Officials in northeastern Afghanistan say unidentified gunmen have kidnapped five aid workers, including two foreigners. In Takhar province, doctors are treating 120 school girls for possible poisoning.
Government officials say the Pakistani doctor who helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason. In the US, as a tit for tat move, a Senate subcommittee voted Tuesday to cut proposed aid to Pakistan by more than half, and threatened to withhold even more money unless the NATO supply routes are reopened.
Millions of Egyptians stood in long lines Wednesday to cast ballots in the first presidential election since President Hosni Mubarak resigned last year amid massive protests.
Activists say Syrian government forces have pounded targets in the opposition stronghold of Rastan, and at least six people have been killed elsewhere, during violence related to the country's anti-government unrest. As a byproduct of the ongoing violence, the smuggling business has boomed, especially on the border with northern Jordan.
International donors have pledged $4 billion in aid to Yemen to help the impoverished state boost the fight against Islamist militants and develop the Yemeni economy.
Iran and world powers exchanged proposals Wednesday at a Baghdad meeting aimed at resolving international concerns about potential military dimensions to the Iranian nuclear program. IRNA criticized the proposal put forward by the six-nation group, saying it makes too many demands of Iran while offering too little in return.
Details after the break.
Afghanistan
Doctors in northern Afghanistan say they are treating more than 120 Afghan girls for possible poisoning after they became sick at school.
The head of Takhar Province's education department Abdul Wahab Zafari said the students noticed what he called “a certain smell” in the school before becoming sick on Wednesday.
One of the girls said she saw a student unconscious and in bad condition. The girl said she and many others passed out after drinking the water.
While no one claimed responsibility for the incident, the Taliban frequently targets female schools with poison and acid attacks in an effort to close them down. Under the Taliban's rule, women were banned from working or going to school outside the home.
Elsewhere in northern Afghanistan, officials say unidentified gunmen kidnapped two foreign doctors and three of their Afghan colleagues Tuesday.
A spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province said the kidnapping happened as the group was traveling on horseback in the Yaftal area. Officials said the aid workers were with a non-profit humanitarian organization, but did not identify them.
Badakhshan is a mountainous part of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan. While it has not been a focus of insurgent activity during the Afghan war, militants have carried out sporadic attacks in the province.
Last month, a group of Taliban insurgents ambushed a police post, killing at least four police officers and capturing 16 others. In 2010, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of 10 Christian medical workers, whom it accused of acting as spies and missionaries.
In other Afghan news: Officials in northeastern Afghanistan say unidentified gunmen have kidnapped five aid workers, including two foreigners.A spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province said Wednesday the kidnapping happened a day earlier as the group was traveling on horseback in the Yaftal area.
The identities of the aid workers and their organization were not immediately identified.
Badakhshan is not known as a focus of insurgent activity, but militants have carried out attacks in the province.
Last month, a group of Taliban insurgents ambushed a police post, killing at least four police officers and capturing 16 others.
In 2010, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of 10 Christian medical workers, whom it accused of acting as spies and missionaries.
Pakistan
Government officials say the Pakistani doctor who helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason.
Shakeel Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign to help the CIA obtain DNA samples of the al-Qaida leader and members of his family to confirm his presence at a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. U.S. special forces killed bin Laden during a covert raid in the garrison city last May.
Local officials said Wednesday that a tribal court in Pakistan's northwest Khyber district convicted Afridi of treason. Aside from jail time, the doctor must also pay a $3,500 fine.
Officials say that under the tribal system, Afridi was not given the right to defend himself, present evidence, or have access to a lawyer.
Earlier this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Afridi had been very helpful in tracking down bin Laden and called on Pakistani authorities to release him, calling his arrest a "real mistake."
In March, a ranking member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, expressed concern about Afridi's arrest during an interview with VOA's Urdu Service.
Congressman Ruppersberger said Afridi could have left Pakistan before being arrested, but chose to stay because he was patriotic.
The U.S. lawmaker said that from what he knew, Afridi felt "that he was helping his country in dealing with terrorism - he didn't know who was in the area, he was a doctor."
Asked Wednesday about Afridi's sentencing, Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters: "Without commenting on specific individuals, let me make the following point very clear: anyone who supported the United States in finding Osama bin Laden was not working against Pakistan. They were working against al-Qaida."
Afridi's conviction comes at a time of tense relations between the United States and Pakistan, which are in talks to reopen NATO supply lines to troops in Afghanistan that Pakistan shut down last November after U.S. airstrikes mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani troops.
Pakistan has demanded an apology for the cross-border attack and an end U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani soil. The U.S. says the strikes targeting militants are crucial to defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Also Wednesday, Pakistani intelligence officials said a U.S. missile strike killed four suspected militants Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.
The officials say two missiles hit a compound Wednesday near Miran Shah, near the Afghan border.
A U.S. Senate subcommittee voted Tuesday to cut proposed aid to Pakistan by more than half, and threatened to withhold even more money unless the NATO supply routes are reopened.
The aid is part of President Barack Obama's budget proposal for next year.
The panel voted $1 billion in aid to Pakistan - a 58 percent cut in the level proposed by Mr. Obama. The amount includes $50 million for counterinsurgency that is contingent on the NATO supply line being opened.
Panel leaders said they do not want to invest in an uncooperative nation.
The spending plan is far from final. The full Senate committee, both houses of Congress and Mr. Obama must approve the budget.
The U.S. withdrew as much as $3 billion of promised military aid as relations with Pakistan deteriorated following the November airstrikes.
Egypt
Millions of Egyptians stood in long lines Wednesday to cast ballots in the first presidential election since President Hosni Mubarak resigned last year amid massive protests.
The buildup to the contentious election has largely pitted candidates representing the old guard tied to Mubarak against Islamists trying to form new coalitions. In all, 13 candidates are on the ballot, but one has dropped out of the race. The voting will stretch over two days.
Voters lined up for blocks, waiting sometimes for hours to cast their ballot.
Voter Noha Kamal is relieved that, finally, her vote will count, after years of Mubarak winning tightly-controlled votes.
“This is the first time that we can choose, yes," Kamal said. "In the past 30 years we passed through a lot of questionnaires - 'is it ok or not to retain our president.' Every time, I didn't go.”
Opinion polls show four front runners. They include two Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi and independent Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and two members of the old guard - veteran diplomat Amr Moussa and former Air Force commander Ahmed Shafik. Another candidate, socialist Hamdeen Sabahi has also been emerging in recent polls.
Religion has been central to most campaigns, but Cairo University student Howaida Magdi wishes otherwise. She says she's a Muslim, but she focuses on politics. Religion, she says, is everyone's personal choice, but it's “not the way to judge politicians.”
There are other key issues - the faltering economy and ongoing instability, with continuing protests, crackdowns and crime - issues that play into the campaigns of Moussa and Shafik who emphasize a return to order.
For some Egyptians, like voter Galal, the transition has been overwhelming, something he hopes whoever wins, be they old guard, or Islamists, will fix.
"We're tired," he said. “Flour is sold on the black market, People do not fear God.” He wants “the Egyptian nation to be united.”
Syria
Activists say Syrian government forces have pounded targets in the opposition stronghold of Rastan, and at least six people have been killed elsewhere, during violence related to the country's anti-government unrest.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Rastan came under intense shelling early Wednesday as government forces tried to push rebels from the town.
The Britain-based group also said an explosion near Damascus killed three people.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's foreign minister said 11 male Lebanese pilgrims who were kidnapped while traveling through Syria this week will be freed soon. Adnan Mansour said Wednesday that negotiations for their release were ongoing, but he did not disclose who is holding the men.
On Tuesday, gunmen stopped a bus carrying Lebanese Shi'ites traveling through Syria after visiting shrines in Iraq. The gunmen freed several dozen women who were on the bus.
Relatives greeted the women late Tuesday as they arrived at a Beirut airport.
One woman told the Reuters news agency the captors claimed they were part of the opposition Free Syrian Army. Members of the Free Syrian Army denied the group was responsible for the incident.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Wednesday that the "tangible threat" of violence in Syria spilling into Lebanon could "end very badly." He blamed the violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites there on "artificial" agitators.
Meanwhile, As violence has intensified in Syria, the smuggling business has boomed. A recent trip to northern Jordan near the Syrian border showed how the dangerous practice of dissidents smuggling food and medicine to injured and famished people in Syria is thriving.
Overlooking Syria's southern border from Jordan, Ahmed Al-Masri is making plans to cross it. He leads a group of Syrian smugglers who risk everything on a daily basis to bring supplies into the country. From an undisclosed safe house on the Jordanian side of the border, Ahmed explains why they take the risk.
"Everybody inside Syria needs everything from outside. They need food. They need medication. They need some communication machine like a satellite phone," he said.
This storage facility is filled with donated clothing. Some will be sent across the border to Deraa, just a few kilometers away.
In another safe house, rooms are full of medical supplies. This doctor, who chose not to show his face, fled from Syria two months ago. Now he works with smugglers to supply doctors inside the country with life-saving tools and medicines.
"So in this, three small packages, we put in one big package, and we smuggle it through the border," he said.
The group supplies three field hospitals inside Deraa and a few others elsewhere in Syria. They send items ranging from gloves and bandages to tools for surgery.
"Everything for three small surgeries and about 20 patients is found in this package, and it is not heavy, and it's easy to carry," said the doctor.
In one of the safe houses, Ahmed's boss, who asked to remain anonymous, is arranging to smuggle more supplies north, and people south. If they are caught in Syria, he said, they will be arrested and maybe killed immediately.
In the few kilometers from the Jordanian border, they face snipers and land mines placed by Syrian forces.
"We have so many friends killed in his job, and so many arrested - maybe 35 or 36 now," said Ahmed.
Ahmed was in Deraa when recent uprisings took place. His activism got him arrested, and his family has been threatened, but he continues the work.
"If I were scared, and my friends were scared, nobody would do this thing. We must do it," he said.
Yemen
International donors have pledged $4 billion in aid to Yemen to help the impoverished state boost the fight against Islamist militants and develop the Yemeni economy.
British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt says a group of mostly Arab and Western nations and international organizations made the pledges on Wednesday at a "Friends of Yemen" donor conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. It was the first such gathering in almost two years.
The Saudi hosts of the conference made the largest pledge, offering $3.25 billion to support Yemeni development projects and Yemeni government efforts to improve security across the chaotic nation. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal gave no details on how the money will be disbursed.
Yemeni officials at the donor conference said they need at least $8 billion in foreign aid in the coming years to overcome economic and security challenges.
In an article published Wednesday in London's Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said millions of Yemenis are starving and cannot find jobs or a place to live, and that their fate has implications for the security of the entire region. If Yemen fails to achieve stability, he said, there is a "very real threat" of a decline into civil war.
Yemen has been struggling to overcome an Islamist insurgency that has seen large parts of the south fall into militant hands since last year. Yemeni security officials said the latest fighting in the southern province of Abyan killed at least six soldiers and 22 militants on Wednesday.
Two days earlier, a Yemeni suicide bomber dressed as a soldier blew himself up at a military parade rehearsal in the capital, Sana'a, killing at least 96 troops.
Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility and vowed more attacks if the government continues its anti-militant offensive in the south. Yemeni leaders responded to the attack by vowing to pursue their war against terrorism.
Iran
Iran and world powers exchanged proposals Wednesday at a Baghdad meeting aimed at resolving international concerns about potential military dimensions to the Iranian nuclear program.
The state-run IRNA news agency says Iranian negotiators presented a five-point proposal addressing nuclear and non-nuclear issues on Wednesday, shortly after the world powers opened the meeting with their own proposal.
IRNA says both sides made their presentations orally and plan to hold a second day of talks on Thursday.
IRNA criticized the proposal from the six-nation group, saying it makes too many demands of Iran while offering too little in return.
An EU spokesman said the six-nation proposal addresses the group's concern about Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.
Iran says its enrichment work is meant for medical research and generating electricity. Western nations fear Iran could quickly upgrade its uranium to the 90 percent purity needed for nuclear weapons.
Baghdad University professor Said Dahdhoh told VOA's Kurdish service that Iran wants the talks to be comprehensive and focus on more than just the nuclear dispute. He said Tehran also wants the West to clarify its stand on Bahrain and other regional issues.
Shi'ite majority Iran has strongly criticized plans by the minority Sunni rulers of predominantly Shi'ite Bahrain to seek a political union with Sunni-dominated Gulf states. Bahrain's ruling family is a U.S. ally that provides the U.S. Navy with a key regional base.
World powers, however, have insisted for months that talks focus solely on the disputes with Iran's nuclear program.
EU spokesman Michael Mann gave no other details of the proposal by the six-nation delegation, which is led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The group includes the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.
This is the second round of a dialogue that resumed last month in Istanbul after a break of more than a year.
Published reports say the six-nation group is reviving a 2009 proposal for Iran to ship out its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium in return for higher-enriched fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran.
Iran is seeking pledges from the world powers to ease U.N. and Western sanctions imposed on the country for defying international demands for a suspension of enrichment.
Mann said he does not expect any "dramatic happenings" in Baghdad.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow believes Iran is ready to seek an agreement with the six-nation group on concrete actions to resolve the nuclear dispute. He made the comment in Moscow.
Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence and refuses to rule out military action against the Iranian nuclear program.
Israeli officials have urged the world powers not to compromise on their demand for a stop to Iranian enrichment work. Those officials also have expressed concern that Iran will make empty promises of concessions to buy more time to covertly develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Wednesday that Western policies of pressure and intimidation toward Iran are futile. Speaking in Tehran, he said the West must adopt policies that show good will.
All content based on VOA News reports.
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