U.S. opposes planned release of 88 Afghan prisoners, adding to strains 
By Jessica Donati and Hamid Shalizi
The United States wants Afghanistan to halt the release of 88 prisoners from an Afghan jail because they pose a serious threat to security, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, adding to strains between the two sides.
The United States only recently transferred the prison at Bagram to Afghan control after it had become a serious source of tension with the government in Afghanistan which is fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
Relations with Afghanistan have grown particularly strained over President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign a bilateral security deal that would keep around 8,000 U.S. troops in the country after 2014, when most foreign forces are due to leave.
South Sudan rebels seize regional capital ahead of peace talks
Troops loyal to vice-president Riek Machar take control of Bor as west presses both sides to end violence
South Sudanese rebels loyal to former vice-president Riek Machar have seized control of Bor, the capital of restive Jonglei state, according to the town's mayor.
Nhial Majak Nhial told Reuters that government troops loyal to President Salva Kiir had made a "tactical withdrawal" on Tuesday to Malual Chaat army barracks, two miles (3km) south of the town, after fighting that started at dawn.
"Yes they [rebels] have taken Bor," Nhial said from the national capital Juba, 118 miles (190km) south of Bor.
Russia's Putin vows in New Year speech to annihilate 'terrorists'
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has used his New Year’s speech to condemn this week's bombings in Volgograd. Russian leaders traditionally give messages as the year begins in each of the country's nine time zones.
In a break from convention, Putin recorded two messages this year. The first, broadcast in the far east of the country, showed Putin at the Kremlin and called on Russians to work together.
In the second, made on Tuesday while he was meeting flood victims in the city of Khabarovsk, he mentioned the Volgograd suicide attacks on a railway station and trolley bus which killed at least 34 people in the space of less than 24 hours on Sunday and Monday.
"We will confidently, fiercely and consistently continue the fight against terrorists until their complete annihilation," Putin said, vowing to ensure security in the year ahead, which includes Russia's hosting of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February and taking over the G8 presidency.
NSA's Secret Toolbox: Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need
The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency's own catalog.
When agents with the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division want to infiltrate a network or a computer, they turn to their technical experts. This particular unit of the United States intelligence service is known internally as ANT. The acronym presumably stands for Advanced Network Technology, because that's what the division produces -- tools for penetrating network equipment and monitoring mobile phones and computers. ANT's products help TAO agents infiltrate networks and divert or even modify data wherever the NSA's usual methods won't suffice. You can read more about the TAO division, its strengths and tricks in a SPIEGEL feature that was published in English on Sunday.
SPIEGEL has obtained an internal NSA catalog describing ANT's various products, along with their prices. A rigged monitor cable, for example, which allows "TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted monitor," goes for $30 (€22). An "active GSM base station" that makes it possible to mimic the cell phone tower of a target network and thus monitor mobile phones, is available for $40,000. Computer bugging devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving data undetected via radio link, are available in packs of 50, for over $1 million.
Egypt extends custody for Australian journalist
January 1, 2014 - 2:08AM
Egyptian authorities have ordered an award-winning Australian journalist and two other reporters working for Al-Jazeera television to be detained for two weeks on suspicion of "disturbing public security", a judicial source says.
Their arrests on Sunday came amid a widening crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, which the military-installed government declared a "terrorist" group last week.
Al-Jazeera has identified them as Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Adel Fahmy - a dual Egyptian-Canadian citizen - Australian reporter Peter Greste and producer Baher Mohamed.
Cameraman Mohamed Fawzi, who was also arrested on Sunday, has since been released.
Criss-crossing Jerusalem's parallel cities
Israeli lawyer Daniel Siedemann has navigated the legal thickets around land control in Jerusalem for decades.
Moments before a rock smashed through the window of his car in the center of the Palestinian Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher, leaving a deep gash in the back of his neck, Israeli lawyer Daniel Siedemann remembers noticing the banners.
"I thought, 'Is it my imagination or are the flags greener here than before?'" he recalls. Green is the color most associated with political Islam, as well as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist political party.
For more than two decades, Mr. Siedemann – an expert on municipal planning policy in East Jerusalem who has advised Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign governments – has traversed the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city through periods of uprising and calm.
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