YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Calendar vendors on Yangon’s teeming streets say 2012 is the year of Aung San Suu Kyi. In this devoutly Buddhist country, calendars with the democracy icon’s pictures are now outselling even the Lord Buddha. Her once-banished image now appears everywhere, on T-shirts, keychains and coffee mugs. Pirated copies of “The Lady” — the big screen version of Suu Kyi’s life — are the best-selling DVD on Yangon streets. In just over a year since her release... Read more

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Days before Iran’s just-completed parliamentary elections, the country’s supreme leader gave what amounted to a pep rally on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear views. Atomic technology is a pillar of “national dignity,” boasted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iran must stand firm against the “bullying” pressures from the West. It showed how deeply Iran’s leadership cares about its nuclear program in the face of efforts by the West, which is still hoping the finesse of diplomacy... Read more

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese officials sought Wednesday to discredit about two dozen Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest China’s rule over their region as outcasts, criminals and mentally ill people manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has said he does not encourage the self-immolations. However, Chinese officials have sought to portray the past year’s wave of immolations — including three since Saturday — as the result of outside orchestration rather than what... Read more

BEIJING (AP) — China’s state news agency confirmed Wednesday that a 20-year-old Tibetan woman died after setting herself on fire but said it may have been a result of depression caused by a head injury. Tibetan areas in China are on edge and under heavy security. More than two dozen Tibetans have set themselves on fire in China over the last year to protest what they say is China’s suppression of their religion and culture, and to demand the return... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney won in the Northeast on Super Tuesday, while Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich picked up victories in Southern states — results that showcased the vastly different slices of the Republican electorate that headed to the polls. But even as results diverged, voters in each of the seven primary states polled on Super Tuesday said the same issue — the economy — was their top concern. From more moderate Massachusetts and Vermont to more conservative states... Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) — Four Associated Press reporters won the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting on Tuesday for a series of stories about the New York Police Department’s widespread surveillance of Muslims after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Chris Hawley and Eileen Sullivan won the $25,000 prize for their extensive reporting on the spying programs that monitored and recorded life in Muslim communities. Alex S. Jones, director of the center that gives out the prize, the... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rick Santorum was drawing strong support Tuesday from the most conservative voters in Ohio’s Republican presidential primary, according to early results of an exit poll of voters. But despite targeting the state’s blue-collar voters, they were giving him only a slender lead over rival Mitt Romney, the survey was showing. Ohio was the most closely watched among the 10 states holding Super Tuesday presidential contests. With many viewing the state as one of Santorum’s best chances of... Read more

HAVANA (AP) — A prominent New York rabbi has met with imprisoned American subcontractor Alan Gross in Cuba. Arthur Schneier says he spent about an hour and a half with Gross in Havana. Photos on Schneier’s camera show a thin and bearded Gross wearing glasses and a yarmulke. The rabbi says he gave Gross a prayer shawl and they prayed together to mark the eve of the Jewish holiday of Purim. Schneier was in Havana on Tuesday as part of... Read more

GOMBE, Nigeria (AP) — A radical Islamist sect blamed for more than 300 killings this year alone in Nigeria has found a new target for its anti-government rage: schools. The sect known as Boko Haram has set ablaze more than a dozen schools since the beginning of the year, saying it will continue to target them as it says the government attacks Islamic schools. Human Rights Watch warns the Boko Haram attacks have left thousands of students unable to attend... Read more

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities say at least two people are dead in separate attacks blamed on a radical Islamist sect in northeast Nigeria that saw a police station and a church blown up with explosives. The attacks occurred Tuesday night in Borno and Yobe states, where the sect known as Boko Haram is carrying out an increasingly bloody sectarian fight against Nigeria’s weak central government. Yobe state police commissioner Tanko Lawan said a village chief and a civilian were... Read more