Taliban targeting Afghan women and government workers, UN report finds
Civilian casualty numbers fall for first time in six years but insurgents and Nato still inflicting 'unacceptable' toll on populace
Civilian casualties decreased in Afghanistan for the first time in six years in 2012, the United Nations has announced. But targeted killings by insurgents – particularly of women, girls and government employees – climbed compared with the previous year.
In its annual report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, which it first published in 2007, the UN said 7,559 Afghan civilians were killed or injured in the conflict in 2012, a decline of 12% on the 2011 figure.
Insurgent-laid bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), were still responsible for 81% of civilian casualties, reflecting a 9% rise in the number of civilians killed or injured by insurgents compared with 2011.
Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son of a Tamil Tiger
Photographs show boy was held before he was killed at close range.
New photographs have emerged which raise fresh questions about the conduct of Sri Lanka’s armed forces during the final stages of the operation against Tamil rebels and have led to claims the 12-year-old son of the militants’ leader may have been summarily executed.
A series of photographs taken a few hours apart and on the same camera, show Balachandran Prabhakaran, son of Villupillai Prabhakaran, head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). One of them shows the boy sitting in a bunker, alive and unharmed, apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan troops. Another, a few hours later, shows the boy’s body lying on the ground, his chest pierced by bullets.
Zero Hour at the Vatican: A Bitter Struggle for Control of the Catholic Church
With Pope Benedict XVI's resignation drawing closer, the struggle for power in the Vatican has gotten underway in earnest. The church badly needs to reform itself, but with Ratzinger lurking in the shadows, will it be able to? By SPIEGEL Staff
Naked and goaded viciously by hornets and wasps, his blood sucked by loathsome worms. Such was the fate of a pope in Dante's "Divine Comedy" who "by his cowardice made the great refusal."
The pope from Bavaria has given up. Nevertheless, when he announced his resignation last Monday, hastily and almost casually mumbling the words as if he were saying a rosary, as if he were returning the keys to a rental car rather than the keys to St. Peter, there was still a sense of how deeply his move has shaken the Catholic empire.
Netanyahu's standing melts in ice-cream drama
February 19, 2013 - 11:37AM
Isabel Kershner
JERUSALEM: His foreign minister had to resign after being accused of fraud. He was sharply criticised for his government's handling of the Ben Zygier case, who committed suicide in prison. And now this, which made front-page news in Israel last weekend: the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stands accused of dipping into state coffers for an ice cream budget of $US2700 ($2600) a year.
Pistachio, it was revealed by the proprietors of a gourmet ice cream parlour a couple of blocks from the Prime Minister's official residence, is his favourite (presumably not made with the Iranian kind of nut). Mrs Netanyahu, they said, appears to prefer French vanilla.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said that this was an exorbitant expenditure that he found unacceptable.Statement from Mr Netanyahu's office
ICC judges to decide Ivorian ex-president Gbagbo's fate
Laurent Gbagbo faces International Criminal Court judges who will decide whether to try him for masterminding a violent election standoff in 2010.
Presiding judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi is to open the hearings at the Hague-based court's headquarters this Tuesday, with prosecutors expecting to launch their case later in the afternoon.
Gbagbo (67), the first-ever former head of state to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC), faces four counts of crimes against humanity including murder and rape for fomenting a wave of violence which swept through Côte d'Ivoire after he refused to concede defeat in November 2010 presidential polls.
Four months of fighting followed, ravaging the world's largest cocoa producer and leaving some 3 000 people dead, according to the United Nations.
19 February 2013 Last updated at 00:59 GMT
How much bigger can container ships get?
The world's cargo ships are getting big, really big. No surprise, perhaps, given the volume of goods produced in Asia and consumed in Europe and the US. But are these giant symbols of the world's trade imbalance growing beyond all reason?
What is blue, a quarter of a mile long, and taller than London's Olympic stadium?
The answer: this year's new class of container ship, the Triple E. When it goes into service this June, it will be the largest vessel ploughing the sea.
Each will contain as much steel as eight Eiffel Towers and have a capacity equivalent to 18,000 20-foot containers (TEU).
If those containers were placed in Times Square in New York, they would rise above billboards, streetlights and some buildings.
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