The United Nations says Colombia has seen a strong reduction in coca plants. The UN office on drugs said the land planted with coca bushes had dropped by a quarter between 2011 and 2012 and was now at its lowest in a decade. Analysts say the fall in coca production suggests illegal groups, which often financed themselves through drug trafficking, may be increasing moving into illegal gold and emerald mining.
A suicide bomb attack, at a funeral of a policeman in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, has killed at least 29 people and wounded more than 50 others. Charles Haviland reports from Islamabad. “Heavy security in Quetta believed to be the dwelling place of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar was not enough to prevent the suicide bomber striking at a policeman's funeral. The provincial police chief for Balochistan told journalists that most of those who died were police officers, 21 of them have been identified, they included his colleague, the head of the police operations for the city of Quetta. The blast was captured live on television cameras as the event was being broadcast. An officer said police spotted the suicide bomber and began searching him while upon he blew himself up.”
World News from the BBC
The US State Department has announced that the direct peace talks between Israel and Palestinians will take place in Jerusalem next Wednesday to be followed by a meeting in the West Bank town of Jericho. The negotiations, the first between the two sides for nearly three years were launched with great fanfare by the US Secretary of State John Kerry at a dinner in Washington ten days ago.