Artillery fire pounded Juba's government district Saturday even as warring factions met for the first time on the eve of direct talks in Ethiopia to pull South Sudan back from the brink of all-out civil war.
Full face-to-face peace talks were to begin in earnest on Sunday in the Ethiopian capital in a bid to end three weeks of fighting that are feared to have killed thousands in the world's newest nation.
Ex-finance minister wins disputed Madagascar election →
Cambodian forces open fire as factory strikes turn violent →
Cambodian military police opened fire with assault rifles on Friday to quell a protest by stone-throwing garment factory workers demanding higher pay in a crackdown a human rights group said killed four people.
Chaos during nationwide strikes erupted for a second day as security forces were deployed to halt a demonstration by thousands of workers, who refused to move and threw bottles, stones and petrol bombs at an industrial zone in Phnom Penh.
Bangladesh election marred by opposition boycott, violence →
Bangladesh holds a parliamentary election on Sunday, a contest boycotted by the main opposition, marred by violence that has killed more than 100 people and shunned by international observers.
...Either Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina or BNP chief Begum Khaleda Zia has been prime minister for all but two of the past 22 years and the two are bitter rivals.
Iraqi army shells Falluja to try to dislodge Qaeda, tribes →
Falluja has been held since Monday by Sunni Muslim militants linked to al Qaeda and tribal fighters united in their opposition to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a serious challenge to the authority of his Shi'ite-led government in Anbar province.
2013: A democratic setback in Guatemala →
How much value does the financial industry create? →
Everyone knows that the finance industry has grown in America. In 1980, finance took home about five percent of all the income in America; in 2007, about eight percent. This has led many people to question whether all this activity is worth what we pay for it; in other words, how much of the increase in finance-industry GDP is actually value added, and how much is "rent" extracted from the rest of the economy?