PAKISTAN POL: Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif says he has defied house
arrest in Lahore, where thousands of anti-government protesters are
rallying in the streets.
Mr. Sharif's supporters filled the streets of downtown Lahore Sunday,
waving flags and pelting security forces with rocks in the most intense
clashes in a five-day standoff between police and anti-government
protesters.
Police used tear gas and armored vehicles to try to push back the protesters, but the activists remain defiant.
Mr. Sharif is urging them to join a long march to the capital,
Islamabad, to demand the reinstatement of Supreme Court judges fired by
Pervez Musharraf when he was president.
AFGHANISTAN: The U.S. military says coalition and Afghan forces have killed five militants in the Taliban stronghold, Kandahar province.
The military says the five were killed in Maywand district Sunday
during an operation targeting a network supporting foreign fighters in
the area.
It was not immediately possible to independently confirm whether the men were militants.
Elsewhere in the province Sunday, Afghan officials say a roadside bomb
apparently intended for the mayor of Kandahar city killed one civilian
and wounded at least six others.
The mayor survived the attack.
MEXICO CRIME: Police in Mexico say they have found nine bodies - seven men and two
women - buried near the drug-smuggling hub of Ciudad Juarez, just
across the U.S. border.
Investigators say they have not ruled out finding more bodies at the site.
Thousands of soldiers and federal police are posted around Juarez in an
effort to quell violence involving warring drug gangs. The cartels are
fighting for control of trafficking routes into the United States.
EL SALVADOR ELECTION: Salvadoran citizens are voting Sunday for a new president in a race
that could end two decades of conservative rule in the crime-plagued
Central American country.
Opinion polls give the advantage to left-leaning candidate Mauricio
Funes in the race against conservative former national police chief
Rodrigo Avila.
Funes is a former television journalist and representative of the
leftist rebel group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. If he
wins, El Salvador would join a growing number of left-leaning
governments in Latin America.
MACAU-HONG KONG: Authorities in Macau have barred five Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers
and activists from entering the Chinese-ruled territory.
Outspoken politicians "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and Lee Cheuk-yan were among the five turned away Sunday.
The rest of their group were allowed to enter the former Portuguese colony, which has been part of China since 1999.
They traveled to Macau to test a new national security law that rights groups say stifles political freedoms.
