Pakistan protest talks yield little
ISLAMABAD -- Negotiators for thousands of protesters demonstrating outside Pakistan's parliament met Wednesday with politicians trying to end the crisis, but key challenges appeared to remain -- including their demand that the prime minister resign.
Anti-government protesters converged on Islamabad more than two weeks ago, demanding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif step down. The twin protests are led by opposition politician Imran Khan and fiery cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri.
A group of politicians met Wednesday with representatives from Qadri and Khan. One of the politicians, Sirajul Haq, said there had been some success in their talks, although he urged caution. The politicians are all from the opposition, so any agreement they come up with would not necessarily be binding.
Spain lets British parents see ill son
MADRID -- Two British parents who were detained for taking their critically ill son out of a United Kingdom hospital for treatment abroad reunited with the child Wednesday after they were released from a Spanish prison.
A hospital spokesman said Brett and Naghmeh King visited their 5-year-old son, Ashya, at the Children's and Maternity Hospital in Malaga, but local authorities had received notification from British officials that the parents should not be allowed to take the boy away.
A British judge has made the child a ward of the court, said the spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because hospital rules bar him from being named.
The parents were sought by police on child-cruelty charges after they took Ashya, who has been treated for a brain tumor, out of a British hospital against doctors' advice. They then traveled to Spain where they planned to sell a property to pay for proton beam radiation therapy in the Czech Republic or the United States.
They were arrested Saturday but were released after U.K. authorities dropped the charges against them.
Riled judge orders inquiry on lawyers
CAIRO -- In an unprecedented move, an Egyptian judge ordered prosecutors Wednesday to investigate three lawyers over his claims that they "rioted" in court when they demanded to see their hunger-striking client.
Lawyer Osama el-Mahdi, one of the three attorneys, said the defense team was only doing its job, demanding to see their client, Ahmed Douma, who is serving a three-year sentence for protesting and is facing another trial.
Douma is one of more than a dozen jailed activists who are on a hunger strike to protest the government's crackdown on dissent. Douma started a hunger strike last week to protest his incarceration and his trial, and his wife said his health is failing. Before his hunger strike, Douma was already suffering from gastrointestinal problems.
Shehata is the same judge who recently sentenced three Al-Jazeera English journalists to prison on terrorism-related charges.
A Section on 09/04/2014