't end until the evening.

"I don't think that they knew that all these children and women were in the house because they were under attack from the house and they were shooting at the house," he said.

There were slightly differing accounts of the death toll.

Pasha said the main Taliban suspect was in the house that was hit and was killed along with a woman and the children, ages 1 to 12, who were members of the suspect's family.

Provincial government spokesman Wasifullah Wasify said 10 children and one woman were killed and five women, who also were in the house, were wounded.

Karzai's office later said 11 people were killed — all of them children — and six women were wounded.

"While the president strongly condemns the Taliban act of using people and their houses as shields, he also strongly condemns any operation on populated areas that results in civilian casualties," his office said in a statement.

An airstrike in the same district in Kunar that killed 10 civilians in mid-February prompted Karzai to ban his forces from requesting airstrikes.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said six Taliban militants were killed in the operation in Sano Dara Sheltan village, including two senior commanders identified as Ali Khan and Gul Raof, the main planner and organizer of attacks in the area.

The U.S.-led coalition said it provided fire support from the air, killing several insurgents.

"The air support was called in by coalition forces, not Afghan security forces, and was used to engage insurgent forces in areas away from structures, according to our reporting," coalition spokesman Maj. Adam Wojack said in a statement.

He said the coalition takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously, and was currently assessing the incident.

Afghan forces have been increasingly taking the lead in combat operations as international forces move to complete their withdrawal by the end of 2014. But U.S. and other foreign troops still face dangers as they try to clear areas of insurgents and prepare the Afghans to take control.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, told the AP in an interview on Sunday in Afghanistan that he was cautiously optimistic about the final stage of handing off security responsibility to Afghan forces.

Asked if he thought that some parts of Afghanistan will be contested by the Taliban in 2015, Dempsey replied, "Yes, of course there will be. And if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, I suspect there would (still) be contested areas because the history of Afghanistan suggests that there will always be contested areas."

There are about 100,000 international troops currently in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. The U.S. troop total is scheduled to drop to about 32,000 by early next year. The bulk of the decline is to occur after fighting winds down this winter.

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AP writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Rahmat Gul in Jalalabad and Robert Burns at Bagram Air Field contributed.

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China's leaders move to fill top government posts

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese Communist Party's No. 2 leader was confirmed Friday as premier, tasked with addressing a slowing economy and defusing public anger over corruption, pollution and a growing gap between rich and poor.

China's rubberstamp legislature appointed Li Keqiang to the premiership as a long-orchestrated leadership transition neared its end. Final touches take place Saturday with selections of vice premiers, a central bank governor and finance and other ministers, and the legislature wraps up on Sunday.

Party chief Xi Jinping was appointed Thursday to the ceremonial post of president, completing his ascension as China's pre-eminent leader after being promoted last November to head the Communist Party and the military.

Though the outcome of the legislative session was a foregone conclusion, it's the result of years of fractious behind-the-scenes bargaining. They hail from different factions: Li Keqiang (pronounced lee kuh chee-ahng) is a protege of the now-retired President Hu Jintao while Xi Jinping (pronounced shee jin ping) is the son of a revolutionary veteran with backing among party elders.

Xi cuts an authoritative figure with a confidence and congeniality that was lacking in his predecessor, the aloof and stiff Hu. New Premier Li, from a mid-level officials' household, has appeared to be a cautious administrator, like Hu, and has not been associated with particular policies on his rise.

Evidence of their and their patrons' ability to forge consensus will be seen Saturday when appointments to the Cabinet and other top government posts are announced.

As China's top economic official, Li faces politically fraught challenges in keeping growth strong and incomes rising.

China's leaders say they want more sustainable growth based on domestic consumption and technology instead of trade and investment. They have lowered annual growth targets to emphasize the shift. But consumer spending is rising only slowly, which has forced Beijing to keep pumping money into investment to support a sluggish economic recovery.

"If the official data is to be believed, China has been moving in the wrong direction for the past decade - towards 'more investment, less consumption,'" wrote Standard Chartered economists Stephen Green and Wei Li in a research note. "This could create problems."

Reformers say communist leaders have to curb state companies that dominate industries from energy to telecoms to banking, and encourage free-market competition or growth could sink to 5 percent or lower by 2015, raising the risk of job losses and unrest. That will require Li, who has shown little appetite for confrontation, to challenge politically powerful corporate bosses.

China's leadership is consensus-oriented, so governing the country is often sluggish business because none of the leaders are politically strong enough to prevail independently.

Wu Xiangdong, chairman of a wine company in central Hunan province and one of the congress delegates who poured out of the vast, ornate Great Hall of the People after Friday's vote, said expectations were high for Li, the new premier.

"We are very excited and look forward to the premier and the new generation of leaders to be better able to work on the economy, food safety, the environment and improving social equality," Wu said.

The National People's Congress endorsed Li for the post with a vote of 2,940, with three opposed and six abstaining.

In some intriguing signs of the new leadership's direction, the congress on Friday appointed as supreme court president Zhou Qiang, a provincial party secretary with a reputation as a progressive and a former aide to a well-known legal reformer. On Thursday, another liberal-minded reformer and a close ally of Hu, Li Yuanchao, was named vice president, breaking with the practice of recent years because he is not in the party's seven-member ruling inner sanctum.

The new government will be expected to carry out promises outlined in a policy program delivered last week, including cleaning up the country's environment, fighting graft and improving the social safety net.

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Associated Press writer Joe McDonald contributed to this report.

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Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gillianwong

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Top Nepal judge becomes head of interim government

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal's chief judge was named head of an interim government in an attempt by the Himalayan country's main political parties to cure the paralysis and infighting that have blocked elections for months.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Khilraj Regmi was sworn in Thursday by President Ram Baran Yadav, and his choices of former bureaucrats Madhav Ghimire as home minister and Hari Prasad Neupane as law minister took the oath of office with him.

An agreement signed late Wednesday night by leaders of Nepal's four main political parties says Regmi will have an 11-member Cabinet and the interim government will hold elections by June 21.

Smaller parties oppose the move. Protesters vandalized government vehicles Thursday and shut down the country for hours.

Regmi will set aside his court duties but will return as chief justice when his tenure leading the government ends. His title is chairman of the interim election government.

"The priority and the main task of this government is to hold elections and I am determined to fulfill that," Regmi said in a brief comment. "I urge all the citizens and political parties cooperate in the process so we can complete the task soon."

Nepal's last parliament was elected in 2008 and expired in May 2012, having failed in its mission to draft a new constitution. Baburam Bhattarai, of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), had been head of a caretaker administration since then, but rival parties did not want him in office while elections for a new Constituent Assembly were held. The bickering canceled elections that had been set for November 2012.

The assembly to be elected in June is to write a constitution and double as the country's parliament.

The United States welcomed the formation of the interim government, and commended the political parties for making the necessary compromise.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called it an "important political milestone." She expressed hope for free and fair elections and that the parties would remain committed to a democratic Nepal.

Regmi, 63, had been free of controversy in his two years as chief justice, but the Nepal Bar Association and some smaller political parties have criticized the arrangement as inappropriately mixing law and politics.

The Supreme Court was supposed to hear a case against his appointment, but the case's status was not clear after he took office.

Supporters of smaller parties ordered a general strike Thursday, shutting down markets and forcing vehicles off the streets for hours. These protesters vandalized at least three government vehicles in the capital, Katmandu.

Maoist rebels in Nepal fought government troops between 1996 and 2006 until they gave up their armed revolt and joined a peace process that evolved after the country abolished its longstanding monarchy.

They emerged as the largest political party in the 2008 Constituent Assembly, but no party got a clear majority. Four different prime ministers assumed power in the next four years. Differences among the political parties have been blamed for the delays in the peace process and in the writing of a new constitution.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

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Ontario government reaches out to opposition, backs spending restraint

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario's Liberal government with its newly minted female premier pledged on Tuesday to work with its opposition parties to bring its spending under control.

Ontario, Canada's richest province, kicked off its new legislative session with a traditional speech from the throne that outlined the priorities of Premier Kathleen Wynne's government that could soon face a vote of confidence.

"For the benefit of the entire province, your government intends to work with opposition parties, in a spirit of renewed cooperation, to get the people's business done," said lieutenant-governor David Onley in a ceremonial speech.

"It does not believe that we are irreparably divided."

Wynn became the first female premier and first openly gay leader of a Canadian province in January, replacing Dalton McGuinty who stepped down amid controversy over costly cancellations of two natural gas power plants and battles to freeze teacher wages.

Canada's four most powerful provinces are led by women. British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec have female premiers, while women are also at the helm in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the thinly populated Arctic territory of Nunavut.

In the speech, the government reiterated its pledge to restrain spending and eliminate the deficit by 2017-2018.

"And after that, it will restrict overall spending increases to one per cent below GDP growth until the province's debt-to-GDP ratio returns to the pre-recession level of 27 per cent," Onley said.

Ontario will continue to promote renewable energy and work to end coal-fired energy generation in the province.

The center-left Liberals have been in power for nine years in Ontario, Canada's most populous province and home to most of Canada's banks and a large part of its manufacturing sector. But the party lost seats in the 2011 provincial election and needs support from at least one other party to stay in power.

The left-leaning New Democrats are the natural ally for Wynne, who has a reputation for seeking compromise and is viewed as being to the left of other Ontario Liberals.

The Liberals are facing a C$12 billion ($12 billion) budget deficit. They have vowed to curb growth in spending, as modest economic growth hurts revenues, and say it will take five more years to balance the budget.

Ontario accounts for roughly 40 percent of Canadian gross domestic product and is among the largest sub-national borrowers in the world, issuing bonds worth nearly C$35 billion in 2012.

(Reporting by Russ Blinch; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Mexico's government pledges hunt for disappeared

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico said Thursday that it will work with the International Red Cross on the search for thousands of people who have disappeared during the country's six-year-old war on drug cartels.

Officials provided few details of the arrangement signed in a public ceremony by the head of the International Red Cross and Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

The Red Cross said in a statement that it would provide "studies, protocols and technical assistance related to the search for the disappeared" but gave no specifics. Red Cross officials said they could not release a copy of the agreement, and the Interior Department did not immediately respond to requests for a copy.

The agreement was signed a day after Human Rights Watch released a report that describes 249 cases of disappearances, most of which appeared to have been carried out by Mexico's military or law enforcement. Also on Wednesday, Mexican officials said they had a preliminary count of more than 27,000 people reported missing over the last six years, the majority of the cases blamed on drug cartels or smaller gangs.

Interior Subsecretary for Human Rights Lia Limon told MVS Radio on Thursday that the government would work to collect DNA from families of the disappeared, data that she called key to matching missing persons' reports with the thousands of unidentified corpses found around Mexico in recent years.

She said the federal Attorney General's Office had assembled a list of 27,523 missing people and the government is working to add to the sometimes sketchy information. She said the database would be constantly updated.

A civic organization released a database late last year that it said contained official information on more than 20,000 people who had gone missing in Mexico since former President Felipe Calderon began his six-year term Dec. 1, 2006, and launched a campaign against cartels. In posting the database on its website, Propuesta Civica, or Civic Proposal, said the information was collected by the Attorney General's Office.

The missing in Propuesta Civica's database include police officers, bricklayers, housewives, lawyers, students, businessmen and more than 1,200 children under age 11. They are listed one by one with such details as name, age, gender and the date and place where the person disappeared.

The Human Rights Watch report said security personnel sometimes work with criminals, detaining victims and handing them over to gangs. The report cites incidents in which investigators used information collected in a case to pose as kidnappers and demand ransom payments from the victims' families.

Authorities frequently fail to take even the most basic investigative steps, such as tracing victims' cellphone or bank records, and often rely on investigations carried out by the victims' relatives, the report says.

Human Rights Watch recommended that the Mexican government of new President Enrique Pena Nieto take concrete steps to change security procedures, including issuing new rules requiring that detainees be taken immediately to prosecutors' offices and not be held at military bases or police stations.

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