Need to know: The United Nations said Thursday that it would evacuate about 600 of its roughly 1,100 international staff from Afghanistan for several weeks due to deteriorating security, a sharp blow for Western efforts to stabilize the country. Some would be moved to safer sites within Afghanistan and the rest withdrawn from the country temporarily, a spokesman said.

Want to know: The Iraqi Oil Ministry said Thursday that it had awarded a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC the right to develop the West Qurna-1 field in southern Iraq, representing the first U.S.-led team to gain access to Iraq's oil patch.

Dull but important:  The U.N. is expected to endorse a report that found evidence that Israel and Palestinian militants had each committed war crimes during last winter’s Gaza conflict.

Just because: “Karzai is corrupt, O.K.” said the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, but “he is our guy.” Kouchner's extraordinary comments were made to a small gathering of reporters in Paris late Wednesday. Kouchner went on to say that despite Karzai's well-documented problems with corruption and questionable political allies, “we have to legitimize him” if NATO has any chance to consolidate Afghanistan and then leave it.

Wacky: The technology firm NEC has developed spectacles that can provide subtitles and says it is planning a version that could translate a conversation between two people speaking different languages.

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