8 June 2013 Last updated at 09:30 GMT
Afghans take nationwide security lead from Nato
Nato has handed over security for the whole of Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
At a ceremony in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai said that from Wednesday "our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities".
Observers say the best soldiers in the Afghan army are up to the task but there are lingering doubts about some.
International troops will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, providing military back-up when needed.
Brazil erupts in protest over services and World Cup costs
Some of country's biggest ever rallies sweep major cities as bus fare rise is last straw in spiral of high costs and poor services
Brazil experienced one of its biggest nights of protest in decades on Monday as more than 100,000 people took to the streets nationwide to express their frustration at heavyhanded policing, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup.
The major demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and elsewhere started peacefully but several led to clashes with police and arson attacks on cars and buses.
The large turnout and geographic spread marked a rapid escalation after smaller protests last week against bus price increases led to complaints that police responded disproportionately with rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings.
Luxor protests against Morsi's new governor for the city - former Islamist terror leader Adel el-Khayat
Hoteliers and tour operators in Luxor were beginning to mobilise against Mohamed Morsi last night after the Egyptian President appointed a former Islamist terror leader as the city’s new governor – the same man whose fundamentalist group committed a notorious massacre in the city back in 1997.
As crowds of locals began to protest outside the governor’s office on Monday afternoon, tourism chiefs in the city were due to meet in a hastily convened session to discuss their response to the development.
“This decision is completely wrong,” said Mohamed Abdel Samir, the manager of Viking Travel. “This is not a suitable man for Luxor at all.”
Signs of chill in Basque region’s climate of peace
Is there really a risk of a split in Eta and a return to armed activity?
It is now more than 18 months since terrorist group Eta announced the “definitive end” of its armed campaign for an independent Basque state, in what was widely seen as a historic move.
But news coming out of the Basque Country in recent weeks has often seemed to contradict the notion that the region in northern Spain has returned to peace and normality after four decades of violence.
On May 30th, Basque nationalist labour unions staged a strike across the region against spending cuts, during which there was a handful of violent incidents that recalled the kale borroka, or pro-independence street violence of Eta’s heyday.
US says North Korea talks must be 'real'
June 17, 2013
The United States will only engage in "real" talks with North Korea and will judge actions, not Pyongyang's "nice words" about wanting high-level negotiations, a senior US official says.
Any talks "have to be based on them living up to their obligations" on proliferation, nuclear weapons, smuggling and other issues, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday.
"We'll judge them by their actions, not by the nice words that we heard yesterday," he said, when asked about a North Korean proposal for high-level negotiations on the denuclearisation of the divided peninsula.
"The bottom line is they're not going to be able to talk their way out of very significant sanctions they're under now, sanctions that Russia supported and – very importantly – that China supported."
Tsvangirai backs calls for Zimbabwe polls to be delayed to October 31
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has backed calls by regional grouping SADC for his archrival President Robert Mugabe to delay crucial polls due by the end of July.
"We have to hold elections by October 31," Tsvangirai's spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka told AFP.
The constitutional court last month ruled fresh polls have to be held by July 31, a date which Mugabe has backed, but Tsvangirai wants electoral reforms passed first and argues the law allows for three more months.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF and Tsvangirai's MDC parties have since 2009 been in an uneasy coalition formed in the aftermath of deadly post-election violence the previous year.
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