The Russian city Volgograd, once known as Stalingrad, is marking the end of one of modern warfare’s bloodiest battles with a military parade, a concert and a visit from President Vladimir Putin.

The city, 560 miles south of Moscow, suffered six months of intensive fighting, beginning with massive air strikes, as Nazi forces tried to push deep into the Soviet Union and reach its Caucasus oil fields.

At least 1.2 million people are estimated to have died before the fighting ended on February 2, 1943. The Red Army’s defeat of the Nazis after house-to-house fighting was a decisive turn in World War II.

A solemn military parade was held in the city yesterday morning.

50 killed in road accidents

Almost 50 people have been killed on China’s roads in four major crashes, as hundreds of millions of people travel home for the Lunar New Year that falls on February 10 this year.

In the southwestern province of Sichuan, a bus overturned on Friday, killing 11, according to the Gulin county government.

In the neighbouring province of Guizhou, 13 people died after an overloaded bus tumbled down a 330 foot slope, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. It said the fatal crash in Congjiang county left another 21 people injured, including 11 in serious condition.

The 34 people were crammed into a bus meant to carry no more than 19, Xinhua said. On Friday night in the northwestern province of Gansu, a coach went off the road at a curve, rolled down a slope and caught fire, killing 14 and injuring 32 others, according to the provincial government and Xinhua.

Army camp attacked

A Taliban attack on an army post in northwest Pakistan has left 23 dead, officials in the country said.

Two security officials said yesterday that nine soldiers and four members of the Frontier Constabulary that polices tribal areas died during the raid on the post in Serai Naurang town, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

They said militants also killed 10 civilians in a nearby house, including three women and three children. Twelve attackers were also killed.

The assault followed a suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque elsewhere in the northwest on Friday that killed 24 people. It was the latest in a rising number of sectarian attacks in the country.

‘Serial killer’ captured

A man said to have killed seven women in as many months has been captured in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo.

State public safety secretary Damian Canales said taxi driver Omar Nieves, 33, admitted raping and strangled his first victim in June. He said Nieves then killed three more women, including an ex-girlfriend, by strangling or smothering them.

Mr Canales said he killed an additional three women in December with the help of a friend, Constantino Dominguez, who has also been detained.

UN Haiti head appointed

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a seasoned humanitarian worker to serve as acting special representative for Haiti to oversee the world body’s peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean.

Nigel Fisher will replace outgoing UN envoy Mariano Fernandez, who says he may consider a foray into politics in his native Chile.

Canadian Mr Fisher has been Mr Ban’s deputy special representative since 2010. He will be in charge of providing security as Haiti is expected to hold legislative and local elections this year.