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Two US soldiers killed in Afghanistan yesterday were shot by an Afghan interpreter in Wardek province south-west of Kabul, according to NATO. An official said the translator shot them at an eastern Afghanistan outpost before he was shot dead by other soldiers. It is not yet clear why the interpreter started shooting; However, the attacker seemed to be a "disgruntled employee", as opposed to a militant, according to a US military official. The interpreter had supposedly argued with the soldiers over pay and treatment before opening fire. A US e

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced today that the country will supply US$1.8bn (€1.3bn) worth of weapons to Libya. The deal, which will include small-arms and other weapons, is worth almost a quarter of last year's arms exports. The deal was signed on Friday, during a meeting with Libyan defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber, who was in Moscow for several days. Although Russian media have speculated that the deal will contain fighter planes, tanks and anti-air missiles, the Russian government is remaining silent, hinting only that

Two men were hanged Iran on Thursday, following their conviction for playing a role in the bombing of a Shiraz mosque, which killed thirteen people, last April. Mohammad-Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were charged with trying to overthrow the government, said the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), quoting a statement released by the Tehran prosecutor's office. They were convicted of being "Mohareb", or "enemies of God". They were also charged as being members of a banned monarchist group, the Kingdom Assembly or the Mujahedin Khalq. Prosec

__NOTOC__ Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, appeared before the Iraq Inquiry today. He faced six hours of questioning, starting at 6:30 am, at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London concerning his role in the 2003 Iraq invasion. During the inquiry, Blair stood by his decision to invade, saying he would make the same decision again. This is the third time Blair has given evidence at an inquiry into the Iraq War, having already testified before the Hutton Inquiry and the Butler Review, as well as participating

Microsoft has reported a profit increase of 60%, attributed to the widespread success of its new operating system, Windows 7, the fastest-selling operating system ever. Net profit for the last three months of last year is $6.66bn, compared to $4.18bn for the last three months of 2008. Microsoft also reported revenue of $19.2bn, a record that exceeds analyst's forecasts by a large margin. The software giant released Windows 7 in October 2009, and, since then, profits from Microsoft's client division, who makes Windows 7, has surged to 70%. Ho

In a 70 to 30 vote on Thursday, the United States Senate voted to confirm Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term. The vote, which was not split along party lines (11 Democrats and 19 Republicans voted against Bernanke), was the closest vote ever for a Federal Reserve chair appointment. The previous closest vote was in 1983, when Paul A. Volcker was confirmed by the Senate, 84 to 16. Complaints against Bernanke mostly involved his presiding over the major economic downturn, as well as the bailout of AIG. In the case of the latt

A sixteen-year-old girl, Darlene Etienne, was pulled out from underneath the rubble of a collapsed school in Haiti yesterday, fifteen days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the country, devastating most buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Etienne had been studying at school in the capital when the tremors stared, collapsing the building. She had apparently survived by drinking water from a bathroom, and the Al Jazeera news agency reports rescuers had heard her mumbling something about having some Coca-Cola. When pulled from the ru

According to official figures, exports from Japan have increased for the first time in fifteen months, since the official start of the global economic slowdown. Data released yesterday indicates that exports rose by 12.1% in December compared to a year earlier, to 5.4 trillion yen (US$60 billion). Demand from Asia, and especially China, helped boost the statistics. According to Al Jazeera, over fifty percent of exports were accounted to Asia, or $33 billion. Imports, however, were down by 5.5% to 4.9 trillion yen compared to a year earlier, r

Diplomats have said that Chad called on the United Nations' peacekeeping force to withdraw its civilians and soldiers from the country, and wants a timetable for the withdrawal. "There is a [Chadian] political imperative for a withdrawal. It doesn't matter how long it takes, it will be a withdrawal," said an unnamed diplomat to the Reuters news agency; diplomats say that the deployment of UN personnel was never fully accepted by the government, and that Chadian president Idriss Deby views their presence as an encroachment on their sovereign te

According to official data, the US economy grew by an annualised rate of 5.7% in the last quarter of last year. The figure is still an initial estimate, but was higher than the 2.2% annualised growth recorded in the third quarter of the year. Economic analysts polled by the Reuters news agency had predicted a 4.6% rise. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, which releases the economy growth reports, noted that the figures were based on estimates and incomplete data, and might be revised later. Christina Romer, an economist for the White House, de

The survivors from the recent 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti are now facing increasing insecurity from human traffickers and convicts escaped from collapsed prisons, officials have cautioned, even as aid is flowing into the country. The acting head of the UN's Haitian mission, meanwhile, says that that full reconstruction could take several decades. As many as 200,000 people were killed by the tremors, which struck on January 12, and 1.5 million people have been left without homes. Anthony Banbury, the deputy head of the UN mission in the e

The unemployment rate in the Eurozone, or the sixteen countries in which the euro is used, reached ten percent last December, for the first time since the euro was introduced in 1999. A ten-percent jobless rate was initially recorded in November, although that was later revised down to 9.9%. According to Eurostat, 15.8 million people now are without jobs in the Eurozone. For all 27 countries in the European Union, 23 million people collectively are unemployed. Eurostat reports that 87,000 jobs were lost throughout the eurozone in December,