20 June 2013 Last updated at 08:49 GMT
Singapore smog 'could last for weeks'
Singapore's prime minister has warned that the haze engulfing the city could last for weeks, as air pollution in the city-state soared to record levels.
At 13:00 local time (05:00 GMT) Singapore's pollution standards index reached 371, breaking all previous records and reaching hazardous levels.
The haze is caused by illegal forest fires in Indonesia's Sumatra island.
The issue has sparked accusations between the two neighbours over who is responsible for the smog.
Environment officials from the two nations are holding an emergency meeting in Jakarta today.
India to let government officials access private phone calls and emails
Security agencies will not need court approval to access data under new surveillance programme, say sources
India has launched a wideranging surveillance programme that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into emails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources say.
The expanded surveillance in the world's most populous democracy, which the government says will help safeguard national security, has alarmed privacy advocates at a time when allegations of massive US digital snooping beyond American shores have set off a global furore.
"If India doesn't want to look like an authoritarian regime, it needs to be transparent about who will be authorised to collect data, what data will be collected, how it will be used, and how the right to privacy will be protected," said Cynthia Wong, a researcher at New-York-based Human Rights Watch.
Brazil riots latest: Protests continue at Confederations Cup matches despite Rio and Sao Paulo leaders agreeing to reverse public transport fare hikes
Riot police use gas bombs and pepper spray to quell protesters in the northern city of Fortaleza
Mass protests continued across Brazil last night despite leaders of the country's two biggest cities saying that they would reverse the increase in bus and subway fares that ignited the week-long demonstrations in the first place.
Both the mayors of Rio de Janeiro and the country's largest city Sao Paulo pledged to reverse the hike, with the Sao Paulo leader Fernando Haddad saying at a press conference that the U-turn "will represent a big sacrifice and we will have to reduce investments in other areas."
However, many are doubting that the move will quiet demonstrations - which have moved on from the outrage over the fare hikes and onto general cries against poor public services and corruption in the run up to 2014's World Cup - and protests continued throughout the country yesterday evening.
Obama's Nuclear Push: Moscow Fears Loss of World Power Status
A world without nuclear weapons? It's a nearly inconceivable scenario for the Kremlin, even if its arsenal costs Russia billions each year. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the country has suffered a major drop in influence. Now it's doing all it can to cling to the geopolitical power it has left.
Barack Obama could hardly have chosen a better place to renew his pledge to work toward a world without atomic weapons. "So long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe," the US president said from a stage in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which until 1989 was still part of the front line between East and West. But the Cold War is over, and along with the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union, Obama now wants to bury the weapons systems the rival blocs used to keep each other in check for more than four decades.
Tax havens cost Africa tens of billions: Kofi Annan
Tax havens used by major international firms are depriving impoverished African states of tens of billions of dollars each year, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan said.
Annan told a Security Council meeting on natural resources and conflict that tax avoidance and "murky" deals result in a loss of state revenue that fuels the wars over natural resources that have bedeviled Africa for decades.
"When foreign investors make extensive use of offshore companies, shell companies and tax havens, they weaken disclosure standards and undermine the efforts of reformers in Africa to promote transparency," Annan said.
The former UN leader said the Africa Progress Report panel, which he chairs, had found "anonymous shell companies" were used in five deals that cost the Democratic Republic of the Congo nearly $1.4 billion from 2010 to 2012.
THE TERROR DIASPORAUS spreads blowback nightmare
By Nick Turse
The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of US Africa Command's big success stories. The Gulf ... of Guinea.
Never mind that most Americans couldn't find it on a map and haven't heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I talked with AFRICOM's chief spokesman, the Economist had asked if the Gulf of Guinea was on the verge of becoming "another Somalia", because piracy there had jumped 41% from 2011 to 2012 and was on track to be even worse in 2013.
The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where
"stability," the command spokesman assured me, had "improved significantly," and the US military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?
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