ATHENS, Greece - Greece's deep, six-year recession is likely to end in 2014, but growth will be weak and unemployment will remain above 20 per cent for another three years, the country's international debt inspectors said. The European Commission issued the gloomy predictions Friday in a 237-page assessment of Greece's bailout agreement, as the country formally received its latest emergency loan payout, worth 4.2 billion euros ($5.4 billion).

North Korea has continued to dodge sanctions put in place over its past missile launches and underground nuclear tests, a diplomat said after a closed-door meeting on the implementation of the sanctions held Thursday at the U.N. Security Council. "There are some loopholes in the implementation of the sanctions regime that are being exploited by the DPRK," British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said, citing a report by the Panel of Experts, tasked with helping a Security Council committee monitor the implementation and violations of the sanctions.

A suicide car bomb attack in Kabul on Thursday killed two NATO soldiers and four NATO contractors travelling in a convoy, officials said, as well as eight Afghan bystanders who were earlier confirmed dead. "Two International Security Assistance Force service members and four ISAF contracted civilians died," the NATO-led ISAF mission said in a statement, declining to identify nationalities in line with coalition policy. bgs/pdw/ami

Nuclear talks between Iran and the UN atomic agency failed yet again Wednesday, as the top US diplomat in separate six-party negotiations warned Washington's patience was wearing thin. As the EU's foreign policy chief prepared to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator in Istanbul for the first time since a fruitless effort in early April, the UN body's chief inspector admitted parallel Vienna talks had ended without a deal.