What is clear is that, despite years of Western involvement and billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, children’s health is not only still a problem, but also worsening, and the doctors bearing the brunt of the crisis are worried.

Nearly every potential lifeline is strained or broken here. Efforts to educate people about nutrition and health care are often stymied by conservative traditions that cloister women away from anyone outside the family. Agriculture and traditional local sources of social support have been disrupted by war and the widespread flight of refugees to the cities. And therapeutic feeding programs, complex operations even in countries with strong health care systems, have been compromised as the flow of aid and transportation have been derailed by political tensions or violence.

Perhaps nowhere is the situation so obviously serious as in the malnutrition ward at Bost Hospital, which is admitting 200 children a month for severe, acute malnutrition — four times more than it did in January 2012, according to officials with Doctors Without Borders, known in French as Médecins Sans Frontières, which supports the Afghan-run hospital with financing and supplementary staff.

One patient, a 2-year-old named Ahmed Wali, is suffering from the protein deficiency condition kwashiorkor, with orange hair, a distended belly and swollen feet. An 8-month-old boy named Samiullah is suffering from marasmus, another form of advanced malnutrition in which the child’s face looks like that of a wrinkled old man because the skin hangs so loosely.

Médecins Sans Frontières helped Bost Hospital nearly double the number of beds in the pediatric wing at the end of last year, and there are still not enough — 40 to 50 children are usually being treated each day, mostly two to a bed because they are so small. Nearly 300 other children, less severely malnourished, are in an outpatient therapeutic feeding program.

“It’s quite an unusual situation, and it’s difficult to understand what’s going on,” said Wiet Vandormael, an M.S.F. official who has helped coordinate with Bost Hospital.

Unlike malnutrition crises elsewhere in the world, this one has not been connected to specific food shortages or crop failures. In addition, parents are not showing up malnourished, even when their children are.

His colleague Dr. Khan blamed another problem. “The main cause of malnutrition in Afghanistan is lack of breast feeding,” he said. “They see beautiful pictures of milk cartons, and they think it’s better.”

In addition, where women commonly have many children, often with less than a year between them, it is difficult for mothers to provide enough nourishment, by breast or bottle. Ahmed Wali, the 2-year-old Bost Hospital patient with kwashiorkor, is the ninth of 10 children of his mother, Baka Bebi, who is in her mid-30s. She weaned him onto powdered milk mixed with stream water as soon as she could.

Poverty is another factor. In Afghanistan, the poverty line is defined as a total income sufficient to provide 2,100 calories a day to each family member. Some 36 percent of Afghans are below that threshold, according to the Health Ministry.

In 2013, Unicef raised its target for providing therapeutic foods to severe acutely malnourished Afghan children, to 52,144 from 35,181. Therapeutic foods are specially made for the severely malnourished, who have difficulty digesting normal food.

“Managing a feeding system is difficult; there is a long way for Afghanistan to go,” he added. “But even countries like Sri Lanka, with an outstanding health system, are still struggling to manage therapeutic feeding supplies.”

Cases of acute severe malnutrition are running at more than 100 a month, including five to 10 deaths, at Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul, and such cases have doubled since 2012, said Dr. Aqa Mohammad Shirzad, who is in charge of pediatric malnutrition programs there.

Each of the hospital’s 17 beds for severely malnourished patients has at least two patients, and some have three. The malnutrition intensive care ward there has an incubator that does not work, one suction pump and oxygen bottles, for respiratory masks, propped up without stands or proper connection

A 5-year-old boy who weighs less than 20 pounds was being treated recently on a bench because the infusion line would not stretch to a bed. Two window panes nearby were missing glass.

The tension could rise to a new level on Sunday, when the country will go to the polls in a vote that is strikingly noncompetitive by Bangladeshi standards. The opposition has refused to participate, leaving more than half of the seats in Parliament uncontested.

The country’s main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party, called the boycott after the government refused to put in place an impartial caretaker government ahead of the elections, which has been customary in Bangladesh since 1996 and is seen as a guard against government manipulation. Protesters have set fire to vehicles and hurled bricks and homemade explosives, demanding that the government hold new elections on terms the opposition accepts.

Street protests often accompany elections in Bangladesh, but political violence intensified in 2013, resulting in around 150 deaths, according to Human Rights Watch.

The violence increased in part when the government began prosecuting figures from Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence for war crimes, handing down death sentences to several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamic political party. The Awami League has also hardened its view of Begum Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh National Party’s leader and a two-time prime minister, accusing her of links to Islamist militants.

“We are just protecting her safety. In her house, she is very safe.” Asked what threat Mrs. Zia faced, he said: “Nobody knows. Some miscreants can just shoot at her.”

A low turnout could pressure the government to begin preparing for fresh elections, something that happened after a similar opposition boycott in 1996. Gowher Rizvi, an adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said it was “almost without doubt” that Mrs. Hasina would call new elections ahead of schedule, noting that an election “loses its luster” when a major party does not take part.

“Is it one year? Is it nine months? Is it 15 months? I can’t tell you,” he said.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, cites independent research that, it claims, found Facebook reviews the contents of its users' private messages "for purposes unrelated to the facilitation of message transmission".

"Representing to users that the content of Facebook messages is "private" creates an especially profitable opportunity for Facebook," it says.

"because users who believe they are communicating on a service free from surveillance are likely to reveal facts about themselves that they would not reveal had they known the content was being monitored.

Writing on his blog, security expert Graham Cluley said that if the site was not examining links shared privately, Facebook would be failing a "duty of care" to its users.

Facebook has come under attack over its privacy policies in the past.

In September last year, it faced criticism over a proposed change to its privacy policy which would have allowed ads to be created using the names and profile pictures of Facebook users.

Facebook undertook to change the wording in the wake of a legal action launched in 2011 which saw it pay $20m to compensate users who claimed it had used their data without explicit permission.

UN estimates almost 2.3 million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries since March 2011.

In September, Sweden became the first EU member state to offer Syrian refugees permanent residence. More than 14,000 Syrians have sought asylum there in the past two years.

ermany has resettled 1,000 refugees and plans to admit another 9,000.

the EU put forward plans to do more to stop migrants dying in the Mediterranean, after more than 350 people, many of them from Syria, lost their lives in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa in October.

The UN has urged Western countries to take in up to 30,000 Syrians by the end of 2014.

EU leaders will consider the package on 19 December.

Ten countries have promised to allow in 12,000 people, it says, with 80% of the total pledges from Germany. France has offered 500 places and Spain 30, it says.

The harsh conditions faced by Syrian refugees have been highlighted this week with the first winter snowfalls in the Bekaa valley of northern Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Syrians are sheltering in tents.

A total of 838,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon, living either in tented camps, unused buildings or with friends and family.

In his tweets, Mr Joseph gave a lacerating commentary on anything from policy to personal appearance.

, Mr Joseph joined Republican attacks on Mrs Clinton for perceived failings of her handling of last year's attack on the US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

The Daily Beast website broke the news of his sacking, describing it as a shock and saying Mr Joseph was "well known among policy wonks".

But it said that "inside the administration, there was little sympathy for the man who they feel had betrayed their confidence while taunting them all the while".

In an apology emailed to Politico, Mr Joseph said: "It has been a privilege to serve in this administration and I deeply regret violating the trust and confidence placed in me.

"What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologise to everyone I insulted."

After seizing power, Mr Rajoelina announced that there would be a new constitution and elections within 24 months.

The first round of this election was set to take place in July 2013 but was pushed back to August because Mr Ravalomanana's wife and former first lady, Lalao - and then Mr Rajoelina himself - decided to run, prompting donors to suspend financing for the poll.

Mr Robinson says that his electoral programme will draw heavily on a new version of Mr Ravalomanana's Madagascar Action Plan (MAP) to help rebuild society and also rejuvenate the ailing tourism industry.

The polls will be run by the Independent National Electoral Commission of the Transition (Cenit) - an independent electoral body funded by the United Nations.

Cenit says there are 7,697,382 registered voters and 20,115 polling stations in Madagascar, a country the size of France with a scattered population.

The Greenland government hopes the mine will boost the economy, which is largely dependent on fishing and subsidies from Denmark.

"This is indeed a historic moment for Greenland," said Industry and Minerals Minister Jens-Erik Kirkegaard.

"the largest commercial project to date in Greenland" would boost employment and state revenues - in line with a pledge made by the governing Social Democrats to draw foreign companies to help tap Greenland's resources.

Environmentalists say they want reassurances that the exploitation of the deposits will not come at the cost of extensive environmental damage.

She said the Greenland government should insist that the mine be powered by hydroelectric power rather than diesel, and that there should be safeguards to deal with problems such as the dramatic increase in traffic.

Other countries would be "free to join this initiative," he said.

Mr Rompuy said intelligence gathering was a vital weapon against terrorism but it would be prejudiced by "a lack of trust".

The revelations were sourced to US whistleblower Edward Snowden. It is alleged that the NSA and UK spy centre GCHQ eavesdropped on three undersea cables with terminals in Italy.

Calls were made for the bishop to resign after he was accused of lying under oath about his spending.

He was criticised for a first-class flight to India to visit the poor.

It was in Germany that Martin Luther launched the Reformation five centuries ago in response to what he said were excesses and abuses within the Church.

Pope Francis has also signalled his intention to clean up the Vatican's finances, appointing a commission to advise him on reforms.

“In a period where the whole Middle East is moving in the direction of chaos, having one area where the parties are trying to further stabilize their relationship is a positive development,” said Dore Gold, a longtime Israeli diplomat and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “The fact that they continue to talk means these are serious discussions. Where this goes, what’s the likely outcome, I think it’s really way too early to predict.”

In contrast to previous rounds of Israeli-Palestinian talks, little has leaked from the negotiating room.

Palestinians are split, with 47 percent supporting the resumption of negotiations and 49 percent opposed, according to a September survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research; 70 percent think they will not lead to an agreement. Sixty-one percent of Israeli Jews back the talks, according to the Israel Democracy Institute’s Peace Index published this month, but 81 percent see no real chance of a deal.

“For both sides the current situation is very, very comfortable,” Mr. Beilin said. “All of us are playing the game. Many meetings, very serious, good relationship, all issues are on the agenda, fighting the lunatics on both sides, and it’s beautiful. The only problem is that there will be an end to it in the coming months, and the admission of failure might be devastating.”

During the call, according to German officials, Ms. Rice insisted that Mr. Obama did not know about the monitoring of Ms. Merkel’s phone, and said it was not currently happening, and would not in the future. But according to American officials familiar with the call, Ms. Rice would not acknowledge that the monitoring took place, even though she did not dispute the evidence the Germans had provided to her, which stretched back into the administration of President George W. Bush.

In the past, Germany has pushed for an agreement similar to the understanding that the United States has with Britain and three other English-speaking allies that prohibits spying on one another.

Administration officials say the National Security Agency, in its push to build a global data-gathering network that can reach into any country, has rarely weighed the long-term political costs of some of its operations. Whether to make those kinds of reciprocal agreements with allies is among the questions two different administration reviews of N.S.A. spying practices hope to address.

The advisers are looking at a range of issues, from the collection of “metadata” about the calls and Web searches conducted by Americans to the surveillance of allies and their leaders.

Malala's courage has awoken Pakistan's silent majority who are no longer prepared to tolerate the threats and intimidations of the Pakistan Taliban,"

"We are going to educate 40 girls, and I invite all of you to support the Malala Fund," Malala said in a video that was played at the Women in the World summit in New York. "Let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls."

"She is the daughter of the whole world," her father told CNN. "The world owns her."