Tag: InternationalNews

{{Pro-Russian rebels shot down two Ukrainian helicopters on Friday, killing two crew, as troops tightened their siege of separatist-held Slaviansk in what Moscow called a “criminal” assault by Kiev that wrecked hopes of peace.}}

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the Kremlin was “extremely worried” that it had not heard from an envoy Putin had sent to the eastern city to help free foreign hostages.

He said the “punitive operation” mounted by Ukrainian forces had destroyed a peace plan agreed with Western powers two weeks ago.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said in a statement that two Mi-24 helicopter gunships were shot down by shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles while on patrol overnight around Slaviansk, a city that rebels have turned into a heavily-fortified stronghold.

Two airmen were killed and others wounded. The attack helicopter normally has two crew but can carry more.

Other Ukrainian officials and the separatist leader in Slaviansk had said earlier that one airman was taken prisoner.

A third helicopter, an Mi-8 transport aircraft, was also hit and a serviceman wounded, the Defence Ministry said. The SBU security service said this helicopter was carrying medics.

{{One woman has been killed and nine others injured in a bomb attack aboard a train at a station in the southern Indian city of Chennai, officials say.

Explosions were reported in two carriages of the train, which was travelling from Bangalore in the south to Guwahati in the north-east.

The incident happened minutes after the express train arrived at the station.}}

Officials told media that the explosions were “low intensity” and took place under passenger seats.

The blasts come in the middle of India’s staggered general election, but officials say they cannot confirm if the two events are linked.

Some Indian television channels are speculating about who may have been behind the attack, but the authorities say they are keeping an open mind.

{{The United States said on Wednesday that while al Qaeda’s Pakistan-based “core organization” had been severely degraded, affiliates of the militant group in Africa and the Middle East were becoming more “operationally autonomous” and aggressive.}}

The State Department said in its annual global report on terrorism that the central organization of al Qaeda, under the leadership of Ayman al Zawahiri, had been “much diminished” by international efforts and had lost many of its senior leaders.

But the report said instability and weak governments in the Middle East and North Africa had enabled al Qaeda affiliates and like-minded groups to “broaden and deepen their operations” in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, North Africa and Somalia.

Groups such as the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network continue to attack American and local targets on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistani border, and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba believe U.S. interests are “legitimate targets for attacks,” the report said.

Thousands of militants, some of them English-speaking, have traveled to Syria to train and fight with groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, according to the report.

Some have joined “violent extremist groups,” and U.S. and other Western countries fear they may plot attacks when they return home, it said.

The report said various national authorities had estimated that in 2013, 90 militants went to Syria from Denmark, 184 from France, 240 from Germany, 30-40 from Norway, 100-200 from Belgium, and 75 from Sweden.

British government sources have estimated that at least 400 Britons have cycled in and out of the conflict, with up to 250 participating at any one time.

agencies

{{Ukraine detained Russia’s military attaché to Kiev on suspicion of spying and ordered the diplomat to leave the country, reports said on Thursday, as the former Soviet republic wrestles with a pro-Russian armed uprising in the east}}.

Interfax-Ukraine, citing the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said the unnamed diplomat was detained on Wednesday while undertaking “intelligence activities”.

The ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ukraine accuses Russia of orchestrating the fall of towns and cities across its industrial east to pro-Russian separatists over the past month, spearheaded by well-organized gunmen in masks and military fatigues.

Russia denies having any part in the rebellion, but has warned it reserves the right to intervene to protect ethnic Russians and has massed tens of thousands of troops on its western frontier with Ukraine.

Interfax said the diplomat had been ordered to leave the country.

“The military-naval attaché of the embassy of the Russian Federation in Ukraine is declared persona non grata in connection with his actions, which are not in accordance with his diplomatic status,” the agency quoted the ministry as saying.

Ukraine’s pro-Western leaders conceded on Wednesday they were “helpless” to counter the fall of government buildings and police stations to the separatists in the Donbass coal and steel belt of eastern Ukraine, source of around a third of the country’s industrial output.

Having seized key buildings in the capital of the easternmost province, Luhansk, on Tuesday, gunmen took control at dawn on Wednesday in the nearby towns of Horlivka and Alchevsk.

In Donetsk, the biggest city to fall, mainly Russian-speaking separatists have declared a “People’s Republic of Donetsk” and called a referendum on secession for May 11, threatening to undercut a planned presidential election in Ukraine two weeks later.

Ukraine hopes the presidential poll will help restore order after five months of the worst civil turmoil in the country since independence in 1991, which have seen Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich toppled by street protests, gunbattles in central Kiev and Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

reuters

North Korea says it’s ready for a ‘full scale nuclear war’ and called South Korea’s president a ‘crafty prostitute’ with president Obama as her ‘powerful pimp.’

The North Korean insults come after President Obama visited South Korea and its president Park Geun-hye for two days in which both leaders asked that North Korea not proceed with its nuclear program.

The Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea CPRK) said, ‘Park Geun-hye’s recent behavior with Obama was like a mean immature girl begging gangsters to beat up someone she does not like. Or a crafty prostitute eagerly trying to frame someone by giving her body to a powerful pimp.’

The Korean Newws Agency (KCNA) said the official English translation of North Korea’s description of Park was as a ‘capricious whore.’

North Korea called Obama ‘master’ and Park Guen-hye his ‘puppet’ and said that Park would pay a ‘dear price,’ reports The Guardian.

Satellite imagery has shown an increase in activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site and Park warned that Pyongang was ready to execute another atomic test.

Both Obama and Park threatened North Korea with harsher rules and economic sanctions on the already poor country.

They encouraged China to speak against it’s ally’s nuclear threats.

The CPRK called the both Park and Obama’s statements ‘intolerable insults’ against their leadership.

US President Barack Obama (L) and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye (R) attend a joint press conference at the presidential Bule House oin which they discussed North Korea’s nuclear threats

‘In particular, Park Geun-Hye continued to viciously take issue with our dignity, system and nuclear programmes,’ it said.

They said her remarks were as though she were ‘froth(ing) at the mouth.’

‘She thus laid bare her despicable true colours as a wicked sycophant and traitor, a dirty comfort woman for the US and despicable prostitute selling off the nation,’ said the KCNA translation.

The CPRK claimed that Obama should have ‘postponed or shelved his trip’ following the ferry full of schoolchildren that sank in South Korea.

The CPRK said that Obama was ‘utterly indifferent to the sorrow’ felt by South Korea after the ferry incident.

‘The latest visit by Obama only reaffirmed our long-held belief that might, not words, are the only option to deal with the old enemy US and strengthened our resolve and determination to stick with our policy to fight a full-scale nuclear war,’ they said.

‘Park Geun-hye will pay a dear price for abandoning the opportunity we earlier gave and choosing a path of anti-unification and anti-peace and a path to confrontation and war,’ they continued.

They also likened Park to a ‘comfort woman,’ a term used to describe women who were sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The comments will be a controversial topic in South Korea as it’s still a touchy subject regarding their relationship with Tokyo.

North Korea has been known to criticize South Korean leaders including Park’s predecessor Lee Myung-Bak.

The attacks on Park have been even more offensive and sexual in nature since she is the first female president in Seoul.

Park has expressed her wish to build a trusting relationship with Pyongang but she says she will also remain strong if she faces provocation.

Pyongang rejected her proposal to prepare for unification and to attempt to absorb North Korea into South Korea.

‘She thus laid bare her despicable true colours as a wicked sycophant and traitor, a dirty comfort woman for the US and despicable prostitute selling off the nation,’ the KCNA translation said of Parks allied relations with the United States.

{KCNA}