Karachi residents live in fear as Pakistan Taliban gains strength
KARACHI, Pakistan — Armored car sales have soared, and some new luxury apartments feature bulletproof glass. Local police officers, slain this year at an average rate of one per day, are demoralized. And now even the journalists are trying to arm themselves.
Pakistan’s biggest city has been plagued by crime and political violence for decades, with Urdu- and Pashto-speaking groups battling for influence. But the bloodshed is worsening as the domestic Taliban insurgency expands.
The militant group was largely responsible for a 90 percent spike in terrorist attacks in Karachi last year, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, which monitors violence. In the latest such attack, an explosion tore through a bus carrying police Thursday morning, killing a dozen officers. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
Tension rises in Ukraine with talks blocked and deadlines looming
Protesters to discuss ‘peaceful offensive’ at mass rally planned for tomorrow
Daniel McLaughlin
Concessions offered by Ukraine’s authorities and anti-government protesters have failed to defuse rising tension in Kiev, amid threats and ultimatums from both sides.
Courts yesterday released from police custody the last of 234 people detained during months of demonstrations against the rule of president Viktor Yanukovich and in return activists agreed to allow the partial resumption of traffic on a major Kiev street blocked by their barricades.
AmnestyThe freed protesters are under house arrest, however, and many face a possible 15 years in jail if they are not granted an amnesty that officials say runs out on Monday night if demonstrators in Kiev and other cities refuse to clear the streets and leave occupied buildings.
AmnestyThe freed protesters are under house arrest, however, and many face a possible 15 years in jail if they are not granted an amnesty that officials say runs out on Monday night if demonstrators in Kiev and other cities refuse to clear the streets and leave occupied buildings.
US and China agree to cooperate more closely to fight global warming
The US and China have agreed to cooperate more closely in combating global warming during a visit by Secretary of State John Kerry to Beijing. The top US diplomat also urged Beijing to ease its internet controls.
In a joint statement on Saturday the US and China said they had agreed to a series of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that trap solar heat in the atmosphere and change the climate.
"China and the United States will work together …to collaborate through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions," the statement read.
The two countries "commit to devote significant effort and resources to secure concrete results" by the Sixth US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue later this year, it added.
Uganda's Museveni to authorise life sentences for homosexuals
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is set to sign a bill into law which prescribes life imprisonment for some homesexual acts.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni plans to sign a bill into law that prescribes life imprisonment for some homosexual acts, officials said Friday, alarming rights activists who have condemned the bill as draconian in a country where homosexuality already has been criminalized.
Museveni announced his decision to governing party lawmakers, said government spokesman Ofwono Opondo.
In Twitter posts on Friday, Opondo said the legislators, who are holding a retreat chaired by Museveni, "welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants."
Museveni's decision was based on a report by "medical experts" presented at the retreat, saying that "homosexuality is not genetic but a social behavior," said Opondo.
Founded to give refuge to Jews, Israel torn by what to do with African migrants
McClatchy Foreign Staff
HOLOT DETENTION CENTER, ISRAEL — A spartan holding facility in Israel’s southern Negev desert has become the latest front in a debate over government policy toward more than 50,000 illegal African migrants, whose presence has posed a challenge to a nation founded as a haven for Jewish refugees.
The migrants, who arrived in Israel in recent years by sneaking across the once-porous desert border with Egypt, are mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. They say they are seeking asylum after escaping war and government repression in their native lands.
Twenty-five years after Soviet exit, Taliban says U.S. will meet same fate
The Taliban called on Afghans to expel the United States from Afghanistan on Saturday just as they said Afghan mujahideen fighters had done to Soviet forces 25 years ago to the day.
In a statement issued on the 25th anniversary of the final Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, a national holiday for Afghans, the Taliban sought to connect the steady departure of U.S. and NATO troops ahead of a year-end deadline to the end of the decade-long Soviet occupation.
"Today America is facing the same fate as the former Soviets and trying to escape from our country," the Taliban said in a statement emailed to reporters by Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesman for the group.
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