UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) -- The United States is withholding $255 million in aid from Pakistan because of its alleged failure to cooperate fully in America's fight against terrorism, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said.
"The administration is withholding $255 million in assistance to Pakistan. There are clear reasons for this. Pakistan has played a double game for years," she told reporters at the United Nations. "They work with us at times, and they also harbor the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan.
"That game is not acceptable to this administration. We expect far more cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against terrorism."

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LONDON (Dispatches) -- A former MI5 officer has claimed women do not "feel safe” on the streets of Germany as she blasted the introduction of "respect wristbands” and "safe zones”.
Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, has criticized German authorities for not doing enough on stopping sexual assaults taking place.
In the lead up to New Year’s Eve Cologne Mayor, Henriette Reker, launched a wristband campaign aimed at stopping sexual assault.
Hundreds of wristbands with the word "respect” written on them were handed out across the city to members of the public.
Slamming Angela Merkel’s Germany for failing to do enough to tackle sexual assault Machon said: "Germany is one of the leading western liberal democracies in the world. Yet women cannot feel safe to go out in the streets to celebrate a public holiday.”
 
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LONDON (Reuters) -- Britain is interested in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc after it leaves the European Union, the Financial Times newspaper said.
The FT said that Britain had started informal talks about joining the bloc in a bid to boost post-Brexit exports. Although the United States pulled out of the talks to form the bloc nearly a year ago, other TPP countries have pledged to move forward with plans for a trade group.
The TPP has so far involved only countries around the Pacific Rim such as Japan, Canada and Mexico. However, Junior Trade Minister Greg Hands said there was no geographical restriction that would prevent Britain's participation.
EU rules state that Britain cannot agree new trade deals before it leaves the bloc in March 2019. The newspaper quoted an official from a TPP country as saying it was "way too soon" to discuss UK accession before a Brexit deal.

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LIMA (AFP) -- A bus plunged over a seaside cliff in Peru, killing at least 48 people after a collision with a truck on a precarious stretch known as the "devil's curve," officials said.
The bus was travelling from Huacho, 130 kilometers (81 miles) north of the capital, to Lima with 55 passengers and two crew on board when it went off the road about midday.
It plunged 100 meters (330 feet) and landed upside down on rocks at the edge of the sea.
The incident "left at least 48 victims" dead, the statement posted on the Interior Ministry's website said.
Efforts to recover bodies from the overturned vehicle were suspended at nightfall because the tide had risen and reached the bus, the police said.
There were several survivors, although most on board the bus perished.

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MANILA (Reuters) -- The Philippines has barred a branch of an American call center firm from expanding in the country following a pre-Christmas fire that killed dozens of its employees, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
Charito Plaza, director-general of the government's Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), said the agency had suspended the operations of American firm Research Now SSI, as well as the shopping mall hosting it, for failing to meet certain safety requirements since 2013.
"They can operate again once they get a clearance from the Bureau of Fire and the local government," Plaza told Reuters in a text message.
The authority's suspension took effect on Dec. 29, but it only covers SSI's branch in the southern city of Davao where the Dec. 23 blaze broke out at a furniture and fabric store on a lower floor of the New City Commercial Center (NCCC) mall before engulfing the call center's offices. Thirty-eight people were killed.

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ANKARA (AFP) -- The foreign ministers of Germany and Turkey will meet this weekend as Ankara seeks to douse tensions with the EU that blighted 2017, Turkish officials said Wednesday.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel will host Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in his home town of Goslar in Lower Saxony on Saturday, the officials said.
The visit will represent the German leg of talks between the two men who met in November in Cavusoglu's home region of Antalya in southern Turkey.
Cavusoglu said he would meet Gabriel on Jan. 6 at a briefing with Turkish reporters in Ankara quoted by state media.
 Relations between Turkey and Germany hit a nadir last year as Berlin strongly criticized the crackdown after the failed coup that left over 55,000 arrested and Ankara accused Berlin of meddling.