A suspected NATO airstrike on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's compound in the capital, Tripoli, has destroyed at least one building and wounded four people.
Authorities say the wrecked building was used for ministerial and other meetings. Three Libyan state television stations briefly went off the air after the loud explosions were heard in central Tripoli soon after midnight Sunday.
Libyan government forces are keeping pressure on the rebel-held city of Misrata after abandoning most of the positions they held in the city.
Libyan government forces shelled the besieged rebel-held port of Misrata Sunday, a day after officials signaled a change in tactics. Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim claimed the army was suspending operations in Misrata and would hand over positions to pro-Gadhafi tribesmen.
"The situation in Misrata will be eased, will be dealt with by the tribes around Misrata and the rest of Misrata's people, not by the Libyan army, and you will see how they will be swift and quick and fast and the Libyan army will be out of the question, out of the situation in Misrata," said Kaim.
A Libyan opposition leader told Libyan rebel TV, however, that he did not think that tribes around Misrata would fight their countrymen inside the city. "Some local tribesmen," he said, "have personal ties with the Gadhafi regime, but the majority oppose him and won't fight."
In the capital Tripoli, Gadhafi loyalists fired anti-aircraft guns into the air sporadically, amid reports of NATO airstrikes. The U.S. Defense Department announced an airstrike by a U.S. Predator drone in Libya Saturday. NATO said the unmanned aircraft destroyed a multiple rocket launcher used by pro-Gadhafi forces near Misrata.
Elsewhere in the region, tens of thousands of Yemenis continued to protest against President Ali Abdallah Saleh, a day after he accepted a Gulf Arab initiative that would eventually have him leave office.
Speaking at Yemen's War College Sunday, President Saleh accused the opposition of trying to create chaos:
He says that the behavior of the opposition has put a stop to economic development in Yemen. He claims the opposition wants to spill blood, create a civil war, and overthrow the legal order, while he opposes violence.
Yemeni politicians and negotiators from the Gulf Cooperation Council say President Saleh has agreed to a GCC proposal for him to step down within 30 days of an accord being signed with the opposition. Saleh ally and deputy information minister Abdou Jundi says the president accepts the plan, but has some conditions:
He says President Saleh accepted the GCC plan in principle, and that this will be in accordance with the constitution, which allows the president to resign to parliament. He insists that starting a dialogue with the opposition is part of the plan.
Many protesters refuse any dialogue with the president and insist on his immediate resignation. They also object to giving the president and his family any immunity from prosecution.
Meanwhile in Syria, thousands of mourners laid to rest protesters shot dead Saturday near the southern city of Deraa. They chanted slogans against the government and against President Bashar al-Assad. Protests were reported in at least six other towns and cities, despite widespread arrests of opposition activists by the government.
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Afghan officials say more than 400 prisoners, many of them Taliban insurgents, have escaped through a tunnel from the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for digging the 320-meter tunnel to the prison over a five-month period, bypassing government checkpoints.
The Taliban says its construction efforts finally reached the prison late Sunday, when the prisoners began their escape to freedom.
In 2008, hundreds of prisoners, including members of the Taliban, escaped from the same prison when insurgents blew open the gates.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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U.S. senators of both major political parties are urging greater support for Syria's embattled opposition short of direct military intervention.
After days of bloody attacks and raids by Syrian security forces on civilians, American legislators say the United States should provide greater backing for those opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" television program.
"We should use the diplomatic weight and authority of the United States to undermine the Syrian dictatorship. I think we are witnessing the slow end of the Assad dictatorship, and we should stand with the people of Syria."
Kirk was asked if he envisions a U.S. military role in Syria similar to ongoing U.S. efforts in Libya.
"No, I think the U.S. military is now overstretched with four major missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Japan. But U.S. weight and diplomatic authority can be a great source of strength and political support for the Syrian opposition."
That view was echoed by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
"We should encourage the democratic movement in Syria, but at the same time avoid anything like an open-ended commitment. Certainly no [U.S.] troops on the ground."
Blumenthal said he hopes events in Syria play out more like those in Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak left power without foreign intervention, than the current situation in Libya, where leader Moammar Gadhafi remains in power despite a NATO-led air campaign.
Also appearing on CBS was Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who said the United States should continue to play a constructive yet limited role in promoting democratic change in the Middle East.
"America is safest and America is strongest when we lead with our values. And the values we have that are really compelling to folks around the world are when we stand up and support democracy and people who are seeking a greater role in their own countries. We have done that in a way that I think is moving (positively impacting) the Middle East -- not towards the Seventh Century caliphate view of al-Qaida, but instead towards a view of wanting to participate in the 21st Century."
Some U.S. legislators are urging more aggressive U.S. military efforts to end the rule of Libya's Gadhafi. But Senator Coons urged patience, saying the current strategy of applying military and economic pressure on Gadhafi needs time to work.
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Syrian security forces are said to have shot dead at least four civilians and detained many opposition activists as authorities widen their crackdown on a five-week anti-government uprising.
Rights groups say police and army units deployed in the coastal city of Jableh Sunday, following a pro-democracy protest against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad the previous night. Witnesses say the killings occurred even though no protests were in progress.
Meanwhile, secret police raids continued around the capital, Damascus, and the central city of Homs. Arrests were carried out across the country Sunday as mourners attended funerals for protesters killed during the previous two days.
Sweeps against anti-government protesters have escalated despite last week's repeal of the country's nearly 50-year-old emergency law. The New York Times, quoting the executive director of the Syrian rights group Insan (Wissam Tarif), said 217 people have disappeared since Friday.
Funerals were held for those killed in the violence Friday and Saturday. Rights groups say at least 120 people were killed in the two-day crackdown.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch Sunday called for a United Nations inquiry into the deaths and for international sanctions on the officials responsible for the killings.
President Assad signed a decree ending almost 50 years of emergency rule last week. The ruling was part of his effort to end anti-government unrest by meeting a key demand of protesters.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Anti-government protesters in Yemen's capital continue to demand the president's immediate departure, a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to a Gulf Arab initiative for him to transfer power and resign within 30 days of signing a formal agreement with the opposition.
A coalition of seven opposition parties has said it accepts the deal but refuses to join a proposed unity government while Saleh is still in office. Protesters in Sana'a on Sunday remained skeptical of the agreement, with some saying they do not feel represented by the opposition coalition.
Protesters also demanded that Saleh and his family face trial, while the deal brokered by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council would grant the president and his family immunity from prosecution.
Yemen has been shaken by more than two months of widespread protests seeking the ouster of Saleh, who has been in power 32 years.
The United States on Saturday welcomed the announcements that Yemen's government and opposition had accepted the GCC-brokered deal. A White House spokesman urged both sides to move swiftly to implement the terms of the agreement.
The GCC plan calls for President Saleh to transfer power to a deputy, who would then call presidential elections. It requires the opposition to stop demonstrations and would set up a power-sharing government in which ruling party members would control half the seats. The opposition coalition would hold 40 percent and unaffiliated parties would make up the rest.
GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani presented the plan to Saleh on Thursday.
In other unrest Sunday, police say fresh clashes between soldiers and tribesmen in the country's south killed five people, including four soldiers.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Tens of thousands of worshippers attended Easter Mass in Saint Peter's Square Sunday. In his message to the world, Pope Benedict prayed for victims of conflicts in Ivory Coast and other African countries and called for an end to the fighting in Libya.
Easter Sunday brings to an end a very busy Holy Week for the 84-year-old Pope Benedict. Worshippers of all ages and nationalities attended Easter mass Sunday. For those in the square it is a very special time.
"To be here at Easter time is renewal, it's refreshing and its looking ahead no matter what is happening in the world," says this worshipper. "It's very, very crowded but what I think is really, really neat about it is there are people from all over the world. I like it because it is kind of an international conglomeration of people coming together."
At the end of the mass, the pope delivered his papal address to the city of Rome and to the world, known as the "Urbi et Orbi," from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica.
The pope asked for help for those fleeing conflict and for refugees from various African countries, particularly Libya and Ivory Coast, who have been forced to leave their homes. The pope urged people of good will to open their hearts to welcome them.
The pope also turned his thoughts to Japan and other countries that in recent months have been tested by natural disasters, which have sown pain and anguish.
Pope Benedict then gave his Easter greetings and blessings to the faithful around the world in more that 60 different languages.
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Officials in south Sudan say the army has killed at least 55 rebel fighters during a clash in volatile Jonglei state. Hundreds have died in fighting between the southern army and various rebel groups since January, when southern Sudan voted to split from the north. Southern leaders accused the north of supporting the rebellions to destabilize the region ahead of independence in July.
The latest fighting raged for several hours Saturday, as soldiers battled gunmen led by Gabriel Tanginya, who led a pro-Khartoum militia during Sudan's long north-south civil war.
Tanginya agreed late last year to integrate his fighters into the southern army. Media reports say Saturday's fighting began after the militiamen refused to report to the southern capital of Juba.
Southern officials say five of Tanginya's generals were killed in the clash.
The French news agency quotes an official in south Sudan's Upper Nile state, Peter Lam Both, as saying 34 government soldiers and 43 civilians were wounded.
A Nigerian human rights group announced Sunday that at least 500 people were killed in violence that followed last week's election of President Goodluck Jonathan. Relief officials say more than 65,000 people have been displaced.
The Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria says most of the deaths occurred in northern states where Muslim supporters of defeated presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari attacked churches, homes and police stations, sparking reprisal attacks by Christians.
Nigerian authorities are refusing to release details of the violence, fearing that it could lead to more rioting ahead of gubernatorial elections this week.
Nigeria's Emergency Management Agency says Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Adamawa, Niger and Katsina states were the hardest hit. Director General Mohammed Sani Sidi says his agency is helping more than 21,000 displaced civilians in Kano and nearly 10,000 displaced civilians in Zaria as well as people at more than 100 camps for displaced civilians in Kaduna.
"The intervention is continuing. We are not going to stop until we get this relief material across to all the victims that have been affected. We are doing everything possible in collaboration with the Nigerian army who have been very, very active and supportive in providing us with security cover," he said.
Sidi says the distribution of relief supplies has been slowed by the difficulty of finding drivers who are willing to enter areas where there has been violence.
In addition to displaced civilians in the north, Sidi says there are people who are originally from the north and are now living in the south who have taken refugee with security forces following the violence. "Most especially in Anambra and Imo, we have people from northern origin who, out of panic, on their own have decided to move to either military barracks or police barracks for safety for fear of reprisal attacks. Those people also we have been able to reach out to them and provide some kind of relief material to them," he said.
With more than 65,000 civilians displaced nationwide, Sidi says the only real answer is finishing this series of elections with peaceful state-wide voting to restore order. "What we are trying to achieve is to make sure that peace is maintained and restored in all these places so that people can go back to their various houses and the continue with their normal lives," he said.
Twenty-six of Nigeria's 36 states are scheduled to hold state-wide elections on Tuesday. Voting in Kaduna and Bauchi has been delayed until Thursday. Electoral commission chief Attahiru Jega says he hopes that will allow for the "further cooling of tempers and for the security situation in those states to continue to improve."
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NATO says roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan have killed three of its personnel, while coalition and Afghan forces in the east have dealt a blow to the Haqqani insurgent group by killing three of its leaders.
The NATO alliance says the roadside bombings killed one of its service members Sunday and two others on Saturday. Another NATO service member died Saturday when a coalition helicopter crashed in the eastern province of Kapisa. The cause is under investigation. The nationalities of the four NATO personnel have not been disclosed.
NATO also confirmed Sunday that coalition and Afghan forces killed the three Haqqani network leaders in a joint operation Friday in eastern Afghanistan's Khost province. The group has close ties to al-Qaida and operates primarily in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktika and Paktiya.
The alliance named one of those killed as Salih Khan, whom it said trained bomb makers, organized car bombings and directed logistics and communications for Haqqani insurgents in the Nadir Shah Kot district of Khost. It said Khan led 20 fighters in two attacks on coalition bases in the past week.
NATO said coalition and Afghan troops have captured or killed at least 15 Haqqani leaders and 130 other Haqqani insurgents so far this year.
The coalition also said a combined force captured a Taliban insurgent leader and several of his associates in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. It said the senior militant provided weapons to insurgents in Kunduz and was responsible for attacks on multiple targets, including election sites last September.
In other violence, the Afghan government said a gunman assassinated a former top local government official in the southern province of Helmand late Saturday. It said Abdul Zahir was killed in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. He had served as the civilian chief of Helmand's Marjah district.
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Ethiopia has ended its practice of formally responding to the annual U.S. human rights report, as it has done the past two years. A statement said the government views the Congressionally-mandated report with contempt, and has no plans to answer the charges.
The most recent State Department report paints a troubling picture of human rights conditions in Ethiopia.
It depicts a state with a widespread system of paid informants reporting on people's activities, where criminal courts are subject to significant political intervention and influence, and where non-governmental organizations say hundreds of political prisoners are being held. The 56-page report documents restrictions on academic and press freedoms, including intimidation and detention of journalists, jamming foreign broadcasts, blocking internet websites, and prohibiting political activity on college campuses.
It also implicitly questions the existence of a multi-party democracy, noting that the ruling party and its affiliates won almost every one of 3.4 million local council seats in 2008 elections and all but two seats in parliament in 2010.
The report quotes what it calls multiple credible sources saying party membership is an important factor in obtaining university admissions, employment opportunities, food aid and other benefits controlled by the government.
Additionally, it notes that a new law regulating non-governmental organizations has sidelined two prominent domestic human rights defender groups, including the only one doing actual investigations and reporting on alleged abuses.
Ethiopia's reaction to the report, which covered abuses reported in 2010, was furious. A foreign ministry statement charged that 80% of the material was a rehash of groundless and unverifiable allegations from dubious sources contained in previous reports. It said the rest was mostly a few new lies, added to the old ones, and questioned whether the U.S. government's motive was simply to tarnish Ethiopia's image.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn dismissed the document as a meaningless "cut and paste" exercise.
"We said this is a methodology failure. So if the United States is worried about the human rights challenge, then it should be critically evaluated. So if it is 'cut and paste,' then it doesn't give any meaning to anyone. So we said, if it continues like this, it has nothing to do with changing and improving the human rights situation in Ethiopia."
In response to the two previous State Department reports, in 2008 and 2009, Ethiopia published a rebuttal challenging the accuracy of the charges. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called the pamphlets a sign Ethiopia takes the U.S. criticisms seriously, unlike reports from groups such as Human Rights Watch, which the government categorically dismisses.
But Foreign Minister Hailemariam says the latest U.S. report does not merit a response, and would be treated with what was called "the contempt it deserves."
"The last two years we have engaged ourselves with the authorities of the United States and discussed several meetings on the human rights situation in Ethiopia. We thought we had convinced each other on many of the issues… If this is not considered at all, then there is no need to accept this report as something that can help us. So that's why we dismissed the report totally because it is based on unfounded allegations which are baseless."
Hailemariam made clear, however, that the report would not affect what he called the "cordial relationship" between Addis Ababa and Washington. He said, "we dismiss the report, we have not dismissed the United States."
Ethiopia remains an important U.S. partner in the volatile Horn of Africa region. The United States is Ethiopia's largest bilateral aid donor, with assistance totaling roughly $1 billion a year.
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Thousands of Pakistanis opposed to U.S. drone strikes on militants in the country's northwest have ended their two-day blockade of a key supply route for U.S.-led NATO troops fighting Taliban insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan.
The call for the blockade, which began Saturday on the outskirts of Peshawar, came from the Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party led by former cricket star Imran Khan.
Khan demanded Sunday that the attacks end or there would be more demonstrations in various parts of the country aimed at blocking NATO supplies, including in the capital, Islamabad.
NATO ships much of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan, but local militants often attack the convoys.
U.S. drone strikes against militants based in Pakistan's tribal belt have been a source of friction between the two countries. U.S. officials do not acknowledge the missile strikes, which are deeply unpopular among the local population.
The Pakistani government publicly condemns the drone strikes as undermining its sovereignty, but regional experts say Islamabad privately coordinates with the U.S. government on selecting targets.
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Religious rights groups in the United States say the decision by Chinese authorities on Sunday to detain nearly 40 members of an unapproved evangelical Christian church as they tried to hold Easter service highlights the struggle for freedom of religion in China.
Although China's constitution allows for freedom of religion in state sanctioned churches, religious rights advocates say government persecution of so-called "underground" or "house" churches, like Sunday's crackdown on the Shouwang Church in Beijing, is increasing.
Mark Shan is a spokesman for ChinaAid, a rights group that tracks cases of religious persecution in China. "In the past five years, every year, the degree of persecution increased, from the perspective of how many church's were persecuted, how many Christians were arrested, sentenced, abused or tortured. So it's a national phenomenon; it's a common phenomenon. Every year is like this," he said.
Members of the Shouwang Church say more than 500 members of the congregation were also put under house arrest. It's unclear, however, whether any of those detained or under house arrest will face formal charges.
Mark Shan says the crackdown is not limited to Beijing. "From Henan, Shandong province this month, even Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, the crackdown has never stopped and it is more serious than last year," he said.
According to official Chinese government statistics, about 15 million Protestants and five million Catholics worship at registered churches. Experts say an estimated 50 million others are believed to pray at so-called "underground" or "house" churches like Shouwang, which refuse to submit to government regulation.
Joseph Kung of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a group that monitors the treatment of Roman Catholics in China, says that although the Chinese economy is booming, such advances have done little to slow the persecution of Catholics in the country. "There are people still in jail, and priests still in jail. Bishops are still in jail, we do not know where they are. We don't even know whether they are still alive," he said.
Kung, a relative of the late Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, was referring to Bishop Sue Zhiming and Bishop Shi Enxiang -- two Catholic underground church leaders who disappeared more than 10 years ago.
Kung says members of the underground Catholics constantly struggle to worship discretely in homes across China or in fields to avoid being discovered by authorities. "The police still find them out and once they find them out, without any notice they will just simply barge in and take the priests away, take the parishioners away and sometimes take the sacraments away and so forth. So there really is no freedom for the underground Catholic church in China," he said.
Sunday's crackdown on the Shouwang Church follows a string of detentions of dissidents, activists and human rights lawyers. Authorities in China have been particularly vigilant in recent weeks, following anonymous calls on the Internet for so-called "Jasmine" protests each Sunday.
Joseph Kung says the online calls might have made authorities nervous. "And also I believe that they want to show their independence. But I really can't second guess the mind of the communists. They could do anything they want," he said.
ChinaAid's Mark Shan agrees that the online protest calls might be having an affect. But mostly, he says, Chinese authorities are concerned about the growing influence of house churches.
Last October, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, invited more than 200 Chinese house church leaders to attend a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
"So from that time, the Chinese government also many scholars, even Christians ourselves, were surprised to see. Wow! The house church is really something; it is really large scale because you can see the whole country, they can choose 200 delegates to represent the whole house church. So that was something that caused the Chinese government to really panic," said Shan.
In December, Shan says, Chinese authorities launched a crackdown called "Operation Deterrence" against house churches. He says that although the Beijing government eased up in February, when calls for the Jasmine protests grew, it now is intensifying the campaign.
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Christians celebrated Easter on Sunday, marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Easter celebrations in Jerusalem began at dawn with a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb. Worshipers sang hymns facing an ancient, empty tomb carved into a rock. The holy site is said to resemble the garden where Jesus was buried, according to biblical accounts. A sign on the tomb's door says, "He is not here. He is risen."
The main Easter services took place at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Catholic priests and monks in festive robes celebrated Mass, as a fragrant cloud of incense rose above the ancient stone tomb believed to be the place where Jesus rose from the dead.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims came to Jerusalem for Easter, including John Bennett from Houston, Texas, in the United States.
"It is a special place in the hearts of all Christians all over the world. This is where the Messiah died, was buried and rose again. And it's a wonderful experience to get here."
Freann Linecar came from Cardiff, Wales.
"It is the most amazing experience; it has brought so much of the Scripture to life for me. And being here with Christians from across the world really just makes me feel so excited that Christ is working in our land, in all the lands."
It was a big turnout this year because the Eastern Orthodox and Western Churches celebrated Easter on the same day.
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Chinese police detained up to 40 Christians who tried to converge at the site of a banned Easter service Sunday and placed 500 more under house arrest.
Police deployed in large numbers early Sunday in northwest Beijing, where the independent Shouwang Church planned to hold an outdoor service to mark the holiest day of the Christian calendar.
Church members say up to 40 congregants were rounded up to prevent them from reaching a park close to their former church building, which has been shut down by the authorities.
A VOA correspondent on the scene saw worshippers driven away in buses in the mass police operation. Police prevented foreign journalists from getting close.
Shouwang church member Kathy Lu said many members of the congregation are facing persecution from the authorities and were prevented from attending the service.
"Around 40 were taken away. Over 500 members were not allowed to leave their homes. One of the deacons returned to his home last Friday afternoon and the police came to ask him if he planned to attend the Easter Sunday service. He said yes, so the police said from this moment, you cannot leave this house. I spoke to him an hour ago, and he was still not able to leave the house."
Worshippers have been detained in similar scenes since early April, when acts of defiance against the government began.
Lu says many have lost their jobs and been evicted from their homes because their landlords and bosses are also coming under pressure from security officials.
Authorities evicted Shouwang from its previous place of worship, a rented office space, in November and blocked the congregation of about 1,000 people from entering new premises purchased with church funds.
Less than one kilometer away from the planned open air service, the scene was very different.
Hundreds of Chinese gathered for Easter morning worship at the state-sanctioned Haidian Christian Church.
There, families and youngsters in fancy-dress rabbit ears gave out eggs, sung hymns, rang church bells and prayed.
About 15 million Protestants and five million Catholics worship at official churches in China, according to recent official data.
But an estimated 50 million others are believed to pray at so-called "underground" or "house" churches like Shouwang, which refuse to submit to government regulations.
The persecution of these Christians and other human rights abuses are to be raised with the Chinese government by U.S. officials in Beijing later this week.
The U.S. government has repeatedly criticized China's human rights record. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an autonomous government board, last week condemned the actions against Shouwang.
Sunday's crackdown on Christians comes ahead of next week's annual human rights talks between Beijing and Washington in China.
Lu is among those calling on the United States to demand Beijing respect human rights and religious freedom.
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Some leading U.S. lawmakers are calling for increased pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to step down.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on U.S. television CNN's State of the Union Sunday that the way to end the conflict in Libya is to "cut the head of the snake off," by bombing Gadhafi supporters in Tripoli.
Republican Senator John McCain and independent Senator Joe Lieberman appeared on the same program. All three lawmakers are members of the Senate Armed Services committee.
McCain, who visited the Libyan city of Benghazi last week, said the United States should reassume a leadership role in the NATO coalition on Libya. Lieberman agreed and added that every time the coalition pulls back, it sends a message to Gadhafi that he can "tough this thing out" [survive].
A different set of lawmakers spoke out on Syria Sunday, with members of both parties urging greater support for Syria's embattled opposition.
Republican Senator Mark Kirk said on CBS's Face the Nation the United States should use its diplomatic weight to undermine the Syrian dictatorship. He said he believes the dictatorship of Syria's Bashar al-Assad is coming to a "slow end."
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said the opposition movement in Syria should be encouraged. He and Kirk agreed that the U.S. should not send its troops into the country.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Pakistanis opposed to U.S. drone strikes on insurgent targets in Pakistan have blocked a road used by the NATO alliance to deliver supplies to neighboring Afghanistan.
Several thousand supporters of a Pakistani party led by former cricket star Imran Khan were staging a sit-in Sunday on the NATO supply route near the northwestern city of Peshawar. They began the protest late Saturday and planned to remain until Sunday evening.
NATO ships much of its non-lethal supplies for forces in landlocked Afghanistan to the Pakistani port of Karachi before delivering them by truck to the Afghan border. Militants often attack the convoys in Pakistan to stop them from reaching U.S.-led NATO forces fighting a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
U.S. drone strikes against Taliban-allied militants in northwest Pakistan have been a source of friction between the two countries. Khan and his supporters at the protest site demanded that the United States stop the missile attacks, saying they say kill innocent Pakistanis.
U.S. officials have never publicly acknowledged the use of drones inside Pakistan, but privately they have confirmed the strikes to various news outlets, saying the operations have killed mostly militants.
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Rockets rained down on Libya's western rebel-held city of Misrata Sunday, despite a government claim that it had halted operations against rebels there.
Witnesses in Misrata reported heavy shelling and gunfire in the city that has seen hundreds killed in two months of a government siege.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said earlier Sunday the army had suspended operations against rebels in Misrata but had not left the city, the country's third-largest.
Kaim said troops stopped to enable tribal elders to negotiate with the rebels. He said if the rebels didn't surrender in 48 hours, the tribesmen would fight them in place of the army.
Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 evacuees from Misrata arrived in the opposition's eastern stronghold of Benghazi Sunday on a ship chartered by the International Organization for Migration.
The ship carried stranded migrant workers and wounded civilians. More than 800 of the evacuees are nationals of Niger.
On Saturday, doctors said fierce fighting killed at least 24 people in Misrata.
The United States announced it had carried out its first Predator drone strike in Libya Saturday. NATO said the attack by the unmanned aircraft destroyed a multiple rocket launcher near Misrata.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Christian worshipers packed Easter services in Jakarta on Sunday, despite a bomb scare at a church days earlier that put police on the highest alert and added to concerns that minority religions are being targeted by increasingly active Islamic hardliners.
Hundreds of people stand together singing at Gereja St. Theresia, while children play with colorful plastic eggs and mothers cradle infants. The celebration here was one of many across Jakarta, where churches overflowed with worshipers undeterred by security threats after police defused several massive bombs on Thursday at a church on the outskirts of the capital.
To safeguard Easter celebrations, police deployed around 20,000 officers to Christian worship sites, and many churches set up security checks at their entrances.
Michael Kawulusan, who attends services at St. Theresia every Sunday, says the increased police presence was reassuring.
"We come to the church for praying so we're hoping nothing will happen," said Kawulusan. "Of course we are worried, but with these policemen over here guarding the church, I think it should be fine."
Anti-terror police foiled a plot to bomb the church on Good Friday thanks to information obtained after the arrest of 20 people suspected of sending parcel bombs to several prominent figures in Jakarta last month.
The discovery of those devices followed a suicide bombing at a mosque inside a police compound on April 15 that injured around 30 people.
Indonesia is a politically secular country with the world's largest Muslim population. But increasing attacks against Christians and minority Islamic sects considered deviant have raised concerns of rising intolerance.
Security officials say the string of recent incidents also illustrates the changing face of extremism in Indonesia. Islamic terrorist groups have previously focused attacks on Westerners in large hotels and embassies.
An International Crisis Group report published last week noted that recent events highlight a shifting trend toward small groups of militants acting independently of large jihadi organizations to attack Indonesians rather than foreigners.
The potential threat has not deterred Anastasia Veronica, who says she has been worshipping at St. Theresia since she was a child, and plans to continue attending with her husband and six-month-old daughter.
"If there was a bomb that exploded here," she said. "We've already received guidance by coming to celebrate this day, so I'm not scared."
Across town at the historic Cathedral Church, sounds of hallelujah mix with the Islamic call to prayer. A spokesman for the church estimates the crowd at more than 2,500, still far less than the 4,000 people who took part in Good Friday's services.
Lucia Darpeni says she is not letting the pre-Easter bomb stop her from worshiping as usual.
"We come here to clean our hearts," she said. "So there is nothing to fear. Even a little fear cannot prevent us from our activities."
Other worshipers agree, saying their faith will be enough to protect them.
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Mexican police say the brutally murdered bodies of four women and a teenage girl have been found in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
Authorities say all the victims apparently had a connection to a local beauty parlor.
Officials say the semi-nude and bound bodies of two of the women and a 14-year-old girl were found with their throats slashed early Saturday in the salon.
Police say the other victims, who also had their throats cut, were found later in the day in other parts of the resort town.
Acapulco, a popular tourist destination, has increasingly been the scene of violent battles between rival drug cartels.
On Friday, the U.S. issued a new travel warning for U.S. citizens in Mexico, urging them to exercise caution amid rising drug-related violence.
Nearly 35,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug-related violence since the end of 2006, when President Felipe Calderon ordered a military-led crackdown on the country's drug cartels.
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