World Briefs

AFGHANISTAN-US The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan will face questions from a Senate committee about how many troops should stay in the still-volatile nation where the Taliban recently overran a northern city and a U.S. airstrike hit a medical clinic. Gen. John F. Campbell (pictured) also told a Senate committee that he thinks President Barack Obama should revise the current plan to reduce the U.S. force in Afghanistan at the end of 2016.

AFGHANISTAN Fighting erupts anew in the embattled northern city of Kunduz after the Taliban attacked a police headquarters overnight and officials warned that food and other emergency aid cannot get through to the city.

NEPAL The main group of protesters opposing the new constitution said its negotiations with the government failed to reach a resolution yesterday even as a punishing border blockade continued to squeeze the country. Laxman Lal Karna from the United Democratic Madhesi Front said talks with the government would resume today.

INDIA The chief cleric of Bangalore’s main mosque says he has advised the heads of hundreds of mosques in India’s technology hub to actively counter propaganda by extremist Islamic groups by reaching out to young people in colleges and on social media.

YEMEN Attacks targeting exiled Yemeni officials and Saudi-led troops fighting in the country’s civil war killed at least 15 people yesterday in the port city of Aden, authorities said. A new Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the assault, which officials previously blamed on Yemen’s Shiite rebels.

INTERNET Twitter launched a new feature called “Moments” that helps highlight the top stories being tweeted. The feature will showcase top stories being discussed, even if you don’t follow the tweeters. It can be found by tapping a lightning bolt icon tab on the site or app. It will update the “Moments” throughout the day. The “Moments” are a mix of news and fluffy trending topics.

SWEDEN Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada win the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering the “chameleon-like” nature of neutrinos, work that yielded the crucial insight that the tiny particles have mass.