The World in Brief

Pakistanis calledto stop paying taxes

ISLAMABAD -- A Pakistani cricket player-turned-politician on Sunday called on thousands of anti-government protesters to stop paying taxes and practice civil disobedience until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif steps down, raising fears of instability in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

Imran Khan, who leads Parliament's third-largest bloc, made the announcement at a rally in the capital calling for Sharif to step down over reported voting fraud in the May 2013 election, the first democratic transfer of power in a country with a long history of military dictatorships.

Khan also warned that his supporters would take over Parliament if Sharif does not resign within two days.

"We decide today that we will not pay taxes to his illegitimate government, we will not pay electricity bills, gas bills," Khan said to a crowd estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 people.

Syrian airstrikes hitmilitant stronghold

BEIRUT -- Syrian government warplanes pounded an Islamic State group stronghold as well as other towns controlled by the extremists, conducting a wave of airstrikes Sunday that killed at least 11 people, activists said.

For more than a year, President Bashar Assad's air force rarely targeted territory controlled by the Islamic State group in northern Syria, instead focusing on mainstream rebel groups. But government jets have begun hitting the extremists more regularly since the jihadis overran much of neighboring northern and western Iraq in June.

The intensity of Sunday's air raids appeared unusually high, with at least 25 strikes hitting the group's stronghold of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory Director Rami Abdurrahman said 14 of those raids targeted a military court and other buildings used by the group.

He said at least 31 Islamic State members were killed in Raqqa, with about 40 wounded. He said there were an additional 22 civilian casualties, but he didn't have an exact breakdown of the dead and wounded.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist collective, also reported the airstrikes on Raqqa, but put the death toll early in the day at 11.

Differences in casualty figures are common in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Syria.

Boat sinking leaves15 people missing

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A boat carrying foreign tourists sank in central Indonesia, leaving 15 people missing, officials said Sunday.

The boat was on its way from Lombok island to Komodo island carrying 20 foreign tourists, four Indonesian crewmen and an Indonesian guide when it sank about 6 p.m. Jakarta time Saturday, said Budiawan, head of the search and rescue agency in Mataram, the provincial capital of West Nusatenggara.

-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS

A Section on 08/18/2014

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