Revolts

Federal prosecutors dropped charges Friday against Vang Pao, the exiled Hmong general accused two years ago of plotting with a band of aging Central Valley expatriates to overthrow the communist regime in their homeland of Laos. Vang Pao, 79, had been singled out as the alleged ringleader of the bizarre scheme to launch a coup -- reputedly with mercenaries armed with AK-47 assault rifles and Stinger missiles -- in the summer of 2007. Although prosecutors filed motions abandoning charges against the general, one of America's staunchest allies during the Vietnam War, they maintained the counts against a dozen of his alleged comrades and added new ones.

The man who replaced President Manuel Zelaya in a coup said Thursday that he would be willing to hold elections ahead of schedule if that would ease the standoff, which has left Honduras badly isolated. The offer from Roberto Micheletti came on the eve of a high-level visit by a delegation of the Organization of American States aimed at sealing Zelaya's return to office -- or deciding on sanctions to punish the impoverished nation.

Sri Lanka's victory this week after a 25-year battle against the Tamil Tiger rebels represents a rare success story for governments fighting insurgencies. Even as leaders in Colombo, the capital, declared a national holiday and citizens danced in the streets, military planners and analysts around the world began scrutinizing the war for lessons on how to fight Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups.

The number of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka has risen sharply in the last month, Human Rights Watch said Friday, calling on both sides in the protracted civil war to stop firing at civilians or shelling areas where they are concentrated. The government has been battling the Tamil Tiger rebel group, which wants a homeland for the Tamil minority, for the last 25 years. In recent weeks the army has stepped up its offensive, boxing in the rebels in a smaller area in the north.

The United Nations said today that cluster bombs had hit the last functioning hospital in Sri Lanka's northern war zone and that 52 civilians had been killed in the region in the previous 24 hours. On Tuesday, the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway urged the Tamil Tiger rebels to consider surrendering to avoid more deaths. It was the first time cluster bombs were known to have been used in the government's push to defeat the rebels since the collapse of a cease-fire in 2006.

Honduras' ousted president and the officials who exiled him have agreed to try to resolve their conflict through a U.S.-endorsed mediator, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday. Signaling an expanding U.S. effort, Clinton said the two sides had agreed to talks supervised by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1987 for his efforts to broker peace accords in Central America.

In his dreams, Tu Tongjin is back on the battlefield, a terror-stricken young medic wandering the Chinese countryside with Mao Tse-tung and his fledgling Red Army. He is marching again, always marching. All around him are the bodies, including those of the 40,000 killed in one battle alone. He's starving, eating only grass. He feels the nagging cold and desperation of being hounded by death and pursued by a relentless enemy army. "What I remember most," the 94-year-old says, "is the chaos."

He seems more fable than flesh and blood, a general who marched with serendipity at his side. Wartime comrades say he walked away from downed aircraft, defied bullets and dodged artillery shells. Once, the story goes, a barrage of bombs landed around him and not one exploded. Even in defeat, Gen. Vang Pao of the Royal Lao Army consistently beat the odds. After the communists conquered his homeland in 1975, he fled with six wives and more than 20 children to the U.S.

As rebels in Chad fought for a second day to take control of the nation's capital, analysts said Sunday that the outcome of the attempted coup could have far-reaching implications for the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan.

Thousands of frightened Chadians took advantage of a lull in fighting Monday to flee N'Djamena when rebels withdrew from the capital after two days of heavy clashes with government troops. Officials, however, warned that battles were probably not over; rebel leaders vowed to attack again. "Rebels still have a capability of fighting," said Capt.