The Soviet Union's objectives are reduced to maintaining the authority of a friendly government in KabulTo pacify Afghanistan and wipe out the guerrillas in the mountains, the Soviet Union would need an estimated force of 250,000 to 400,000 combat troops, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Even this, its annual Strategic Survey, published yesterday, concludes, "would not be enough to ensure success."The Soviet Union's "swift and effective entry into Afghanistan last December must have been planned at least four months in advance," the survey says. But even this has read more

Two months since Serbia and Kosovo agreed to normalise relations, implementation of the accord has barely started just days before European leaders are due to decide whether they merit closer EU ties. read more

The US currency rose as the Fed embarked on a meeting to discuss monetary policy, with traders anticipating some signal on how long the central bank would continue buying $85bn of bonds each month read more

• Technical challenge delays hearing of central charges• Benzema lawyer says wait will be 'painful' for his clientThe trial of the French footballers Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema over claims they paid for sex with an underage call girl has been adjourned for procedural reasons until 2014.Benzema, a Real Madrid striker, and Ribéry, a Bayern Munich winger, are to be tried on charges of paying Zahia Dehar, a prostitute, for sex in 2008 and 2009, when she was only 16 and then 17 years old – below the legal age of 18 for a prostitute in France. Neither footballer showed up in court on T read more

Author(s): Andy Carling obama_merkel.jpg After the G8 Summit is concluded, President Obama leaves Northern Ireland for the heart of the European Union. Berlin. This will be the second visit in five years for the US leader who has never visited Brussels, unlike his predecessor, George W Bush. Obama will be giving a major speech at the Brandenberg Gate, where President Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" in 1987 and President Clinton declared "Berlin is free" in 1994. Almost exactly 50 years ago, President Kennedy made read more