Pakistan

Basic standards of fairness require immigration cases involving married gay couples to be treated the same as heterosexual couples. But so far, the Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing such marriages. As a result, legally married same-sex couples can't petition for a green card for their foreign spouses. Sometimes, those spouses are deported. Since the Obama administration announced in 2011 that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex couples in this situation have been in limbo.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A doctor who helped the CIA hunt down Osama bin Laden was convicted Wednesday of conspiring against the state and sentenced to 33 years in prison, adding new strains to an already deeply troubled relationship between the United States and Pakistan. US officials had urged Pakistan to release the doctor, who ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify the Al Qaeda leader's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where US commandos killed him in May 2011 in a unilateral raid.

Rebekah LaFontant will graduate Sunday from Brandeis University. "It's kind of bittersweet," the New York City native said earlier this week. "Brandeis is a bubble - it shields you from the real world. Once I leave, I'll be a real adult. " But LaFontant, who had a double major in health policy and psychology, seems better-prepared than many other graduates. She plans to serve in Boston's City Year program before moving on to graduate school. Long-term, she wants to be a primary care physician and conduct clinical public health research.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gunmen opened fire on a political rally in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and sparking rioting, police said. The violence was a reminder of the port city's volatility. It is home to several political parties with armed wings that extort its citizens and feud among themselves, leading to frequent outbreaks of violence. City police chief Akhtar Gorchani said nine people were killed and more then 30 wounded in shootouts.

The NATO summit's plan to "responsibly wind down" the Afghan war is not entirely in the hands of President Barack Obama and his fellow world leaders. The carefully orchestrated exit strategy could come unhinged if the resilient Taliban stage a major comeback or Afghanistan's neighbors interfere with the process to bolster their position in a weak country soon to be without thousands of international combat troops. In short, the Taliban, Pakistan and Iran still get a vote.

VIENNA -- The head of the UN atomic watchdog agency said yesterday that he will lead the first inspection of Libya's nuclear facilities as soon as next week, aiming to kick-start the elimination of the country's programs for weapons of mass destruction. After Libya's surprise admission Friday that it had such weapons, Pakistan acknowledged yesterday the possibility that some of its scientists may have provided nuclear technology to foreign nations. Pakistan's government has strongly denied allegations it gave such information to countries such as...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto presented her election platform yesterday, dimming the prospect of an opposition boycott that could undermine President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to show Pakistan is returning to democracy. Musharraf has left open the possibility of working with Bhutto after the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. Both are secular leaders who vow to take a tough line against Islamic extremism, and an alliance between the two would be welcomed in the West.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — It’s a land of daunting mountains, crisscrossed with rugged paths. Tucked in the valleys, families live a subsistence existence in mud houses secluded behind 10-foot-high walls, cooking over open fires and sleeping under the sky. Dirt poor, uneducated, they know the outside world only through information that comes from a crackling radio. The wilds of North Waziristan, on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, have become a crossroads for terrorism. The United States is pushing Pakistan to mount an offensive there...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s National Assembly yesterday passed sweeping constitutional changes that sharply curtail the president’s power and have at least the potential to stabilize the nation’s political system. The changes wipe away a host of measures military dictators introduced in recent decades that had eroded the power of Parliament and centralized authority in the hands of the president. Under the changes, Pakistan’s prime minister and its provincial governments are expected to have greater latitude in running the country, which has become a...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for much of Sunday because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials. The tweets were promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of the Prophet Mohammed, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication's Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous. The government restored access to Twitter before midnight Sunday, about eight hours after it initially blocked access.

A U.S. drone fired two missiles at a compound in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing four suspected militants in an attack that comes as Washington is running out of patience with Islamabad's refusal to reopen supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan. U.S. drone strikes have complicated negotiations over the routes, which Pakistan closed six months ago in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border. Pakistan's parliament demanded the strikes stop in the wake of the attack, but the U.S. has refused.

America's relationship with Pakistan has been battered by a string of recent setbacks, but a top U.S. general said Wednesday that the fact that the two countries have finally started talking again is at least a positive sign. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, cautioned that "we need to be careful about overstating the progress that we're making, but I think that we've made real progress in the last several weeks with respect to having conversations with Pakistan we were not even having before.

The Pakistani Navy has court-martialed three officers for "negligence" in connection with a dramatic Taliban attack on a naval base in the southern port city of Karachi last year, a spokesman said Tuesday. The brazen, 18-hour assault on Naval Station Mehran last May destroyed two U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft and killed 10 people on the base. The ability of the militants to penetrate the high-security base led to speculation they may have had inside information or assistance.

The NATO summit's plan to "responsibly wind down" the Afghan war is not entirely in the hands of President Barack Obama and his fellow world leaders. The carefully orchestrated exit strategy could come unhinged if the resilient Taliban stage a major comeback or Afghanistan's neighbors interfere with the process to bolster their position in a weak country soon to be without thousands of international combat troops. In short, the Taliban, Pakistan and Iran still get a vote.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for much of Sunday because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials. The tweets were promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of the Prophet Mohammed, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication's Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous. The government restored access to Twitter before midnight Sunday, about eight hours after it initially...

Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for several hours because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials. The tweets were promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication's Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous. The government restored access to Twitter before midnight Sunday, about eight hours after it initially blocked access, possibly...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The Pakistan Army said yesterday it will withdraw hundreds of troops from a tense tribal region near Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and his top deputy were believed to be hiding. The withdrawals from the South Waziristan area follow several military operations in recent months by thousands of troops against remnants of bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and its supporters. Although the tribal region is considered a possible hiding place for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, a senior Pakistan general said earlier this month no sign of bin Laden has been found.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s prime minister dissolved his 50-plus member Cabinet yesterday in order to replace it with a smaller group in response to demands for greater financial savings in the economically struggling country. Dissolution of the Cabinet, which included a mass resignation by ministers, is a concession to opposition leaders. The government is seeking their support to pass a broad economic overhaul insisted upon by international lenders whose billions are keeping Pakistan afloat.

The White House says it is not expecting to finish negotiations with Pakistan over reopening key supply lines during the NATO summit. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes says the U.S. does believe the issue will be resolved but says there is still work to be done. Rhodes spoke to reporters traveling with Obama to Chicago, where he is hosting the NATO summit. Pakistan closed the supply lines in November in response to a US airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.