PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal has announced it will conduct trials of four former leaders of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in segments according to separate charges in order to expedite the proceedings. The U.N.-assisted tribunal said one trial of the four leaders would consider charges involving the forced movement of people and crimes against humanity. It said later trials would focus on other charges including genocide. The tribunal is seeking justice for 1.7 million people who died of starvation, exhaustion, lack of medical care, or torture during the Khmer Rouge’s time in power in the 1970s. The tribunal sentenced former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav last July to 35 years in prison for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offenses.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The leaders of Cambodia and Thailand have agreed that troops along the disputed border should meet regularly to ease tensions and withdraw from a temple area as ordered by an international court in July. Cambodian foreign minister Hor Namhong said Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen made the agreement in Phnom Penh. Hor Namhong called the meeting a big step in improving ties. Relations between the countries have been strained since July 2008 when periodic skirmishes broke out in the region around the centuries-old, Cambodian-owned Preah Vihear temple. It sits on a mountain straddling the disputed border. The clashes have killed dozens of people and each side blames the other for starting them.

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu says all countries need to embrace technologies for capturing and burying carbon dioxide pollution to counter climate change and increase energy production. The U.S. is strongly committed to the process, known as carbon sequestration, and plans to have 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016 storing 16-17 million tons of carbon per year, Chu said after talks on the issue in Beijing. "The energy and climate problems we face can’t wait. We have to solve them; we have to begin quickly and go further faster and make it more widespread," Chu said. "Make carbon capture utilization and storage part of every country’s economic development." Stored carbon can also be commercially exploited to wring additional production out of depleted oil wells. China is also pressing ahead with the technology and science minister Wan Gang said the next decade would be crucial for developing the technology’s commercial viability.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Authorities in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are allowing access to banned news websites for the first time in years, including several operated by exiled dissidents. Censors in the repressive Southeast Asian nation unblocked the websites of international media outlets including the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corp. as well as the Democratic Voice of Burma, Radio Free Asia, and the video file sharing site YouTube. The government made no announcement on the move, however, and no officials were available to comment. The country has been ruled by the military since 1962. In March, the junta ceded power to a civilian government that has promised democratic reform. Critics believe the new leadership is a proxy for continued military rule.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan is ordering more tests on rice growing near a crippled nuclear plant after finding elevated levels of radiation, according to government officials. A sample of unharvested rice contained 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, they said. Radioactive cesium was spewed from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after it was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Under Japanese regulations, rice with up to 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is considered safe for consumption. Officials have tested rice from more than 400 spots in Fukushima prefecture. The highest level of cesium previously found was 136 becquerels per kilogram, prefectural official Kazuhiko Kanno said. News of the elevated radiation level in rice from Nihonmatsu city, 35 miles west of the nuclear plant, set off alarm in the Japanese media. The government has been testing vegetables and fish for radiation since the disaster, in which backup generators and cooling systems failed at the plant and the cores of three reactors melted. Some nations have stopped importing some food products from Japan. Japanese consumers are nervous about radiation, but campaigns to buy from Fukushima have drawn support around the nation.