Ukraine Accuses Russia of 'Invasion' Over Airport Blockade
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's interior minister accused Moscow's military of blockading an airport near a Russian naval base on Friday and armed men took control of another airport in Ukraine's Crimean capital of Simferopol.
In a Facebook post, Arsen Avakov called the seizure of the Belbek international airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol a "military invasion and occupation." He added: "It is a breach of all international agreements and norms."
The Interfax news agency quoted Russian military sources as saying the incident at Belbek airport was intended to stop "fighters" flying in. However, Interfax later quoted a Russian official as saying that no units had approached the airport or blockaded it. NBC News was unable to independently verify either account.
As Antarctica opens up, will privateer explorers be frozen out?
The dramatic rescue of 52 people from a ship in the Antarctic has raised questions over who can explore the continent. Alok Jha, who was on the vessel, reports
Antarctica is the Earth’s last pristine, untouched and most epic wilderness. A key area for the world’s climate and wildlife, it is, for now, also a place of unparalleled international co-operation and negligible commercial exploitation. It has enjoyed more than a century of peace, since explorers first discovered it.
But the Antarctic is also a place of great danger, a remote location where humans are almost never in control, where nature’s rule is absolute. On Friday, making exploration of this part of the world safer is high on the agenda of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Its members will come together to discuss the adoption of a polar code to ensure that expeditions to the extremities of the world abide by a set of technical and operational standards.
New tape purports to show Erdogan dismissing bribe as insufficient
Turkish government claims smear campaign behind new recording
Daniel Dombey
The Turkish government has said a smear campaign is behind a new recording that purportedly shows prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissing a bribe as insufficient, as Ankara turns up the heat on its foes in a deepening corruption scandal.
Since it erupted in December, the scandal has hit Turkey’s economy, with figures released yesterday showing consumer confidence at its lowest for four years. Justice minister Bekir Bozdag said the latest in a series of recordings, in which a voice resembling Mr Erdogan’s appears to tell his son Bilal to reject an initial payment, was the most recent instalment in a “chain of slander”.
The recording suggests a figure called Mr Sitki offered the payment; the accompanying text on YouTube alleges $10 million (€7.3 million) was profferred by Sitki Ayan, a businessman. Mr Ayan was unavailable for comment.
Syrian family of seven forced to rely on 13-year-old breadwinner
February 28, 2014 - 7:46PM
Ruth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
Chhime, Lebanon: It’s a wet, miserable day in Lebanon’s Chouf Mountains and 13-year-old Mohamed is running the coffee machine at the local café in the town of Chhime.
His co-workers towering over him, Mohamed stands at the machine, its buttons and levers at chest level, and quickly makes three coffees, his arm stretched high to reach the coffee press.
A refugee from a village outside Syria’s capital, Damascus, Mohamed is an old hand at the café – although he’s only 13, he’s already been working there for a year and bears an extraordinary responsibility as his family’s sole breadwinner. He earns $US133 ($148) per month.
A combination of his father’s heart condition and his struggle to find work in Lebanon has left his family with few options to survive.
Burundi crisis may stir unrest but not by me, says ex-rebel
NAIROBI
(Reuters) - Burundi's worst political crisis since the end of its 12-year civil war risks unleashing a new wave of unrest before next year's presidential election, the main opposition leader said on Thursday.
Agathon Rwasa, the last rebel commander to lay down arms in 2009, accused President Pierre Nkurunziza of seeking to rewrite the constitution for his party's own gain and of behaving increasingly like a dictator.
The turmoil in the east African country centers on a row between Nkurunziza's Hutu-led CNDD-FDD party and its junior coalition partner, Uprona, over constitutional amendments proposed by the president that could allow him a third term.
Reporter's notebook: How has Mexico City changed?
From 1994 to 2001, The Christian Science Monitor's Howard LaFranchi ran the Mexico City bureau. Back in the city on a reporting trip, he counts the changes.
Recently back in Mexico City for some reporting more than 12 years after I left my post as the Monitor's Latin America correspondent here, I had my eye out for what had changed – the good and the bad.
After a few days it struck me that most of the changes I was noticing were for the better.
One was the proliferation of bicycles. Just a decade ago bicycles were pretty much for little kids, a few Tour de France wannabes, or the poor. As a mode of transportation, bicycles were often used by modest local vendors: the gardener who pedaled over to cut our patch of grass every couple of weeks, or the knife sharpener who announced his arrival in the neighborhood by blowing on a whistle.
Now Mexico City is teeming with bicyclists. And it’s not just on Sundays, when the monument- and fountain-studded Paseo de la Reforma, a grand boulevard rivaling any in the world, is closed to automobile traffic.
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