PAKISTAN: Pakistani officials say they have retaken a police training center in
the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore after a nearly day-long firefight
with gunmen.
Helicopters have been patrolling the skies over the academy in the
Manawan section of the city where a fierce battle raged for hours.
Pakistani officials say their forces killed four of the assailants and that at least three were arrested.
Officials had said about ten gunmen stormed the complex in the early
morning hours, firing rifle and throwing grenades in an effort to
create confusion. They say at least 20 police officers were killed and
that, at one point, the gunmen held about 35 police recruits hostage.
CAMBODIA-KHMER ROUGE: The genocide trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader opened for its first
day of testimony and evidence Monday, more than 30 years after the fall
of the "killing fields" regime.
After years of delays, prosecutors will lay out their case against
66-year-old Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is accused of
crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder. Duch was in charge of the notorious Tuol Slengprison in
Phnom Penh, where more than 15,000 people are believed to have died
during the less than four year period that the Khmer Rouge controlled
Cambodia.
BURMA-BANGLADESH: Officials in Bangladesh say they are concerned by Burma's apparent plan
to build a barbed wire fence along a 40-kilometer stretch of the border
between the two nations.
A foreign ministry official said Monday that Burma has been piling
fencing materials on its side of the border and plans to erect the
fence only 13 meters from the no-man's land dividing the two countries.
G-20 SUMMIT: There are growing indications that calls for additional spending to
spark an economic recovery will go unheeded at this week's major
meeting of world leaders.
U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
have been pushing for additional stimulus measures ahead of this week's
Group of 20 meeting in London. But a G20 document obtained by a British
newspaper (the "Financial Times") contains no specific plans.
Instead, the document reinforces the need for countries to avoid
actions that would hurt free trade and calls for some agreement on more
regulation for the banking industry.
ARAB-SUMMIT-SUDAN: Leaders from 22 Arab nations are meeting Monday in Doha for this year's Arab League summit.
Arab leaders are expected to debate how to respond to the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as well as to Iran's growing influence in
the region.
Syria and Qatar have good relations with Iran and the Palestinian group Hamas, while Egypt and Jordan do not.
Attempts by Saudi King Abdullah to reconcile the differences have
suffered a blow, since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he
will not be attending the summit.
