Afghanistan: 2 soldiers killed
KABUL — A powerful explosion ripped into a Canadian armored vehicle in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two soldiers and wounding a journalist for Radio-Canada, officials said.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms attacked a remote NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding 11 alliance soldiers, officials said.
The Canadian vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the troubled Zhari district of southern Kandahar province, NATO Brig. Gen. Guy Laroche told reporters at Kandahar Airfield.
Bangladesh: Curfew imposed
DHAKA — The military-backed government imposed an indefinite curfew in six major cities Wednesday, clearing the streets and temporarily shutting down cell phones in a bid to quell three days of unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule.
Police with loudspeakers urged residents to stay home as the curfew came into effect at 8 p.m. Security forces patrolled the deserted streets.
"This is a temporary measure. The curfew will be lifted as soon as the situation improves," Bangladesh's interim head of government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, said in a brief televised speech.
Colombia: Farmers shot dead
BOGOTA, Colombia — Gunmen hunted down and killed five farmers in a Colombian region plagued by violence and drug trafficking in an attack authorities blame on the nation's largest rebel group.
Community leader Carlos Beer said Wednesday that at least 70 gunmen went house-to-house in the village of Currulao with a list of names late Tuesday, killing three women and two men with shots to the head. Eleven others were injured in the attack, which took place near the port of Turbo, about 300 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota.
Slovakia: Dissident write dies
BRATISLAVA — Hana Ponicka, a Slovak writer and former anti-communist dissident, has died at age 85.
The Christian Democratic movement, the political party that Ponicka helped found after the 1989 collapse of the communist regime in the then nation of Czechoslovakia, said she died Tuesday. Party spokesman Martin Krajcovic did not give the cause of death.
In 1977, Ponicka signed the Charter 77 human rights manifesto inspired by Vaclav Havel, then a dissident playwright and later president of the Czech Republic after it split from Slovakia following the end of communist rule.
South Africa: AIDS report
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A study by South African scientists said Wednesday there was no evidence that foods such as garlic and beetroot were a substitute for AIDS medicine, disputing claims by the country's health minister.
The report — confirming what experts worldwide have said — was likely to increase pressure on the minister, who has been ridiculed for promoting olive oil, garlic, lemon and the African potato for people with AIDS and for questioning the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is also under fire because of the dismissal of her deputy and over newspaper allegations her liver transplant may have been needed because of alcohol abuse. Recent news reports also said she was banned from Botswana for 10 years in the 1970s after being accused of theft at a hospital.