Afghan civilian casualties rose in 2013 as foreign troops headed home
UN figures show 7% rise in civilian deaths to 3,000, taking total toll to 14,000 in year Cameron declared 'mission accomplished'
The number of civilians killed or injured in Afghanistan climbed last year, the UN said, even as foreign troops headed home by the thousand and the prime minister, David Cameron, declared "mission accomplished" in the country.
There was a sharp rise in casualties from battles between Afghan government and Taliban forces, the report on the protection of civilians said, and it was the deadliest year for women and children in nearly half a decade.
"Armed conflict took an unrelenting toll on Afghan civilians in 2013," the top UN envoy to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, said in a statement. "More ground engagements led to more civilians being killed and injured in their homes and communities from crossfire."
Sochi throws a spotlight on the dark side of Putin’s Russia
The Winter Olympics have focused attention on the achievements and failures of reign
Isabel Gorst
Whether he likes it or not, the Winter Olympics that opened in Sochi yesterday are being seen as “Putin’s party”, a showcase for everything he has done, and failed to do during almost 14 years as Russia’s paramount leader.
The Olympics come after a good year for Putin. At home the mass protests that accompanied his election to a third presidential term in 2012 have fizzled out and his approval ratings are reassuringly high. Confident of his grip on power, he has pardoned his arch foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon jailed a decade ago, and the Pussy Riot protesters who sang an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral in 2012.
Overseas, Putin scored points staving off a western military strike against Syria and brokering chemical weapons talks. Moscow’s ally Bashar-al-Assad is still in power. He has bullied and cajoled Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s president, into ditching plans to sign a European Union trade pact and instead move closer into Russia’s orbit. Yet the Sochi games have thrown a spotlight on the dark side of Putin’s Russia.
ICC announces preliminary investigation into CAR crimes
The ICC will open an examination into crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic after another lynching underscored rising violence.
"The plight of civilians in CAR since September 2012 has gone from bad to worse," said International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in a statement, adding some victims of crimes, which included alleged killings and acts of rape and sexual slavery, appeared to have been singled out on religious grounds.
The court has had a separate investigation underway in the country since 2007. The preliminary examination – announced on Friday – could proceed to a second investigation if prosecutors find evidence strong enough to justify it.
On Friday, an angry crowd killed and mutilated a man who fell from a truck filled with Muslims fleeing the capital, witnesses said.
How is Mexico's economy? Depends on where you're standing
Consumer confidence has dipped in Mexico, where citizens are starting to feel the impact of the country's tax overhaul. Meanwhile, the government's celebrating a sovereign rating bump.
Mexicans are now feeling the impact of a tax overhaul enacted late last year, and it has put them in a grumpy mood. Consumer confidence, as measured by a government index, has fallen to its lowest level in four years.
In January alone, the confidence index fell 6.2 percent and is down 15.5 percent from a year earlier.
Everyone feels the pinch of the new taxes – from the consumer buying a soft drink at the corner kiosk to the millions of Mexicans living near the US border who suddenly saw a 5 percent increase in the value-added tax.
UN nuclear experts back in Iran to tackle tougher issues
By Mohammad Davari3 hours ago
Tehran (AFP) - The UN atomic agency resumes talks in Tehran on Saturday to tackle allegations of past Iranian weapons work and discuss more practical steps to increase the transparency of the country's nuclear drive.
The one-day encounter between Iran and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency will build on a framework deal agreed in November that required Tehran to take six practical steps by next Tuesday.
With completion of those measures -- including a visit to the heavy water plant at the unfinished Arak reactor -- negotiations on "more difficult things" are expected to begin, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano has said.
Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi has said that, based on the IAEA's assessment of progress, the scope of future cooperation will be decided.
India's Mars scientist and other working lives
For two years, Minal Sampath, a systems engineer working on India's mission to Mars, worked flat out in a windowless room, often for 18 hours a day, to be ready for the country's most ambitious space project to date.
"We had a great team and there [was] an understanding between us that we [had] to get the work done to meet the deadline," she says. "The launch date [was] fixed and we could not miss it."
That day finally came on 5 November last year when the Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast of India.
It also marked the moment that India joined the short list of nations capable of launching such a mission.
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