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Chinese official media say artist Ai Weiwei, detained Sunday at Beijing’s international airport, is under investigation for suspected economic crimes.

The official news agency Xinhua made the terse announcement Thursday. It said police are investigating the 53-year-old Ai “in accordance with the law.”

Ai, an internationally renowned artist who helped design Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium, has not been heard from since authorities detained him Sunday while trying to board a flight to Hong Kong.

The police also raided his studio and questioned his wife and his colleagues.

Ai’s wife said officers took his discs and hard drives and did not say what they were looking for and where they were taking him. She described the situation as very serious.

Human Rights Watch Wednesday called for Ai’s immediate release, noting that such arrests are often the prelude to criminal prosecutions. The statement says the government’s detention of the artist appears to have been carefully planned.

The United States, the European Union, Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Taiwan have been among the first to condemn Ai’s arrest.

China defended the arrest of Ai, suggesting that international criticism of the detention is an attack on China’s social values and legal system.

China’s ruling Communist Party responded to the criticism Wednesday, saying that Ai has frequently come close to the “red line of Chinese law” and engaged in actions that are “ambiguous in law.” In an editorial published in the party organ the Global Times, officials said that Western criticism of the arrest is aimed “at disrupting the attention of Chinese society.”

A former Nicaraguan foreign minister who was expected to become Libya’s envoy to the United Nations will instead become Nicaragua’s deputy representative to the United Nations.

It had been reported earlier this week that Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann would be designated to represent Libya at the U.N., but Friday, Nicaragua’s government named D’Escoto as the Latin American country’s deputy ambassador to the world body.

The latest announcement follows the defection of officials from the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

It is not clear when D’Escoto would present his credentials to the U.N.

D’Escoto previously served as president of the U.N. General Assembly. D’Escoto was Nicaragua’s foreign minister during the country’s leftist Sandinista administration.

He was born in Los Angeles, California, and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

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Several influential congressional leaders have spoken out against the United States arming Libyan rebels, warning that too little is known about what they really stand for. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates conceded to the panel that the rebels are not a well-known or cohesive unit.
"To be honest, other than a relative handful of leaders, we do not have much visibility into those who have risen against Gadhafi," said Gates. "But I think that in a way speaking of the quote unquote opposition is a misnomer. Because it is very disparate, it is very scattered and probably each element has its own agenda."

Gates said the lack of unity and coordination is one of the Libyan rebels’ biggest problems in their fight against Gadhafi’s forces. He said what the rebels need most right now is training, but made clear that should not be up to the United States.

"The truth is in terms of providing that training, in terms of providing assistance to them, frankly there are many countries that can do that, that is not a unique capability for the United States and as far as I am concerned somebody else should do that," Gates said.

Admiral Mike Mullen agreed with Gates, saying it would be best if a country that is not a member of NATO would provide arms to the rebels and to give them basic training on how to use them.

Gates and Mullen faced questions from lawmakers of both major parties about why President Barack Obama did not consult with Congress earlier during his decision-making process, instead of just informing them only hours before the military action began. 
"We do not understand what he is doing still, and I do not think he has the support of this Congress, but that is my personal opinion. I yield back," Miller said.
One of the few voices who spoke up in firm support of the president’s handling of Libya was Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper from Tennessee, who intimated that some of the criticism of the president may be politically-motivated.

"I do not think it has been mentioned so far here today, that the Senate, the U.S. Senate, on March 1 unanimously called for a no-fly zone over Libya," Cooper said."The House did not have a similar action, but that is at least some sign of congressional involvement earlier on in this process. It is no secret that this is a period of domestic tension in this country politically, but it makes me yearn for the days when politics stopped at the water’s edge and we could gather behind the commander-in-chief."

Gates added that both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House had also called for a no-fly zone over Libya. 
Secretary Gates assured lawmakers there would be no U.S ground forces, as he put it, "no boots on the ground" as long as he holds his job.

He said the United States and the world may not know much about the Libyan opposition, but they know all too well what Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is capable of.

"This guy has been a huge problem for the United States for a long time. And the reason the Arab League came together, and the reason that the U.N. voted and the reason NATO has supported this is not because they know a lot about the opposition but because they know a lot about Gadhafi," Gates said. "And they know what Gadhafi was not only going to do to his own people, but his potentional for disrupting everything that is going on in the Middle East right now."

Gates said Arab countries in the region decided that Gadhafi had become a threat to them, and Britain and France were concerned about the killing of innocent people on a massive scale, and a major problem of thousands of refugees crossing the borders into Tunisia and Egypt.

He said the international coalition aims to keep the pressure on Gadhafi to prevent him from killing his own people and to prevent him from destabilizing the entire region.  Gates says the United States believes military, economic and political pressure will drive Gadhafi from power.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up near a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 15 others.

Local authorities said the attack took place in the town of Swabi, about 70 kilometers northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

The blast came just minutes after a hardline politician, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was passing through the area. Police believe that Rehman, the leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, was the bomber’s target. He was due to address a public gathering nearby and was not harmed.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad condemned Wednesday’s attack, saying violent extremists have shown “they will attack anyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity or ideology, to terrorize the nation.”

Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants launch almost daily attacks across northwest Pakistan and the tribal areas, which Washington has branded the most dangerous place on Earth.

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan are set to mix diplomacy with sports Wednesday, as teams from the cricket-crazy nations face off in a World Cup semifinal match in the northern Indian city of Mohali.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani will watch the match together in the wake of two-day peace talks between ministers of the two nuclear-armed rival nations.

Officials estimate that more than a billion people will follow the epic battle between the two cricket teams. The winner will play Sri Lanka in the final in Mumbai Saturday.

Security is tight in Mohali and surrounding areas in Punjab state, with local authorities saying they were leaving nothing to chance.

Tickets for the semifinal match have been sold out for days and most businesses and offices in both countries are expected to be closed.

Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Chaudhary Qamar Zaman met in New Delhi this week. It was the first formal dialogue since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, during which Pakistan-based militants killed 166 people.

In a joint statement Tuesday, Islamabad agreed “in principle” to allow a team from India to investigate the attacks, while New Delhi said a Pakistani delegation would travel to India to probe the attacks. The two sides also agreed to establish a hotline to share real-time information on terrorist threats.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from Britain.

So-called “cricket diplomacy” has been used as a platform to ease India-Pakistan tension in the past. In 1987 and 2005, Pakistani leaders traveled to India to watch cricket matches.

Afghan officials say Taliban militants have abducted some 50 people, including local police officers, in northeastern Kunar province.

Local police chief Khalilullah Zaiyee said officers were part of a convoy of four vehicles traveling in Chapa Dara district. He said those abducted were unarmed and it is unclear how many were police officers or recruits.

A Taliban spokesman confirmed the abduction, saying the group has not yet decided what to do with the captives. Local elders are helping in the negotiations to free the men.

In the past, the Taliban have released captured police officers after they pledged to stop working for the government.

In other violence, a NATO soldier died in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

Also Sunday, NATO said one of its air weapons teams killed more than 10 insurgents armed with rocket propelled grenades in eastern Paktika province.

In northern Baghlan province, a joint Afghan-coalition security force detained two high-value Taliban leaders. One is a bomb-making expert responsible for attacks against Afghan troops, while the other is responsible for the assassination of a Nahrin district governor and for attacks targeting civilians, government officials and security forces.

Afghan and NATO forces also found a drug cache in southern Kandahar province and detained several insurgents. The drugs included 680 kilograms of marijuana and 160 kilograms of marijuana seeds. In the same province, another joint patrol discovered more than 8.5 tons of ammonium nitrate, used in home-made bombs. The chemicals were destroyed on site.

The operator of a crippled nuclear power plant in northern Japan says the latest radiation readings at the earthquake and tsunami-battered facility are 100,000 times higher than normal.

Earlier Sunday, workers at the plant were evacuated after incorrect readings of 10 million times higher than normal were reported in water that had accumulated in a turbine housing unit of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant’s number 2 reactor.

The faulty readings underscore the high-pressure challenges to several hundred workers struggling to provide accurate public information while trying to restart cooling systems at the plant. Workers have in some instances been conducting highly-sensitive electrical checks in the dark, under conditions that have been described as extreme.

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked the region on Monday, the latest in a series of aftershocks. There were no reports of damage of injuries. Japanese officials said Sunday the death toll from the tragedy that struck March 11 has risen to more than 10,600 people, with more than 16,500 others listed as missing. About 300,000 are living in temporary shelters.

Earlier Sunday, authorities said they also detected heightened levels of radioactive iodine in seawater within 300 meters of the plant. The nuclear safety agency said one-half a liter of the seawater contains the same amount of radiation that a person can safely be exposed to in a year. But officials said the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination, and that there is no immediate threat to marine life or seafood safety.

Radiation spikes were also detected last week in the water supply in Tokyo and nearby areas. Radiation has been found in vegetables and milk from farms near Fukushima, prompting a host of countries to ban imports of food from the region.

Efforts also are under way to drain highly radioactive pools of water that have accumulated in the reactor buildings, after two workers were hospitalized with radiation burns from stepping into a puddle of contaminated water. Plant officials say they do not yet know the source of the radioactive water.

Workers on Saturday sprayed fresh water instead of seawater into the damaged nuclear reactors, in an ongoing effort to keep damaged fuel rods from overheating and spewing more radiation into the environment. There was concern that salt in the seawater was clogging pipes and coating the fuel rods, interfering with efforts to restore the plant’s cooling systems.

The U.S. Navy is sending ships loaded with fresh water to the plant on Japan’s east coast.

Japanese authorities have urged residents still living within a 20- to 30-kilometer radius of Fukushima to voluntarily leave the area. Residents within that zone were told previously to stay indoors to avoid the threat of radiation, while residents closer to the plant were told to evacuate.