Globe Trot: U.S. taxpayer money could be headed for Ukraine

UKRAINE: President Viktor Yanukovych is back at work today amid intensified calls from demonstrators that he resign and call early elections. European and U.S. officials are working to put together an aid package for Ukraine that could, in effect, supersede Moscow’s aid package and quell growing frustration with Russian influence in the country.

You’ll see more reports from Ukraine using Kyiv instead of Kiev, and here’s why.

OLYMPICS: The Winter Games set to open in Sochi, Russia, on Friday will be the most expensive in Olympic history—surpassing the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and quadruple Russian President Vladimir Putin’s original estimate.

AFGHANISTAN: Campaigning for April 5 presidential elections officially began on Sunday. Eleven candidates are vying to succeed President Hamid Karzai in what, if successful, will be the first democratic transition of power in Afghan history. Among the warlords and Islamists running for top office, Abdullah Abdullah is the only candidate who has announced support for continuing a U.S.-Afghan security agreement.

BURMA/MYANMAR: The Burmese Army attacked mostly Christian Kachin villages on Jan. 30, capturing 18 villagers. (warning: graphic images)

NIGERIA: It took the United States four years to designate Boko Haram a terrorist group. But it took the group’s militants only four hours to attack churches and other Christian sites in northern Nigeria a week ago in a deadly month that saw more than 200 killed in terrorism-related violence there.

ITALY: A landslide sent giant boulders careening into a barn, one coming to rest just beside a 300-year-old farmhouse in the middle of a vineyard in northern Italy. Footage here.