Suicide bomb attack on Kabul restaurant 'kills 14'

• Two Canadians killed in Kabul attack 
• Lebanese owner died defending Kabul restaurant

At least 14 people have been killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the Afghan capital, officials say.

Foreigners, including an IMF representative from Lebanon and a Briton, were also among those killed in Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood.

The area is home to a number of foreign embassies and organisations - the UN said four of its staff were missing.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Taverna du Liban.

The restaurant is popular with foreign nationals, diplomats and aid workers, and was busy with diners at the time of the attack.

A suicide attacker detonated his explosives outside the gate of the heavily-fortified restaurant, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said.

Two gunmen then entered the restaurant and started "indiscriminately killing" people inside.

Mr Salangi said four women were among the dead.

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) confirmed that a British national was among those killed in the incident and that it was ready to provide consular assistance to the person's family.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde later said Wabel Abdallah - the head of the fund's Afghanistan office - was among those who died.

"This is tragic news, and we at the fund are all devastated," Ms Lagarde said in a statement.

Abdul Majid, a chef at the restaurant, told AFP news agency that he was sitting with his friends "in the kitchen when an explosion happened and smoke filled the kitchen".

"A man came inside shouting and he started shooting. One of my colleagues was shot and fell down. I ran to the roof and threw myself to the neighbouring property."

Taliban claim

The well-known owner of the restaurant was also among those killed.

The attackers were eventually shot dead by the security forces when they arrived at the scene.

The BBC's Mahfouz Zubaide heard the blast and gunfire from at least two kilometres away. He said the gunfire went on sporadically for about 10 minutes.

Several hours later, UN officials in Kabul said four of its personnel, who may have been in the area at the time, were still unaccounted for.

"The UN is making efforts to clarify the status of its personnel," spokesman Ari Gaitanis told AFP.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had been deliberately targeting foreign officials.

Security continues to be a major concern in Afghanistan. The last remaining contingent of Nato-led forces is due to leave by the end of the year, having handed over security to Afghan forces.

Washington is pushing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign an agreement which would allow some US troops to stay behind after this year's withdrawal.

The Taliban told the BBC's John Simpson earlier this week that it was now back in control of large areas of Afghanistan and was confident of returning to power after Western troops left.

Our correspondent says it is hard to believe the Taliban could make a comeback as things stand, but their takeover of Kabul in 1996 was unexpected, and they could be strengthened if a weak, corrupt president is elected in April.

Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar found dead in Delhi hotel

Sunanda Pushkar

New Delhi, January 17

Sunanda Pushkar, Union Minister Shashi Tharoor's wife, who was upset over an alleged extramarital affair between her husband and a Pakistani journalist, was found dead in a five-star hotel room on Friday.

Pushkar (52) was last seen at 3.30 pm at Hotel Leela Palace in Chanakyapuri. Police sources said she was found dead in her suite No. 345 around 8.30 pm.

Tharoor's personal secretary Abhinav Kumar told the media that the body was first spotted by the minister. Tharoor, who was away for the AICC session, returned around 8:30 pm and found the door of her room locked from inside. The door was later opened and her body was found on the bed, sources said.

Tharoor called up Kumar who informed the police which reached the hotel at 9.15 pm. "She was in her night clothes and had a blanket on her. There were no injury marks on the body," Kumar said. The hotel doctors were present in the room, he said. Kumar said there was no sign of foul play, but whether it was a natural death or not couldn't be said now. "We don't know the cause of death," he said.

Police sources said they suspected it to be a case of suicide. Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said inquest proceedings were on by the area sub-divisional magistrate. Any death within seven years of marriage is legally required to be investigated by the SDM.

The police questioned the hotel staff and checked the CCTV footage of the lobby of the third floor where Pushkar was staying. Police sources said Pushkar’s call detailwere also being checked. A team of forensic experts reached the hotel around 10:30 pm. The police also searched the suite thoroughly to see whether Pushkar had used any medicine. Kumar told mediapersons at the hotel that Tharoor and Pushkar were staying in the suite since Thursday as “some painting work” was on at their home.

The minister was away throughout the day in the AICC, he said. Kumar said Pushkar was unwell yesterday. Pushkar and Tharoor were at the centre of a controversy over the past two days when reports emerged that she was upset over reported text and tweets between her husband and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.

The couple reportedly fought over the alleged affair which came to light when Tharoor claimed his twitter handle was hacked. He made the declaration after purported controversial tweets were posted from his accounts and were believed to be addressed to the Pakistan-based journalist.

Pushkar had told some newspapers that she was considering divorce from Tharoor. Mehr denied Pushkar's allegations. Meanwhile, PM Manmohan Singh on Friday night spoke to Union Minister Shashi Tharoor and mourned his wife’s death.

Canada sheds nearly 46,000 jobs; unemployment rate rises

Above: 2013 ended with a thud for the Canadian economy, as nearly 46,000 jobs disappeared. The news comes as the Loonie sinks to its lowest level since 2009. 

OTTAWA – The Canadian economy lost a surprising 45,900 jobs in December to finish the weakest year of job growth since 2009, raising concerns about how the economy will fare into 2014.

The unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent for the final month of the year, compared with 6.9 per cent in November.

READ MORE: The Canadian jobs picture in one handy graphic

BMO Capital Markets chief economist Doug Porter said the dismal jobs data will add pressure to the loonie and stoke chatter about the possibility of a interest rate cut by the Bank of Canada.

The loonie fell half a cent to 91.65 cents US, its lowest level since mid-2009, following the jobs report Friday.

Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz has suggested that the central bank’s next policy move is just as likely to be a cut in interest rates as a hike.

READ MORE: 5 occupations in high demand amid Canada’s surprising job losses

However Porter suggested it will likely take more than one month of disappointing job growth to trigger a rate cut.

“We continue to believe the bank will need to see an extended period of economic underperformance and even lower inflation before they would even consider easing,” he said.

READ MORE: Sun seekers may face new surcharge as loonie declines

The December drop, the biggest since March 2013, was led by a decline in full-time jobs, which fell by roughly 60,000. That loss was offset in part by a gain of 14,200 part-time jobs.

Economists had expected the economy to add 14,600 jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.9 per cent, according to estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

The weaker than expected report in Canada came as the U.S. also released disappointing job growth numbers.

READ MORE: Skills shortage causing anxiety for Canadian businesses

The country’s biggest trading partner added just 74,000 jobs in December after averaging 214,000 in the previous four months. The U.S. Labor Department also said Friday that the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 per cent from seven per cent in November as many Americans stopped looking for jobs.

The December jobs report capped a week of generally soft Canadian economic data. Statistics Canada reported earlier this week that Canada’s trade deficit edged higher in November as imports inched up and exports stalled.

CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld noted the jobs numbers are volatile month to month, but said the December results were decidedly ugly.

“We are getting less surprised by surprises in this survey, which has had quite a lot of volatility in the past year or so, but obviously it is a disappointment in both Canada and the U.S.,” Shenfeld said.

However, Shenfeld noted that the fourth quarter started out with a fair bit of bit of momentum.

“Because we got off to a good start, the fourth quarter still looks reasonably healthy and so the issue really is: do we get a bounce back in January and February to help the first quarter numbers?”

For the month, Ontario and Alberta led the provinces lower with losses of 39,000 and 12,000 respectively. British Columbia added 13,000 jobs and Newfoundland and Labrador gained 1,900.

By industry, there were 19,000 fewer jobs in educational services, while the other services category, which includes personal care as well as civic and social organizations, lost 15,000. The agriculture sector lost 9,800 and natural resources lost 8,000.

Health care and social assistance was the only industry to see gains in December as the sector added 22,000 jobs.

Second suicide bomber kills 31 on bus in Russia in two days

Russian firefighters inspect the trolleybus destroyed in a bomb attack in Volgograd on December 30, 2013 

Moscow, December 30
At least 31 people were killed and 30 others injured today when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a packed trolleybus in Volgograd, raising new concerns about security at the Sochi Olympics a day after an attack on the southern city’s train station.
President Vladimir Putin, under pressure to show that Russia can assure the security of tens of thousands of guests when the Winter Games open on February 7, ordered stepped up security across the country.
The twin suicide attacks on Volgograd, which until this year had no record of recent unrest, have stunned Russia and troubled the authorities as people prepare for mass New Year celebrations. At least 17 people died in yesterday's attack blamed on a suspected female suicide bomber. The force of the blast destroyed the number 15A trolleybus, which was packed with early morning commuters and was turned into a tangle of wreckage with only its roof and front remaining.

Russian city of Volgograd, site of a deadly suicide bombing Sunday and blast on trolleybus Monday 

Health ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told Russian state television that 14 people were killed in the trolleybus bombing and 30 wounded. Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into a suspected act of terror as well as the illegal carrying of weapons, the Investigative Committee said.

"The explosives were detonated by a male suicide bomber, fragments of whose body have been found and taken for genetic analysis to establish his identity," said spokesman Vladimir Markin. He said some four kilograms of TNT equivalent had been used in the blast.

Female suicide bomber kills 16 at Russian railway station 

At least 16 people were killed and many others wounded Sunday by a suicide bomber at Volgograd railway station in Volgograd, Russia, on Dec. 29, 2013

A female suicide bomber blew herself up in the entrance hall of a Russian train station on Sunday in Volgograd on December 29, killing at least 16 persons in the second deadly attack within three days as the country prepares to host the Winter Olympics.

The bomber detonated her explosives in front of a metal detector just inside the main entrance of Volgograd station. Footage shown on TV showed a massive orange fireball filling the stately colonnaded hall and smoke billowing out through shattered windows.

“People were lying on the ground, screaming and calling for help,” a witness, Alexander Koblyakov, told Rossiya-24 TV. “I helped carry out a police officer whose head and face were covered in blood. He couldn’t speak.”

A spokesman for Russian investigators said at least 16 people were killed. The regional governor put the toll at 15. President Vladimir Putin ordered law enforcement agencies to take all necessary precautions to ensure security, his spokesman said.

A federal police spokesman said measures would be tightened at stations and airports, with more officers on duty and stricter security checks. But the attack, just over two months after a female suicide bomber killed six persons on a bus in the same city, raised questions about the effectiveness of security measures which the Kremlin routinely orders to be increased after bombings.

It could add to concerns about the government’s ability to safeguard the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The Games, which open in 40 days’ time, are a major prestige project for Putin, who wants to show how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Female suicide bombers - known as ‘black widows’ because some are the relatives of dead insurgents - have carried out several attacks claimed by Islamist militants.

Volgograd lies just above Russia’s restive North Caucasus region, a string of mostly Muslim provinces that includes Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars against separatists in the past two decades. The region is beset by near-daily violence. Interfax news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying the attacker may have come from Dagestan, the province adjacent to Chechnya that is now the centre of the insurgency. The October bus bomber was from the same region.

Volgograd is a city of around 1 million people, and a major transport hub in southern Russia, about 690 km northeast of Sochi, where the Olympics will open on February 7. Insurgent leader Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord, urged militants in a video posted online in July to use “maximum force” to prevent Putin staging the Olympics.

On Friday, a car bomb killed three people in Pyatigorsk, close to the North Caucasus and 270 km east of Sochi. “We can expect more such attacks,” said Alexei Filatov, deputy head of the veterans’ association of the elite Alfa anti-terrorism unit.

“The threat is greatest now because it is when terrorists can make the biggest impression,” he told Reuters. “The security measures were beefed up long ago around Sochi, so terrorists will strike instead in these nearby cities like Volgograd.”

Volgograd is one of the venues for the 2018 soccer World Cup, another high-profile sports event Putin has helped Russia win the right to stage, and which will bring thousands of foreign fans to cities around Russia. Sunday’s attack was the deadliest to strike Russia’s heartland since January 2011, when a male suicide bomber from the North Caucasus killed 37 persons in the arrival hall of a busy Moscow airport.

Threat looms over Winter Olympics
The fresh attack has heightened fears about security at the Winter Olympic Games, which opens on February 7, in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi. Putin has ordered stepping up of security across Russia and new measures to national anti-terror committee. Russia is preparing to impose a security cordon around Sochi from January 7.

Student from Punjab critical after attack in Melbourne

Melbourne, December 30 
A student from Punjab, Manrajwinder Singh (20), suffered serious injuries in a brutal attack by a group during a night out with two of his friends here yesterday.

The attackers, including a woman, assaulted Manrajwinder on a footpath at Birrarung Marr Park, near Central Melbourne.

The victim was taken to The Alfred hospital with life threatening injuries and later transferred to the intensive care unit.

CCTV footage released by the Victoria police showed the victim standing near a footpath with his friends when he was attacked.

Detective Senior Constable Adam Foley said one of the assailants kicked Manrajwinder in the jaw after a brief conversation and knocked him to the ground. The attackers then assaulted him with a stick.

Another victim, who also belongs to Punjab, suffered swelling and abrasions to the face and was treated by paramedics at the scene. The group robbed them of their mobile phones and wallets.

The third man, a 20-year-old from Noble Park, was not assaulted and managed to run away to seek help.

“This was an opportunistic crime… They saw two vulnerable victims minding their own business and targeted them,” said Foley.

Manrajwinder has been in Australia for the past one year studying bachelor of commerce at the University of Melbourne.

At the hospital, the victim’s brother, Yadwinder Singh, said: “I can’t see my brother in this condition. I just want these culprits to be punished… my brother should get justice.”

Detectives are investigating the case and the Victoria police are on a lookout for the assailants, including eight men perceived to be of African origin and a Caucasian woman.

The Indian consulate said they were in touch with the local authorities and the victim’s family in Punjab.

Robbed of mobile phones, wallets

* Manrajwinder Singh was with two friends when he was attacked by a group of eight men and a woman near a footpath in Melbourne.

* His friend also suffered injuries; the assailants robbed them of their mobile phones and wallets.

* Manrajwinder had arrived in Australia a year ago and was studying commerce in the University of Melbourne.