Quiz of the Week: Round 5 (Now with extra insults) Philip Kendall Welcome to another edition of Quiz of the Week: where the best news stories from the last seven days come to die. By now you should know the drill: we throw 10 multiple-choice questions at you to see whether you’re keeping your wits about you and to introduce you to some of the best stories in town, whispering unsavoury things about your mother for every question you get wrong.
So stop drooling all over yourself and let’s test those grey cells of yours!
As ever, highlight the space between the square brackets [ mmmn, bacon] after the word “Answer:” or click the “Read more” link to check your answers.
Ready? Then let’s get started!
Question 1.
What unusual act has recently become something of an online craze in South Korea?
A: Taking “reverse selfies”, where people take photos of things besides their own stupid faces
B: Sending confession emails to numerous companies’ “support” email addresses
C: Sharing pictures of themselves in new underwear as a method of “reviewing” it
D: Spamming non-Korean companies’ websites with photos of seemingly amused goats
STATS
939
Murders committed in Japan in 2013—the first time in the postwar era that the number has dropped below 1,000, according to the National Police Agency
8
Consecutive months that McDonald’s Japan has reported a decrease in customers
3
Number of Japanese automakers—Nissan, Toyota and Honda—that logged record sales of new cars in China in 2013
MATTERS OF STATE
A 45-year-old temp worker from Shizuoka was arrested for throwing a shoe during a session of the upper house of Diet to protest the recently enacted state secrecy law.
Officials in South Korea released a promotional video touting their claims of sovereignty over the disputed Takeshima islets—two months after a previous video was criticized for using “unauthorized clips from a Japanese television drama.”
The Osaka High Court became the first such judicial body in Japan to hold the government accountable for failing to protect workers from asbestos poisoning.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that his career goal is to “revise the Constitution.”
Professor cancels radio appearance after NHK declines talk on nuclear power issue Feb. 1, 2014 (Sat.) Public broadcaster NHK has declined to allow a regular guest on its radio program to talk about nuclear power on the grounds of the upcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election, leading him to cancel his appearance on the program.
Toru Nakakita, 62, a professor of economics at Toyo University, canceled his appearance on an NHK morning radio show after he was asked to change the subject for the program from the nuclear energy issue to something else, it was learned on Jan. 30.
Nakakita is a long-time regular guest on the program, which is titled "Radio Asa Ichiban" and is aired every morning from 5 a.m. Monday through Friday. He has had a monthly slot in the program's segment titled "Business Tenbo" (Business outlook) for more than 20 years. He had been scheduled to appear on the program on Jan. 30 to discuss the cost of restarting nuclear reactors and the risk of accidents at nuclear plants.
Is war looming as Japan strengthens its military power and tensions escalate over disputed East China Sea islands?
When Shinzo Abe was first elected Prime Minister of Japan in 2006 it wasn't a surprise as he came from a politically connected family. His father in law on his wife's side of the family was Nobusuke Kishi who served in the Japanese war cabinet during World War II also served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1958. Though Kishi served in the wartime cabinet he was never tried for the crimes committed by the Tojo led government and was released from Sugamo in 1948. Like Kishi Shinzo Abe is a strident nationalist, war crimes denier and historical revisionist.
Seeking a return to power Abe softened his nationalist rhetoric during the 2012 December campaign. Winning election with a huge mandate Abe has sought to revise Japan's post World War II pacifist constitution which prevents Japan from having an actual military in name therefore its called the self defense force. What Abe wants is a referendum for the constitutional changes he wants voted on by the Japanese voting populace. He also intends to hold public hearings giving the public a chance to voice their approval or opposition to the proposed changes. But like everything else in Japan it will be completely scripted so that only those who approve of the changes will be given a voice while those in opposition will be silenced.
In the waters of the East China Sea, a daily show of aggression is displayed around the uninhibited Senakaku/Diaoyutai Islands. Coast guards from China and Japan play a dangerous game of cat and mouse as both sides try to lay claim to the disputed resource-rich territory. The concern is - that the two powers are riding towards war.
101 East presenter Steve Chao takes a trip to the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands, 200km from Taiwan and 2,000km from Tokyo. This region is home to rich fishing grounds and potential gas deposits.
With China’s growing hostility and nuclear missile threats from North Korea, Japan’s newly-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to strengthen the country’s military power to defend the islands at all cost. And that task falls on Japan’s Self-Defense Force (SDF), made up of ground, maritime and air units.
Pace of removal has "languished", ambassador says, with only four percent of chemical stockpile handed over.
Last updated: 31 Jan 2014 04:06
The United States has called on Syria to take immediate action to comply with a UN resolution to remove its chemical weapons materials, noting just four percent of Syria's declared chemical stock has been eliminated.
Efforts to remove these materials from Syria have "seriously languished and stalled", said ambassador Robert Mikulak in a statement to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Thursday.
"Syria must immediately take the necessary actions to comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, Executive Council decisions, and UN Security Council Resolution 2118," said Mikulak, the US permanent representative to the OPCW.
Timelines adopted last year required that 100 percent of "priority one" chemicals be eliminated by December 31, 2013, while the deadline for removing "priority two" chemicals is Feburary 5. That deadline will also not be met.
The Syrian government has attributed the delays to "security concerns", saying it needs additional equipment to ensure their safe transportation - a claim Mikulak rejected.
Ukrainian protester says he was kidnapped and tortured
Opposition activist Dmytro Bulatov is found outside Kiev after going missing and says kidnappers beat him and cut his face
A Ukrainian opposition activist who went missing last week says he was kidnapped and tortured, the latest in a string of mysterious attacks on anti-government protesters in the two-month-long political crisis.
Dmytro Bulatov, a member of Automaidan, a group of car owners that has taken part in the protests against the president, Viktor Yanukovych, went missing on 22 January.
Bulatov was discovered outside Kiev on Thursday. He says his kidnappers beat him severely, sliced his ear and cut his face.
The protests started after Yanukovych backed out of an agreement to deepen ties with the European Union, but quickly came to encompass an array of discontent over corruption, heavy-handed police and dubious courts.
Gifts, perks and Moroccan luxury: How Goldman Sachs 'won over Libyans'
Establishing a relationship of “trust” with the LIA allowed the bank to make $350m from a series of trades worth $1bn that ultimately proved worthless
Goldman Sachs offered gifts, luxury trips to Morocco and an internship at its Fleet Street offices to win business from the Gaddafi placemen running the $60bn Libyan Investment Authority, papers filed at the High Court allege.
The legal claim, lodged by Libya’s new regime, claims that poorly qualified and naive staff were courted with chocolate and aftershave and were lavishly entertained on a corporate credit card issued to Youssef Kabbaj, the bank’s former head of North Africa.
The coveted internship, in London and Dubai, was allegedly handed to Haitem Zarti, brother of the fund’s deputy director, Mustafa Zarti, who owed his position to his friendship with Saif al-Islam, Colonel Gaddafi’s son whom he had met while studying in Vienna.
Such placements are more usually fought over by top-performing graduates from the world’s leading universities.
In Taliban country: inside the city of Jalalabad
As US troops leave and the Taliban try to reinforce the idea that they are in control, 2014 will be an important year for Afghanistan
John D McHugh
Jalalabad sits next to the Kyber Pass and Pakistan, and has a largely Pashtun population. It used be said that although not every Catholic was in the IRA, almost every IRA man was a Catholic, and the same rule could easily be applied to the Pashtuns; they aren’t all Taliban, but it’s hard to find a Talib who is not a Pashtun. Thus the Taliban have widespread support in this part of Afghanistan, and the city has seen a lot of violence over the past 12 years as first the Americans and then the Afghan government tried to control the place.
For a westerner, getting to Jalalabad is not easy. There is no civilian airport, so the only way to reach the city is to drive across the mountain passes, the same route on which 16,000 British soldiers and subjects were massacred as they fled from Kabul in 1842. And in the 21st century, it is still considered one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Not only are there are almost daily fatalities on the road from car accidents, but the Taliban regularly attack vehicles, burning trucks and cargo, while robbing and sometimes murdering travellers.
It doesn't take long for a crowd to turn on you on the streets of Egypt these days.
A finger pointed, an accusation levelled, and you are literally running for your life.
For months now I have been hesitant to even pull my notebook from my bag when I am reporting from the street, such is the animosity against, and suspicion of, foreign journalists.
But I am lucky - I can usually move through a crowd, observe the mood, chat to a few people and leave quickly before drawing too much attention.
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Not so photographers, whose cameras have become a magnet for angry crowds and security services who smash, grab and detain.
Two weeks ago I was a few blocks from Cairo's Tahrir Square, interviewing stallholders and passers-by about the constitutional referendum due to begin the next day.
CAR's sectarian strife worsens despite French, AU troops
Sapa-IPS | 31 January, 2014 09:42
Reports of horrific revenge killing continued to emerge from the Central African Republic Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the Security Council voted to increase the international troop presence there and levy sanctions against those it suspects of war crimes.
Over 2,000 people have been killed and one million - a quarter of the population - displaced since a coalition of northern, predominantly Muslim rebels calling themselves Seleka ("alliance" in the local Sango language) seized power in March 2013.
Following the deployment of peacekeepers and the resignation of president and former Seleka leader Michel Djotodia earlier this month, the group began a hasty but violent retreat from the capital and several contested rural towns.
Circassians are protesting the holding of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games 150 years after being expelled from their land.
An excited Russia gears up to host the 2014 Winter Olympics but outside the country, its chosen site is stirring powerful memories and strong emotions.
For most Russians, the town of Sochi represents one of the country's finest ski resorts in an area of outstanding natural beauty. But for exiled Circassians, the same land harbours a devastating secret.
It was the place their ancestors endured terrible atrocities in the late 1800's in a series of military campaigns by tsarist forces. Campaigners believe one million Circassians were driven out and 1.5 million killed in what they want the world to recognise as a genocide that lasted 100 years, or by other calculations 200 years.
What is known and documented is that within a generation, only 10 percent of the Circassian population remained on the land.
Sochi was the last territory conquered by the Russian Empire through force of arms. After massacring a population already weakened by starvation and war, the land was occupied.
In China, smog woes eroding new year fireworks tradition
Chinese authorities and activists are encouraging revelers to start the new year without a bang to reduce the pollutants released by pyrotechnics.
By Julie Makinen
Flowers to mark the new year? How about electronic gizmos that flash and go bang?
Fireworks are as integral to Chinese New Year as evergreens are to Christmas. Tradition holds that noisy pops and colorful flares ward off evil spirits and bring good luck for the coming year.
But the pyrotechnics also release particulates that include sulfur dioxide and other toxins.
With smog blanketing many Chinese cities as the Year of the Horse approaches, environmental activists, meteorologists and government officials are urging people to start the new year without a bang Friday. And people appear to be listening.
Even without New Year's fireworks, winter is a particularly bad time for air quality in China, especially in northern areas where coal-fired heating is common. In December, China's Environmental Protection Ministry reported that 62 of 74 cities it monitors failed to meet air quality standards for more than half the month.
Mob attacks remote Indian village in land dispute
At least 10 killed after gunmen from neighbouring state open fire in Chauldhua in northern Assam state
A mob armed with shotguns has attacked a remote village in north-eastIndia, killing at least 10 people in a long-simmering land dispute, police say.
The attackers fired indiscriminately on Wednesday evening in Chauldhua in northern Assam state, said a resident, Indrashwar Das.
"A large mob attacked us with guns. Everyone was surprised," said Das, who was shot in the leg. "I saw people falling and I ran."
The gunmen came from neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh state, police said. It took officers several hours to access the densely forested area.
Ukraine parliament votes to offer amnesty to protesters
Opposition denounces offer which insists demonstrators leave occupied buildings
Daniel McLaughlin
Ukraine’s crisis has deepened after a stormy vote in parliament and a decision byRussia to suspend a bailout to Kiev due to uncertainty over its future path.
After a late-night pep talk from president Viktor Yanukovich, his ruling Regions Party voted to offer an amnesty to detained protesters only if they first leave administrative buildings that they have occupied across the country.
Opposition leaders denounced the law, having insisted that no conditions be attached to the amnesty.
The government has resigned and sweeping anti-protest legislation has been revoked as rallies that began in Kiev and pro-opposition western Ukraine spread to areas traditionally loyal to Mr Yanukovich.
The brazen daylight assassination of a police general in Cairo underscores the growing insecurity in Egypt, as it awaits an announcement from its army chief to run for the presidency.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an al Qaeda-inspired group from the restive Sinai Peninsula, said it shot dead General Mohamed Saeed outside his home in western Cairo Tuesday, and threatened more such attacks.
The killing came a day after Egypt's top brass backed Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to run for the presidency, which he is expected to win easily if he does.
Sisi, 59, has said he would stand for the election to be held by mid-April if there was "popular demand".
"Vengeance is coming," Ansar Beit al-Maqdis said, addressing Sisi and interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim.
Why is Mexico's Knights Templar reaching out to rival cartels?
Authorities in Mexico found evidence of a budding alliance between the Knights Templar and Beltran Leyva drug cartels. Some say it's a sign that vigilante groups in Michoacán are 'working.'
As reported by El Universal, agents of the two groups met in Mexico City in January, and were arrested by Mexican Marines. The meetings were aimed at consolidating an agreement in which the BLO would help the Knights remain in control of Michoacán.
The meetings come at a particularly dangerous moment for the Knights. Their ongoing conflict with local self-defense groups, in which the Knights have resorted to insurgent-style attacks, has turned the group into the principal public security focus in the country. The federal government has flooded the area with troops, both in an effort to reverse the state decay that led to the self-defense groups and to crack down on the Knights' operations.
Southeast Asia
Jan 30, '14
Democratic aversion impacts Thai South By Jason Johnson
PATTANI - Since former Democrat Party parliamentarian Suthep Thaugsuban and his current People's Democratic Reform Committee's (PDRC) anti-government protest movement took to the streets of Bangkok in November in an effort to replace the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra with an appointed "people's council", many political pundits have asserted that the PDRC movement is an obstacle to representative democracy.
This week, PDRC supporters, who largely back the Democrat Party and hail from Bangkok and the country's upper south region, have attempted to block voters from casting votes in a snap election that was called by Yingluck, the younger sister of 2006 coup-ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Since 2001, parties aligned with Thaksin, who has lived in self-exile since fleeing abuse-of-power charges in 2008, have
demolished the Democrats at the polls in Thailand's vote-rich north and northeastern regions.
Live-streams of meals can attract viewers of thousands night after night - with audiences donating enough money for the host to live on
Western media and bloggers have dubbed it ‘food porn’ or ‘gastronomic voyeurism’, but in its home country of South Korea it’s known simply as meok-bang: ‘broadcast eating’.
This trend from the world’s most connected nation sees solo diners live-streaming their evening meals to audiences of thousands. In a country where a quarter of households are occupied by just one individual, a sit-down dinner with a familiar face can be a godsend, even if it is virtual.
"People enjoy the vicarious pleasure when they can't eat this much or find that food at night or are on a diet," Park Seo-yeon, one of the country’s most popular ‘broadcast jockeys’, told Reuters.
In Japan it's similar in that majority of those living are over 65. Given its rapid aging and declining population one could see how this trend might become popular here.
State of the Union: Obama promises action on inequality
US President Barack Obama has promised to bypass a fractured Congress to tackle economic inequality in his annual State of the Union address.
He pledged to "take steps without legislation" wherever possible, announcing a rise in the minimum wage for new federal contract staff.
On Iran, he said he would veto any new sanctions that risked derailing talks.
The Democratic president is facing some of his lowest approval ratings since first taking office in 2009.
"Let's make this a year of action," Mr Obama said.
Noting that inequality has deepened and upward mobility stalled, he would offer "a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class".
"America does not stand still - and neither will I," he said. "So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's what I'm going to do."
Thai police to deploy 10,000 officers in Bangkok for election
Minister urges voters to turn out for 2 February election that protesters vow to disrupt in bid to topple Yingluck Shinawatra
Thailand's government will deploy 10,000 police in the capital for Sunday's election, which protesters have promised to disrupt as part of their attempt to topple the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
"I ask Bangkok residents to come out and vote," the labour minister Chalerm Yoobamrung told reporters on Wednesday.
"The police will take care of security … Those who are thinking of going and shutting polling stations in the morning should think twice because the police will not allow them to."
Iranian teacher who shaved his head in solidarity with an ill pupil who went bald becomes a national hero
An Iranian teacher has become a national hero after he shaved his head in solidarity with one of his students who went bald.
When Ali Mohammadian noticed that pupils at Sheikh Shaltoot's elementary school were bullying Mahan Rahimi when he lost his hair to a mysterious illness, he posted a photo of himself with the eight-year-old on Facebook captioned: “Our heads are sensitive to hair”.
Overnight, hundreds of Iranians had seen and shared Mr Mohammadian’s post, and before long the entire class had shaved their heads too.
“When I logged in to my Facebook the next day, I couldn't believe the number of people who had liked it and shared it,” he told the Guardian.
Mladic refuses to testify at Karadzic war crimes trial
Former Bosnian Serb army leader dismisses Hague court as ‘satanic’
Peter Cluskey
It’s a long way down from being the most powerful military figure in Bosnia to standing in the dock of an international court admitting you can’t give evidence because you’ve left your dentures in your detention cell, but that’s where former generalRatko Mladicfound himself yesterday.
And yet for all that – and despite the fact that this was the first time since the end of the Bosnian War that he and his former ally, Radovan Karadzic, had met face to face – Mladic was in no doubt as to who was the most important man in Courtroom 1. Accustomed throughout his military career to being the centre of attention and in charge, it was as if the 71-year-old general had decided that if you can’t hold their attention one way, you can do it another. So with military precision he went for the don’t-make -it-easy strategy . . .
IOM releases Mediterranean boat migrant count
Some 45,000 boat migrants, including thousands of children, made dangerous crossings of the Mediterranean to land in Italy and Malta in 2013, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Most were fleeing wars or abuses, said the intergovernmental organization on Tuesday. It listed 11,300 migrants fleeing Syria, 9,800 from Eritrea and 3,200 from Somalia. Among them were 8,300 minors; two-thirds of these were unaccompanied.
The IOM said its 2013 total was a sharp jump from the 13,000 recorded in 2012, but down on the 63,000 recorded in 2011 during armed sectarian conflict in Libya.
The IOM said the "real" tragedies had involved those migrants who had disappeared untraced at sea during capsizes of flimsy, overcrowded boats, which border authorities claim are often operated by smugglers.
South Sudan rebel leader should face treason charge: minister
BY CARL ODERA AND ANDREW GREEN
JUBA
South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar and six others should be tried for treason for their role in weeks of bloodshed, the justice minister said on Tuesday, threatening to heighten tensions in already troubled peace talks.
Minister Paulino Wanawilla Unago cushioned the blow by saying seven other political figures, arrested after the violence erupted, would be released, partly meeting one of the rebels' demands at the negotiations.
Fighting broke out between rival groups in the presidential guard in the capital Juba in mid December and quickly spread to oil-producing areas, largely along ethnic lines.
President Salva Kiir accused Machar, the vice president he sacked in July, of launching a coup in the world's newest country.
Knights Templar cartel beware? Mexico strikes deal with vigilantes.
Mexico and self-defense groups reached an agreement this week allowing vigilantes to participate in local police departments or form temporary military units. Is it setting a dangerous precedent?
Nearly a year after vigilante groups decided to go it alone against a growing presence of drug cartels in the western state of Michoacán, group leaders accepted an offer from the federal government to join formal law enforcement efforts.
The agreement this week aims to contain the advance of informal self-defense groups, which entered at least 15 communities over the past 11 months in an attempt to expel members of the Knights Templar. The drug cartel has been accused of crimes throughout the state, ranging from rape to kidnap to extortion – despite proclaiming a quasi-religious creed.
“It’s a vote of confidence in the government from the self-defense groups, and from the authorities in the self-defense groups,” Alfredo Castillo, federal commissioner for security in Michaocán, told MVS radio this morning.
Indonesia is the world’s biggest tin exporter but for poverty stricken miners, the costs are deadly.
It is nightfall and Rusdanila is on his way to meet an illegal tin dealer. Carrying almost 4kg of tin in a bucket, the product of a hard day’s work, he goes to the first collector, hoping that the metal will fetch at least $3.50 per kilogramme.
Here in the little island of Bangka, east of Sumatra, miners like Rusdanila are at the mercy of the price of ore determined thousands of miles away at the London Metal Exchange.
But in Indonesia, this precious mineral is largely mined illegally.
In 2012, the country exported 98,000 tons of tin, supplying 40 percent of international demand. Major electronics consumer brands like Samsung, Apple and Philips rely heavily on Indonesia’s tin. Each mobile phone contains seven grams of the mineral.
Currently, tin rakes in around $28m a year for Indonesia but the human and environmental toll is proving costly.
A $200mUS aid project designed to make sure the largely illiterate recruits to Afghanistan's security forces can manage basic reading and writing has reached only about half of the police and army, a US government watchdog has said.
This means tens of thousands of men on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban cannot read or prepare notes about their enemy, fill in orders for supplies and ammunition or send written reports of battles to headquarters.
Nearly 400,000 soldiers and police have attended some form of literacy classes funded by Nato or the US.
Too many deaths in paradise: Jamaica is awash with police shootings and has brought in a British commissioner to investigate
Aurdia McCallum heard a group of police officers questioning her boyfriend just before the first shot rang out. According to her account, she had been bundled into one room while three officers from the Jamaica Constabulary Force took Dean Christie to the bedroom where they had been sleeping until the early morning knock.
“I shouted for Dean and the police officer slapped me in the face and said: ‘shut up, stop your noise’ but I kept on screaming,” she said. “After that I heard a gunshot explosion and I shouted for Dean, but I didn’t hear a response. They’ve ripped my heart out and there’s nothing they can do to fix it.”
Mr Christie, 25, was just one of 40 people to die at the hands of the Jamaican police in a single month of mayhem, sparked by an announcement of a harsh crackdown on gang crime by the force hierarchy.
Ukrainian prime minister resigns
Mykola Azarov steps down to help bring an end to more than two months of deadly street protests
Ukraine’s prime minister Mykola Azarov has resigned to help bring about an end to more than two months of street protests that turned deadly last week and have paralyzed government buildings across the nation.
“In order to create additional possibilities for compromise for the sake of the peaceful regulation of the conflict, I’ve taken a personal decision to ask the president accept my resignation,” Mr Azarov said today in a statement on the cabinet’s website.
“The conflict in Ukraine is threatening the country’s social and economic development.”
President Viktor Yanukovych, who must approve Mr Azarov’s exit, is struggling to contain unrest that’s spread from the capital to other cities across the country of 45 million people, a key transit route for Russian energy supplies to Europe.
Syria's Bodies:'The Stench Was Unfathomable'
By Christoph Reuter and Christoph Scheuermann
Photos released last week show that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad tortures, starves and murders its prisoners. The images provide grisly evidence to support what witnesses have been telling SPIEGEL for months.
He says he was never witness to executions, nor did he see torture taking place. That wasn't his job. His task was that of taking photos of the corpses afterwards. He would snap four or five images per body -- of the face and other parts of the person -- documenting the cause of death, insofar as it was possible to determine. He did so tens of thousands of times between March 2011 and August 2013 -- when he finally fled Syria, taking some 55,000 photos with him on a USB stick. The images are of starved, strangled and tortured men, primarily young and mostly naked. Some have no eyes. The defector, who has been cited under the alias "Caesar," worked for Syrian security, and says that he and his colleagues were called on up to 50 times a day to photograph corpses, each of which was given a number for documentation purposes.
War tops talks as African leaders gather for summit
Jenny VAUGHAN | 28 January, 2014 07:40
War in Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan are key priorities, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom said, ahead of the two-day African Union meeting that opens Thursday.
Conflict and humanitarian crises rather than growing economies and development top the agenda for African leaders this week, as they meet for a summit of the continental bloc.
The controversial role on the continent of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is also expected to be addressed.
"The fact that these humanitarian tragedies are unfolding in the two countries at a time when we are talking about 'African renaissance' must be painful to all of us," Tedros added, speaking at a ministerial-level meeting on Monday.
Who 'wins' in Peru-Chile maritime border ruling?
A new maritime border drawn by the International Court of Justice ended decades of debate about how to carve up 38,000 square kilometers of fish-rich waters off the coasts of Chile and Peru.
By Mike Corder, Associated Press
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
The United Nations' highest court drew a new maritime boundary between Peru and Chile on Monday, awarding Peru parts of the Pacific Ocean but keeping rich coastal fishing grounds in Chilean hands.
The line drawn by the International Court of Justice ended decades of debate about how to carve up some 38,000 square kilometers (14,670 square miles) of fish-rich waters off the coasts of the Latin American neighbors. Peru's fishing industry estimates the annual catch in the region to be worth some US$200 million.
Peru wanted a maritime border heading roughly southwest, perpendicular to the point where the two countries' land border meets the ocean. Chile insisted the border should extend from the coast parallel to the equator.
Ukraine justice minister in state of emergency warning
Ukraine's justice minister has warned anti-government protesters occupying her ministry she will call for a state of emergency if they do not leave.
Olena Lukash told local media she would ask the National Security and Defence Council to introduce the measures.
Protesters seized the building in Kiev late on Sunday and set up barricades outside with bags of snow.
Unrest is spreading across Ukraine, with activists taking over municipal buildings in up to 10 cities.
Buildings have come under attack even in eastern areas which have traditionally had closer ties with Russia and where President Viktor Yanukovych has enjoyed strong support.
Sochi Winter Olympics: UK warns terrorist attacks are 'very likely' to occur
UK officials are warning more terrorist attacks are “very likely to occur” in Russia either before or during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, which are due to begin next week.
A threat assessment has named a Caucasus group, Imarat Kavkaz (IK) as causing the main danger, according to the BBC.
The assessment highlights the IK’s leader Emir Doku Umarov, who called on his followers to try their hardest to disrupt the Games in July 2013.
However, the document also questions whether the group are capable of targeting the event within such a narrow time frame, the BBC reports, as the Winter Olympics run from 7-23 February.
Kim Jong-un executes uncle's relatives: report
January 27, 2014 - 11:54AM
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly put to death a number of surviving relatives of his executed uncle Jang Song-thaek, including children.
Quoting "multiple sources", a report from South Korean news agency Yonhap says the relatives include North Korea's ambassadors to Cuba and Malaysia, who were both related to Mr Kim's uncle by marriage.
Mr Jang, once a powerful mentor to Mr Kim, was dragged out of a party meeting, tried and executed last month on charges of attempting to overthrow the communist regime.
The report says all direct relatives of Mr Jang have been executed.
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"Extensive executions have been carried out for relatives of Jang Song-thaek," one source told the agency.
"All relatives of Jang have been put to death, including even children."
27 January 2014Last updated at 01:17 GMT
Tunisia assembly passes new constitution
Tunisia's parliament has adopted a new constitution - the first since the ousting of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali three years ago.
The National Constituent Assembly passed the text by 200 votes from 216.
Analysts say politicians hope it will send out a message of stability after months of deadlock between Islamist and secular forces.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister-designate Mehdi Jomaa says he has formed a new caretaker government.
The cabinet consists mainly of independents and technocrats, and is expected to run the country until new elections. No date has been set for the polls.
US forces launch missile strike against Shebab leader in Somalia
Washington (AFP) - The US military launched a missile strike in Somalia on Sunday targeting a suspected Shebab militant leader, defense officials said.
One of the officials said an unmanned drone launched the missile in the late evening hours, but declined to confirm the suspect's identity or whether the strike was successful.
The US government has "been tracking this guy for years," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A second US official said the strike in the southeastern port town of Barawe "was against a senior Shebab commander."
"The US is assessing the results of the operation" to determine if the suspect was killed, the official added.
Another voice lost, Korean 'comfort woman' dies
By Ashley Fantz and Paul Armstrong, CNN
January 27, 2014 -- Updated 0323 GMT
Another voice that could have told about the horrors of being a "comfort woman" -- a sex slave used by Japanese soldiers during World War II -- has fallen silent, according to South Korean authorities.
Hwang Keum-ja, 89, died of lung and respiratory disease at a hospital in Seoul Sunday.
Cho Yoon-sun, South Korea's Minister of Gender and Equality and Family, said she had been attempting to meet each of her country's surviving comfort women individually, but had not yet visited Hwang.
"My heart is aching as she died before I was able to meet her," she said in a statement, praising Hwang for her efforts to support others despite the hardships she faced, and vowing that her government would deliver greater support to other comfort women.
