4 March 2014 Last updated at 09:10
Berlin, though, wants no part of the East Asian propaganda war. SPIEGEL has learned that a visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe -- Berlin's largest Holocaust memorial -- requested by Beijing will not be part of the itinerary of Xi's trip at the end of March. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also declined to accompany Xi to the Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism, a smaller monument across from Humboldt University known as the Neue Wache.
Food deliveries to thousands of people living in a blockaded area in southern Damascus ground to a halt after a truce collapsed and clashes broke out between Syrian rebels and government forces, a UN official and activists said.
4 March 2014 Last updated at 09:03
Russia keeps pressure on Ukraine with Crimea stand-off
Russian and Ukrainian troops in Crimea are involved in a tense stand-off but fears of an imminent Russian assault have eased.
Ukraine's main military bases on the peninsula remain surrounded by Russian forces. Thousands of Russian troops have been pouring into Crimea.
An alleged ultimatum for Ukrainian forces to surrender - denied by Moscow - expired without incident.
Russia says its troops went in upon a request by the ousted president.
Viktor Yanukovych asked Russia to send troops across the border to protect civilians, Moscow's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council.
He said Mr Yanukovych had written to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
Xi Jinping's Germany Trip: Berlin Nixes Holocaust Memorial Request
Amid tensions over Japan's historical war crimes, Chinese President Xi Jinping had wanted Chancellor Angela Merkel to show him World War II memorials during his upcoming visit to Berlin. Germany, however, wants no part of Beijing's propaganda offensive.
China, Reuters reported in February, wants Japan to be more like Germany -- specifically, it wants Tokyo to do more to acknowledge the suffering Japan inflicted on China during World War II. Chinese President Xi Jinping wanted to underline that desire during his upcoming March visit to Berlin by taking in some of the myriad war memorials which dot the German capital.
Thousands displaced after unrest in Darfur
The UN's World Food Programme says about 20 000 people have been displaced by fresh unrest in Sudan's Darfur region.
Arson and looting by militia has displaced about 20 000 people in Sudan's Darfur, adding to the strain on agencies struggling to aid almost two million uprooted by 11 years of war.
International peacekeepers in the region said they were deeply concerned about a reported escalation of violence in South Darfur state during the past few days.
"The violence has resulted in the reported burning of a number of villages and the displacement of a large number of civilians in the vicinity of Um Gunya" about 50km southeast of the state capital Nyala, according to the African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
Looting and civilian casualties have been reported, said UNAMID.
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said about 20 000 people had fled to safety at Saniya Deleiba, a village about 35km from Nyala.
Clashes in Syria's Yarmouk halt aid delivery |
Thousands of people living in blockaded district in southern Damascus are cut off from aid as truce collapses.
Last updated: 04 Mar 2014 09:13
|
The clashes, which erupted on Sunday afternoon and lasted until Monday, were the most serious violence in weeks in the Syrian capital's Palestinian-dominated district of Yarmouk and undermined a tentative truce struck there in early January, Reuters news agency reported.
A UN spokesman in Damascus, Chris Gunness, urged all parties to "immediately allow" the resumption of aid to the area, where malnutrition is rife.
4 March 2014 Last updated at 09:03
US says Kunming attack is 'act of terrorism'
The US State Department has described Saturday's knife attack which killed 29 people in China's Kunming city as "an act of terrorism".
The statement comes after Chinese state-run media accused Washington of double standards for its initial reluctance to use the phrase.
They also accused Western media of bias for not using the word "terrorist".
Officials have blamed separatists from Xinjiang - which is home to the Muslim Uighur minority - for the attack.
Eight attackers stabbed people at random in the south-western city's railway station. More than 130 people were also wounded during the attack and 20 remain in a critical condition, Chinese state media say.
Paris police accused of wiping 19,000 crimes off books
March 4, 2014 - 1:58PMHenry Samuel
Paris: Police authorities in the French capital "systematically" wiped tens of thousands of crimes from their books as part of a decade-long cover-up to make the capital seem safer than it was, according to "explosive" government data.
About 16,000 criminal acts were airbrushed from police books for 2011 alone, an audit of crime figures for Paris revealed.
Socialist Interior Minister Manuel Valls ordered the report in September 2012 to investigate how crimes were registered in the Paris area.
The authors uncovered a system in place for the past decade in which the number of crimes was consistently played down. They said the cover-up began in earnest in 2008 - a year after Nicolas Sarkozy, the former centre-right president, was sworn into office for a five-year term.
No comments:
Post a Comment