From Washington,this is VOA News.

The International Olympic Committee says it remains confident the upcoming Winter Games in Sochi,Russia will be “safe and secure” despite terrorist bombings in the city of Volgograd. More than 30 people have died there in the past two days.

As VOA's Michael Bowman reports, at least 14 people were killed on Monday when a bomb exploded on a trolley bus.

Monday, a suspected suicide attack demolished a crowded trolley bus in Volgograd, some 650 kilometers northeast of Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics in February. The attack came one day after a deadly suicide bombing at the city’s main railway station.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the bombings, but Islamist insurgents from the nearby North Caucasus region have carried out similar attacks on public transit targets in Russia in recent years.

President Putin has ordered Russia’s counterterrorism agency to step up security in Volgograd and elsewhere.

Michael Bowman VOA News Washington.

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Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say government troops have defeated armed attackers at three locations around the capital. Close to 40 gunmen were killed and several others were captured.

No civilians or security forces were reported killed in the attacks at the international airport, state television station and the main military base in Kinshasa..

Witnesses say the attacks were staged by youthful gunmen that claimed allegiance to an evangelical Christian prophet who's opposed to the rule of President Joseph Kabila.

A government spokesman says the attacks appeared to have no purpose except to disrupt this week's New Year's celebrations.

South Sudan's military says rebels are moving toward a flashpoint town, as hopes fade that a cease-fire deadline will be met.

An army spokesman said Monday that rebel troops are advancing on the Jonglei state capital of Bor.

A spokesman for the U.N. mission in South Sudan, Joe Contreras, told VOA that the United Nations is extremely concerned about reports of large numbers of armed youth advancing toward Bor.

"Armed youths of various ethnic backgrounds in Jonglei state have been at the center of much of the intercommunal fighting that has plagued that part of South Sudan since the country became independent two and-a-half years ago."

The tribal violence erupted earlier this month, when President Salva Kiir accused former vice president Riek Machar of attempting a coup. The United Nations says the fighting has left more than 1,000 people dead and tens of thousands of others have been displaced.

It appears that Tuesday's deadline to move most of Syria's chemical weapons out of the country will not be met.

A statement issued over the weekend from the United Nations and an international chemical weapons monitoring group cited delays due to unstable security, logistical problems and bad weather.

The statement said at this stage transportation of the most critical chemical material before December 31 is unlikely.

The Syrian government agreed to allow the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons access to its weapons arsenal for destruction at sea.

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