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One Frontier Constabulary official died and several other people were injured on Monday when a remote-controlled bomb was detonated at Panjgur, in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) later claimed responsibility for the attack. Witnesses say the bomb was planted in a motorbike parked on Hospital Road in the town. When town security vehicles were passing, the bomb exploded. A security official, identified as Head Constable Mohammad Rafique, was killed. Ten others were severely injured; according to witne

A suicide car bomb exploded yesterday outside a government forensic center in Baghdad, Iraq. According to government sources, at least eighteen people died in the incident while 80 were injured. The suicide bomber attempted to drive through a police checkpoint and demolish the walls of the forensic center, located in the Kerrada district. The building was badly hit by the explosion. Fire engines and ambulances rushed to the scene, with rescue workers searching the rubble for bodies. An eyewitness, Hassan al-Saidi, stated: "I've heard many exp

The government of the United Kingdom has banned the export of the ADE 651, which is advertised by the manufacturer, ATSC Ltd., as a hand-held "remote portable substance detector." However, critics say it is just a "glorified dowsing rod." In a statement, the Department for Business said, "Tests have shown that the technology used in the ADE651 and similar devices is not suitable for bomb detection. As non-military technology it does not need an export license, and we would not normally need to monitor its sale and use abroad." The statement w

A car bomb exploded today at the gates of a U.S. military base, just outside the Afghan capital of Kabul. According to officials, at least twelve people received injuries. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The incident occurred just outside an US installation dubbed "Camp Phoenix". This is mainly used by American troops which train Afghan security forces. Camp Phoenix is often attacked by insurgents, particularly suicide bombers. In mid-November, an attack in Camp Phoenix, injured 25 people, half of them American

The Iraq Inquiry in London has revealed that United Kingdom justice secretary Jack Straw ignored the advice of Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign Office's most senior legal adviser until his resignation in 2006, that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. This is the first time that Wood has publicly expressed an opinion on the war. Wood advised Straw, then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, that invading Iraq without the backing of the United Nations Security Council in the form of a specific mandate—w

According to data from South Korea's national bank, the country's economy grew by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2009. The rise is now 6%, year-on-year, but the quarterly growth was slower than the 3.2% in the third quarter, according to the Bank of Korea. That increase was the best quarterly gain seen in over seven years. Analysts were predicting a slightly higher performance, 0.3%, for the last quarter, and 6.2% year-on-year, a Dow Jones Newswires survey of economists reported. "The data was weaker than market expectation, but a central bank

The head of security for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, has been found dead in his hotel room on Tuesday morning, a day before the international summit gets underway. A government spokesman refused to comment on the cause, but in a statement local police said that "all signs point to suicide." Markus Reinhardt, 61, was head of police for the canton of Graubünden (also known as Grison). He had held the position since 1984, and has been responsible for security at the annual WEF summit for several years. He had previously

Andrew Hill, a 49-year-old mechanic, was beginning a sentence of life imprisonment yesterday after being found guilty of the murder of his wife's lover. The trial at Sheffield Crown Court in South Yorkshire, England, had heard that Hill had murdered Colin Shawcross, a local medical practitioner, with a pickaxe handle after his wife had told him that she was leaving him for Shawcross. Shawcross and Julie Hill started their relationship in January 2008. She told her husband that she was leaving him for Shawcross in January 2009, and on the ne

Jean-Marie Dore has been sworn in as the prime minister of the Guinean transitional government, who has been charged with ending military rule in the country and organising elections. "[Democratic elections are] indeed the required path for our country to attain stability," Dore said at the inauguration ceremony today. He asked for General Sekouba Konate, the president of the interim government, to "reorganise and restructure the military with the support of the international community." According to the BBC, the interim government's plan is

A court in the Netherlands ruled yesterday that the fast-food company McDonald's over-reacted in dismissing an employee who added a piece of cheese to a colleague's hamburger without charging for it. McDonalds has been ordered to pay compensation since, the court ruled, "The cost of a slice of cheese is not comparable to a severe step such as redundancy". In March 2009, a waitress in Lemmer sold a hamburger to a colleague, and then added some cheese when her colleague asked for some. McDonald's said that this made the meal a cheeseburger, not

Ballots are being counted in Sri Lanka, after a presidential election was held there, the first after the Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated during a 25-year-long civil war. The incumbent president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is expected to be in a close race against former army chief, General Sarath Fonseka; both candidates say they expect to win. There are twenty other candidates on the ballot, but none of them are expected to win. Polls closed at 16.00 local time, or 10.30 GMT on Tuesday. There were claims of voter intimidation and sporadic acts of

According to administration officials, US president Barack Obama is to announce a partial government spending freeze to try and lower the country's current US$1.4 trillion deficit in the 2011 budget. Obama is due to make the announcement tomorrow, in his State of the Union address. The budget cut would not include defence, homeland security, international affairs expenditures, or veterans affairs. "We are in the midst of fighting a war and have security needs. We're going to fund those security needs as necessary," said an unnamed government