2 March 2014 Last updated at 07:40
Ukraine crisis: Obama urges Putin to pull troops back
US President Barack Obama has told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Russia has flouted international law by sending troops to Ukraine.
In a 90-minute telephone conversation, Mr Obama urged the Russian leader to pull forces back to bases in Crimea.
Mr Putin responded by saying that Moscow reserves the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.
Meanwhile, Canada has recalled its ambassador to Moscow for consultations.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was also suspending Canada's preparations for a G8 summit in the Russian resort of Sochi in June.
Ukraine says it has put its army on full combat alert after Russia's parliament approved the deployment of Russian troops.
Bikini Atoll nuclear test: 60 years later and islands still unliveable
Marshall Islanders unable or unwilling to return to traditional home, scene of huge US hydrogen bomb test in 1954
The Marshall Islands are marking 60 years since the devastating US hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, with exiled islanders saying they are too fearful to ever go back because of nuclear contamination.
Part of the intense cold war nuclear arms race, the 15-megatonne Bravo test on 1 March 1954 was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It exposed thousands in the surrounding area to radioactive fallout.
Bikini islanders and their descendants have lived in exile since they were moved for the first weapons tests in 1946. When US government scientists declared Bikini safe for resettlement some residents were allowed to return in the early 1970s. But they were removed again in 1978 after ingesting high levels of radiation from eating foods grown on the former nuclear test site.
Brazilian town's dirty carnival party
March 2, 2014 - 1:32PMJenny Barchfield
Paraty, Brazil: Extravagant costumes need not apply at the "Bloco da Lama" Carnival street party, where revellers dispense with pirate, princess and devil disguises in favour of thick, head-to-toe layers of black mud.
Thousands of revellers, their bikinis and shorts invisible beneath the black coating and their hair frozen into mud Mohawks, danced, drank and flung mud balls as sound trucks blasted bone-jarring rhythms in this colonial Brazilian town.
Saturday's fun was contagious and just about everyone got into it, from sculptured gym bunnies rubbing down their impeccable abs, to fuller figured people smearing handfuls of the stuff over spare tires, to old ladies and children giddy with disbelief that the whole thing was actually happening. Even a Belgian shepherd named Thunder rolled in the mud, his fuzzy auburn fur temporarily as slick and black as an otter's.
Refugees in their own land: South Sudan camps breed idleness, frustration
Bottled up and bored, young men are prone to violence in a country that has more than its share.
The two UN compounds in South Sudan's capital Juba each host a crowded camp of humanity – refugees from 10 weeks of war. As fighting continues despite a flimsy ceasefire signed in Addis Ababa, these camps, or others like them around the country, are places to hear stories of the conflict.
Yet if one didn't visit these two camps, it would be hard to know that this is the capital of a country at war with itself. Traffic flows serenely. Shops are open and busy – and the only sign of unrest is an 11 p.m curfew.
Indeed, in a visit to the UN compound known as Tomping, which abuts the Juba airport, UN staff in sweatsuits jog in the early morning past long rows of gray air-conditioned offices; at noon, diplomats and peacekeepers eat nice lunches and check emails on Wi-Fi in a wood paneled restaurant.
After the Violence: Thais Go Back to Polls
BANGKOK - Thailand was holding re-run elections Sunday in five provinces where voting was disrupted last month poll by anti-government protesters trying to unseat Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and officials said all was going smoothly.
Dozens of gunshots and at least two explosions raised tension on the eve of the Feb. 2 general election, which was seen as incapable of restoring stability in deeply polarized Thailand whatever the result.
Protesters were gathering in central Lumpini Park in Bangkok on Sunday, where many already sleep in tents alongside boating lakes, after protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said they would abandon other sites in the city.
Promise and peril in an ultra-connected world
By ANICK JESDANUN1 hour ago
BARCELONA, Spain We're in the beginning of a world in which everything is connected to the Internet and with one another, while powerful yet relatively cheap computers analyze all that data for ways to improve lives.
Toothbrushes tell your mirror to remind you to floss. Basketball jerseys detect impending heart failure and call the ambulance for you.
At least that's the vision presented this past week at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain. The four-day conference highlighted what the tech industry has loosely termed "the Internet of things."
Some of that wisdom is already available or promised by the end of the year.
Fitness devices from Sony and Samsung connect with your smartphones to provide digital records of your daily lives. French startup Cityzen Sciences has embedded fabric with heart-rate and other sensors to track your physical activities.
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