KABUL  – Afghanistan hit back at Western criticism of official corruption on Sunday, saying some 80 percent of international aid was outside government control so donors should be held to account. As U.S. President Barack Obama makes Afghanistan his foreign policy priority, President Hamid Karzai’s government has come under increased …

MOSCOW  – Patriarch Kirill, enthroned on Sunday as the new leader of around 160 million Russian Orthodox believers, is seen as an outspoken modernizer who may thaw icy ties with the Catholic Church. The first patriarch elected since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kirill, 62, replaces Alexiy …

KABUL  – Drug cultivation is expected to fall slightly in Afghanistan this year as lower opium prices and higher wheat prices encourage some farmers to switch crops, the United Nations said on Sunday. Afghanistan is locked in a vicious circle where drug production helps fund Taliban militants and increases official …