US may pull out all troops from Afghanistan |
President tells Afghan counterpart about US contingency plans, but does not rule out making deal on post-2014 mission.
Last updated: 26 Feb 2014 01:26
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The US president, Barack Obama, has told his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that he is preparing a contingency plan to withdraw all US troops, as a post-2014 security pact remains unsigned.
The message, delivered on Tuesday, however did not rule out making a deal on a post-2014 mission with the next Kabul government.
Obama told Karzai by telephone that the Pentagon had little option but to draw up a contingency plan for a full withdrawal because the Afghan leader had refused to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement with Washington.
"Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year," the White House was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The US has been pushing for legal immunity for its soldiers and contractors, a point resisted by Karzai.
Adidas to stop selling Brazil World Cup T-shirts that 'encourage sexual tourism'
Sportswear maker to stop selling T-shirts before World Cup after Brazil's ministry of women's affairs said shirts were offensive
Adidas agreed on Tuesday to stop selling two raunchy T-shirts months ahead of the World Cup in Brazil after the government complained that they associated the country with sexual tourism.
One shirt shows a bikini-clad woman with open arms on a sunny Rio de Janeiro beach under the words "Looking to Score". The other has an "I love Brazil" heart resembling the upside-down buttocks of a woman wearing a thong bikini bottom.
Adidas – the world's second-largest sportswear maker – said the shirts would not be sold any more, adding in a statement that they were from a limited edition that was only on sale in the United States.
Ukraine's new rulers disband riot police squad
Force blamed for deaths of almost 100 in clashes in Kiev is ‘liquidated’, minister says
Ukraine’s riot police force, held responsible for the deaths of most of the 100 people killed in unrest and clashes in Kiev, has been disbanded, acting interior minister Arsen Avakov said today.
Snipers from the Berkut force - whose name means golden eagle and signifies a predator capable of swooping quickly on to its prey - are blamed for the deaths of most of the protesters in a three-day spasm of violence last week.
“The Berkut no longer exists”, Mr Avakov wrote in a post on Facebook.
“I have signed an order ... for the liquidation of the Berkut special police units,” he said.Nigerian Islamists kill 59 pupils in boarding school attack
DAMATURU, Nigeria
(Reuters) - Gunmen from Islamist group Boko Haram shot or burned to death 59 pupils in a boarding school in northeast Nigeria overnight, a hospital official and security forces said on Tuesday.
"Some of the students' bodies were burned to ashes," Police Commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the Federal Government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu.
Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu, told Reuters by phone the death toll had risen to 59.
"Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries," he said.
Venezuela's opposition opts out of government talks. Missed opportunity?
Taking part in a government dialog could serve as an endorsement of the Maduro administration's 'repression,' opposition leader Capriles said.
Hopes of ending Venezuela's deadly political standoff faded on Monday.
While protestors piled trash and lit fires in the streets ofCaracas, opposition leader Henrique Capriles called off a meeting with President Nicolás Maduro.
"I'm not going to go and make Nicolás Maduro look
good," said Mr. Capriles at a press conference just hours before the meeting was scheduled. "How am I going to go [to the Miraflores Presidential Palace] while there is a situation of repression and violations of human rights?"
The meeting between state and local officials was touted as a chance for dialog in the troubled nation, but Capriles, the governor of the state of Miranda, said that taking part would look like an endorsement of government "repression."
Southeast Asia
Feb 26, '14
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New fault lines in the South China Sea
By Richard Javad Heydarian
MANILA - After a months-long failed attempt to revive diplomatic channels with China's leadership, Philippine President Benigno Aquino upped the ante in their simmering territorial conflict by likening China to Nazi Germany.
To the surprise of many analysts who expected Manila to focus this year on improving strained bilateral ties with Beijing, Aquino argued in an exclusive interview this month with the New York
Times that China's increasing territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea is comparable to Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938.
Aquino has sought greater international support, particularly from the United States, for his country's claims in the contested waters, a dispute it has submitted to the Hague for international arbitration. Aquino warned in the interview that appeasing Beijing on the issue could ultimately lead to a new world war.
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