Tag: InternationalNews

{{Ukraine’s interior minister has accused Russian forces of occupying Sevastopol airport in the autonomous region of Crimea.}}

Arsen Avakov called their presence an “armed invasion”.

But Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has denied that Russian servicemen are taking part.

The other main Crimean airport, Simferopol, was also occupied by armed men on Friday. The men are thought to be pro-Russia militia.

The Ukrainian parliament has called on the United Nations Security Council to discuss the situation in Crimea.

{{Tensions rise}}

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been strained since Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted earlier this month.

These tensions have been particularly evident in Crimea, Ukraine’s only Russian-majority region.

The BBC’s Bridget Kendall in Moscow says the Crimea is becoming the lynchpin of a struggle between Ukraine’s new leaders and those loyal to Russia.

Mr Yanukovych is now in Russia and is preparing to hold a news conference on Friday in the city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border.

It is assumed that he will repeat his assertion that he is still Ukraine’s lawful president.

Armed men, said by Mr Avakov to be Russian soldiers, arrived in the Sevastopol military airport near Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Base on Friday morning.

The men were patrolling outside, backed up by armoured vehicles, but Ukrainian military and border guards remained inside, Mr Avakov said.

“I consider what has happened to be an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms,” Mr Avakov said on his Facebook page.

Armed men also arrived at Simferopol airport overnight, some carrying Russian flags.

A man called Vladimir told Reuters he was a volunteer helping the group there, though he said he did not know where they came from.

“I’m with the People’s Militia of Crimea. We’re simple people, volunteers,” he said.

“We’re here at the airport to maintain order. We’ll meet the planes with a nice smile – the airport is working as normal.”

{{Referendum}}

After the violent clashes and the ousting of Mr Yanukovych in Kiev, the focus of the Ukraine crisis has now moved to Crimea, which traditionally leans towards Russia.

On Thursday, a group of unidentified armed men entered Crimea’s parliament building by force, and hoisted a Russian flag on the roof.

The Crimean parliament later announced it would hold a referendum on expanding the region’s autonomy on 25 May.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged his government to maintain relations with Kiev and even join Western efforts to bail out its troubled economy.

But he is also giving the Crimean government humanitarian aid.

The US sought assurances from Russia earlier this week, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered snap military drills to test the combat readiness of troops near the border with Ukraine.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on all sides to “step back and avoid any kind of provocations”.

Mr Kerry said he had spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, who vowed to respect Ukraine’s “territorial integrity”.

Crimea – where ethnic Russians are in a majority – was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.

Ethnic Ukrainians loyal to Kiev and Muslim Tatars – whose animus towards Russia stretches back to Stalin’s deportations during World War Two – have formed an alliance to oppose any move back towards Moscow.

Russia, along with the US, UK and France, pledged to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in a memorandum signed in 1994.

BBC

{{Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that would have allowed business owners who cited their religious beliefs to turn away gay customers.}}

Ms Brewer said the bill could have had “unintended and negative consequences”.

It was touted as a religious liberty protection by social conservatives. Its opponents denounced it as legalising anti-gay discrimination.

Business groups warned it would tarnish the state’s reputation and discourage companies from moving to the state.

{{‘Creates problems’}}

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Brewer, a Republican, said the bill did “not address a specific or present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona”.

“I have not heard one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated,” she said of the bill, which passed the state legislature last week with the strong backing of the state’s Republican Party.

Ms Brewer spent Wednesday huddling with both supporters and opponents of the bill and said she had vetoed it because she believed it had “the potential to create more problems that it purports to solve”.

“It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and nobody could ever want,” she said.

In doing so, Ms Brewer sided with the business community – including firms such as Intel, Yelp, Marriott and Major League Baseball and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

Loud cheers erupted outside the Arizona capitol building immediately after the governor announced the veto.

Rebecca Wininger, president of Equality Arizona, told the BBC the veto was “a clear message for those trying to use religion and those with right-leaning rhetoric that we’re done… we’re tired and we’re done with being discriminated against”.

Even as the federal government, the military, the courts, other states and US public opinion increasingly back gay rights and same-sex marriage, some states have seen the makings of a backlash in recent weeks, analysts say.

“Religious liberty” bills similar to the Arizona measure have been introduced in seven other US states, but Arizona’s was the only legislature to send a bill to the governor.

{{‘Distorted the bill’}}

The bill would have expanded the state’s religious liberty law to add protection from lawsuits for individuals or businesses that cited their “sincerely held” religious beliefs as motivating factors in taking an action or refusing to do so.

All but three Republicans in the state legislature voted for the proposal, known as SB1062, but some Republican state senators who voted for the bill subsequently called for a veto.

“We were uncomfortable with it to start with and went along with it thinking it was good for the caucus,” Senator Steve Pierce told the Associated Press news agency on Monday.

“We really didn’t want to vote for it. But we made a mistake, and now we’re trying to do what’s right and correct it.”

But supporters, framing it as only a modest update on the state’s existing religious freedom law, had pushed Ms Brewer to sign it in support of religious liberty.

The president of a conservative policy organisation that backed the bill said Ms Brewer’s veto “marks a sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty”.

“Opponents were desperate to distort this bill rather than debate the merits,” Center for Arizona Policy president Cathi Herrod said in statement. “Essentially, they succeeded in getting a veto of a bill that does not even exist.”

BBC

{{Two sailors who went missing after an accident on board a submarine off the coast of Mumbai on Wednesday are dead, India’s navy confirms.}}

The INS Sindhuratna was being tested at sea when smoke triggered the automatic closure of hatches.

Seven sailors injured in the incident are recovering in hospital. The vessel returned to port on Thursday morning.

Last year 18 sailors died in one of the navy’s worst disasters when a submarine sank after a fire at a Mumbai dockyard.

Initial investigations showed arms on board the Russian-built INS Sindhurakshak may have played a role in its sinking.

On Wednesday night Indian navy chief Admiral DK Joshi resigned, accepting “moral responsibility” for this latest incident as well as other operational accidents involving navy ships in recent months.

{The INS Sindhuratna was towed back to port on Thursday morning}

{{German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to address both Houses of Parliament and have tea with the Queen during a one-day visit to the UK.}}

Mrs Merkel will follow in the footsteps of other leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, in addressing MPs and peers.

She will later hold talks with the three main party leaders.

David Cameron is pulling out all the stops as he sees the German leader as crucial to his aims in Europe.

He is hoping to persuade Mrs Merkel to accept the need for EU treaty changes that would allow him to return powers from Brussels before a promised referendum on Britain’s EU membership in 2017.

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Berlin was prepared to offer “limited opt-outs” to the UK over its future compliance with existing EU directives and to make sure some other regulations were more flexibly enforced.

{{‘Disappointed’}}

The newspaper said it was a sign of the lengths that Germany was willing to go to to ensure the UK remained a member of the EU amid fears in Europe that a referendum could lead to British withdrawal.

{{A detained South Korean missionary has appeared before media in North Korea to read from a statement publicly apologising for “anti-state crimes”.}}

Baptist Kim Jong-uk, 50, said he was arrested after entering via China with religious materials in October.

Religious activity is restricted in the North, with missionaries arrested on multiple occasions in the past.

Foreign nationals arrested in North Korea sometimes make public confessions which they later say were under duress.

Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old US national, was briefly held last year. He was freed after confessing to committing crimes during the Korean War – a statement he said was given under duress.

‘Destroying the system’
In his first public appearance since his arrest, Mr Kim said he wanted to let his family know he was in good health.

He said he acted “under directions” from South Korea’s National Intelligence Services (NIS), setting up an underground church in Dandong, China, to collect information on life in North Korea to send back.

“I was thinking of turning North Korea into a religious country, and destroying its present government and political system,” he also told the news conference.

One report said Mr Kim had been working in Dandong for seven years helping North Korean refugees.

Mr Kim said he was unsure of his punishment and asked that he be released.

The North’s state media in November said it had arrested an unnamed South Korean “spy”, a charge which South Korea’s intelligence agency denied.

Meanwhile, Australia’s foreign ministry said it had not received any information about John Short, 75, a missionary who was arrested at his hotel in Pyongyang last week.

Mr Short, an Australian based in Hong Kong who entered Pyongyang on a group tour, was detained after apparently leaving Christian pamphlets at a tourist site.

“We do not know anything about the conditions in which he’s being held,” Justin Brown, head of the consular section, told a parliamentary hearing in Australia.

Australia does not have diplomatic representation in Pyongyang and is being represented by the Swedish embassy.

In November 2012, North Korea also arrested Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae. He is currently serving 15 years of hard labour after being convicted of trying to overthrow the government.

Efforts from Washington to secure Mr Bae’s release have so far been unsuccessful.

{Kim Jong-uk, a South Korean Baptist missionary, speaks during a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, 27 February 2014
South Korean Kim Jong-uk said he wanted his family to know he was in good health}

wirestory

{{Scores of pro-Russian protesters rallied in Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday, bitterly denouncing politicians in Kiev who are trying to form a new pro-EU Ukraine government.}}

“Russia, save us!” they chanted.

The outburst of pro-Russian sentiment in the strategic peninsula on the Black Sea, home to a Russian naval base, came amid fears of economic collapse for Ukraine as the fractious foes of President Viktor Yanukovich failed to reach agreement on forming a new national government. The task of assigning new posts could not be completed before Thursday, they said.

While Ukraine’s politicians struggled to reorganise themselves in Kiev, a Russian flag had replaced the Ukrainian flag in front of the city council building in Sevastopol, 500 miles (800 kilometers) to the south of the capital. An armored personnel carrier and two trucks full of Russian troops made a rare appearance on the streets, vividly demonstrating Russian power in this port city where the Kremlin’s Black Sea Fleet is based.

Some called on Moscow to protect them from the movement that drove Yanukovich from the capital three days ago.

FRANCE 24’s Douglas Herbert, reporting from regional capital Simferopol, said Crimean lawmakers were set Wednesday to begin a session in parliament “to try to overthrow the local government because these are people they feel are too close to the new government in Kiev”.

“They don’t feel that they are protecting Russian interests here,” he said, adding that around 60 percent of the Crimean population is made up of ethnic Russians. “The Russians living here feel exposed and unprotected and want the Russians to come and help them.”

Deposed Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich’s whereabouts are unknown but he was reportedly last seen in the Crimea, a staunchly pro-Russian region the size of Massachusetts. Law enforcement agencies have issued an arrest warrant for him over the killing of 82 people, mainly protesters, last week in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history.

His former chief of staff, Andriy Klyuyev, was wounded by gunfire Monday and hospitalized, spokesman Artem Petrenko told The Associated Press. It wasn’t clear where in Ukraine the shooting took place or what were the circumstances of the shooting.

Meanwhile, pro-Moscow protesters gathered for a third day in front of administrative buildings in Sevastopol and in other Crimean cities. Protests on Sunday numbered in the thousands.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet

Russia, which has thousands of Black Sea Fleet seamen at its base, so far has refrained from any sharp moves in Ukraine’s political turmoil, but could be drawn into the fray if there are confrontations between the population in Crimea and the supporters of the new authorities.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Washington that their countries oppose any attempt to partition or divide the former Soviet republic into pro-Western and pro-Russian territories.

A senior Russian lawmaker promised protesters that his government will protect its Russian-speaking compatriots in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine. “If lives and health of our compatriots are in danger, we won’t stay aside,” Leonid Slutsky told activists in Simferopol.

Crimea’s Russian heritage

Many in Russia have been dreaming about regaining the lush Crimean peninsula, which was conquered by Russia in the 18th century under Catherine the Great.

Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia. The move was a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet collapse meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Ethnic Russians make up the majority of Crimea’s population, and some, including retired navy officers and their families, have Russian citizenship. The peninsula’s nearly 2 million people includes 60 percent Russian speakers, as well as 12 percent who are Crimean Tatars, a minority group deported and persecuted in Soviet times, leaving them with little love for Russia.

Refat Chubarov, the head of the Tatar community, says the Tatars want new elections to the regional parliament and to remove any monuments to Soviet founder, Vladimir Lenin.

Kiev set to form new government

At the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, lawmakers delayed the formation of a new government until Thursday, reflecting the political and economic challenges the country faces after Yanukovich went into hiding.

Turchinov, the parliament speaker, is now nominally in charge of this strategic country of 46 million whose ailing economy faces a possible default and whose loyalties are sharply torn between Europe and longtime ruler Russia.

The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, urged Ukraine’s new government to quickly work out an economic reform program so the West could consider financial aid to keep Ukraine from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the Institute of International Finance, a Washington-based association of banks and financial companies, warned that Ukraine’s finances “are on the verge of collapse”.

Ukraine is battling to keep its currency, the hryvnia, from collapsing. Its acting finance minister says the country needs 25.5 billion euros to finance government needs this year and next.

Protests in Ukraine erupted after Yanukovich in November abruptly reject an agreement to strengthen ties with the European Union and instead sought a bailout loan from Moscow. They soon grew into a massive movement demanding an end to corruption and greater human rights.

france24

A British court has ruled that UK laws on whole-life prison sentences are compatible with European human rights laws, opening the way for two British Muslim converts who hacked a soldier to death on a London street to be sentenced on Wednesday.

The judge in charge of the trial of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who were convicted on Dec.19 of the murder of Private Lee Rigby in May 2013, had delayed announcing his verdict to wait for Britain’s Court of Appeal to clarify its position on whole-life sentences.

The verdict follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last July that British courts had violated three murderers’ rights by jailing them for life with no prospect of release.

Britain’s Court of Appeal instructed judges to keep imposing whole-life sentences when appropriate on Tuesday.

“In our judgment, the law of England and Wales … does provide to an offender ‘hope’ or the ‘possibility’ of release in exceptional circumstances,” the court said.

There are about 50 people serving whole-life sentences in Britain. Judges can only impose such sentences in exceptionally serious crimes such as child murders involving sadistic or sexual motives, or multiple murders with premeditation.

So-called “lifers” can be released from prison at the discretion of the justice secretary or on compassionate grounds.

The court dismissed challenges from two convicted murderers, and ordered that one of them, triple killer Ian McLoughlin, have his 40-year sentence increased to life.

“The UK courts have definitively rejected the ludicrous ruling from Strasbourg demanding the most dangerous criminals are given the chance to be freed,” said Dominic Raab, a Conservative legislator, in a statement after Tuesday’s ruling.

Tough line on crime

The European court’s decision in July was one of a series that have angered the ruling Conservatives, who adopt a tough line on crime and see the court based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg as a threat to British sovereignty.

Others have ranged from support for prisoners’ voting rights, which Conservatives strongly oppose, to a decision that delayed the deportation to Jordan of radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada for years.

A spokeswoman for the European court declined to comment.

Although the Strasbourg court is not an institution of the European Union, it has become wrapped in a wider debate about how much power EU bodies should have over British affairs.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary or interior minister, has suggested that the Conservatives could pledge that if they win the 2015 election, Britain will pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights which the Strasbourg court enforces.

{wirestory}