Crimeans vote in breakaway referendum |
Ukraine region expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of joining Moscow in referendum condemned by West.
Last updated: 16 Mar 2014 07:38
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Ukraine's southern Crimea region have started voting in a referendum aimed at deciding whether the peninsula leaves Ukraine and becomes part of Russia.
Around 1.5 million registered voters are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of breaking away from Ukraine after polls open at 06:00 GMT. Exit poll results will be announced 12 hours later, shortly after voting ends at 18:00 GMT.
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Simferopol, said the whole atmosphere leading up to the vote only pointed towards one outcome - reunification with Russia.
There are two options available in the referendum. Firstly, "are you in favour of the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation?" The second option is "are you in favour of restoring the 1992 Constitution and the status of Crimea as a part of Ukraine?"
Returning to the 1992 constitution would give Crimea's government sweeping powers to make its own laws and control its own governance, while technically remaining part of Ukraine.
Partition of Libya looms as fight for oil sparks vicious new divide
The farcical battle between the Tripoli government and a rebel militia over the refuelling of a tanker laid bare the central role that oil is playing in the splits and tensions that bedevil the country
No one paid much attention to the 21,000-tonne oil tanker Morning Glory as it churned back and forth along the north African coast earlier this month. Tankers are a common sight, carrying Libya's oil exports around the world. But on 1 March it switched off its satellite transponder and vanished from world shipping maps.
Eight days later it appeared at Libya's biggest oil port, Es Sider, blockaded since the summer by a rebel militia. Within a week its arrival would see a prime minister sacked and Libya on the brink of civil war.
Four hundred miles away in the capital Tripoli, prime minister Ali Zeidan, 63, a lawyer and former dissident based in Geneva, was alarmed. He had come to the job 15 months before with high expectations. Libya, freed with Nato help from the Muammar Gaddafi dictatorship, had everything going for it, with Africa's largest oil reserves and only 6 million people to share the wealth.
Sunday 16 March 2014
Ukraine crisis: Is the West trying to upset the Russians?
This is not the Cold War. Ukraine should not be forced to take sides, but the EU and US are behaving provocatively on Moscow's doorstepVanishing ice warning for 'Mountains of the Moon'
Ice on the Rwenzori mountain range is melting at "disturbing" rates, and within two decades Africa's equatorial peaks will be bare rock.
In swirling snow, John Medenge prods a thin ice bridge over a crevasse with an iron-tipped spear, guiding climbers scaling the steep glacial wall using crampons and axes.
"We are the last few who will climb on the ice, it is going so fast," said Medenge, after scaling the treacherous ridge up Mount Stanley, part of the dramatic Rwenzori mountain range straddling the border between Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.
At 5 109 metres, Stanley's jagged peak is the third highest mountain in Africa, topped only by Mount Kenya and Tanzania's iconic Kilimanjaro.
But experts warn the ice is melting at "disturbing" rates, and that within two decades Africa's equatorial peaks will be bare rock.
"Every year the ice grows smaller," 54-year old Medenge added, who has been climbing the range since a teenager.
Parents of Japan abductee meet NKorean grandchild
The parents of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea in 1977 have met their Korean-born granddaughter for the first time.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that Shigeru Yokota and his wife Sakie spent time with Kim Eun Gyong over several days last week in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Kim is 26 years old, Japanese media said.
The meeting could be a small step toward resuming official government talks between Japan and North Korea.
Kim's mother, Megumi Yokota, was kidnapped in Japan when she was 13. She is believed to have married a South Korean, Kim Young Nam, who also was abducted by North Korea.
North Korea says Yokota has died, but Japan says North Korea has yet to provide definitive proof.
Arab Spring three years on: Unsettled waters or a turning tide?
When a young Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire in December 2010, the desperate act fanned a flame that spread through the Arab world, threatening to burn down long-entrenched autocracies.
His death unleashed a wave of anger about poverty, unemployment and repression that built into nationwide protests across the Middle East and North Africa -- in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria -- that became known as the Arab Spring.
Millions of Arabs, living with limited job prospects or avenues for change, rose up, determined to reshape the political landscape of the Arab world.
And March 15 marks three years since mass protests erupted in Syria, now entangled in a devastating conflict.
Three years on, how are these nations faring? What successes can they boast -- on democracy, economic progress, stability and women's rights -- and what challenges await?
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