SIx In The Morning Monday May 5

Ukraine crisis: Mercenaries, ready meals and MI6 – the 'evidence' British troops are fighting pro-Russian troops, or something far less sinister?

A combat jacket with British markings and American military meals and ammunition found at the scene of a shooting in Andrievka leaves locals suspicious.

KIM SENGUPTA 

 

ANDRIEVKA

 

Monday 05 May 2014

“The snipers on that hill were British. People have seen them. You could tell by their uniforms,” Vitali Nelovich said with confidence. “They were by the television tower. But even before they were stationed, there were others who came by helicopter. They were very dark skinned”.

Alexei Viktorovich was also adamant: “The dark-skinned men were very professional, I was in the army myself, so I could tell. They didn’t stay long, flew in and flew out.”

There was other incriminating “evidence”, local people pointed out, of a foreign hand in the shooting which took place between Ukrainian forces and residents, claiming between seven and 10 lives and up to 20 injured in Andrievka, near the militant stronghold of Slovyansk on Friday evening.

A Tangle of Conflicts: The Dirty Business of Palm Oil

By Nils Klawitter

Palm oil can be found in many of the products we consume each day. Much of it comes from Indonesia, where brutal methods are deployed against locals. One of the main suppliers says it is cleaning up its act, but has it really changed?

Two months ago, soldiers abducted day laborer Titus, hit him with the butts of their rifles, whipped him and then let him wipe off the blood. It was only later that he found out the reason for his torture. A sign had been placed in his village, Bungku, stating, "This is our land."

Bangku is located at the center of Indonesia's Sumatra island. It's a city full of people that have been pushed off their property and has been a flash point for years in one of the country's bloodiest land conflicts. Palm oil is at the center of the dispute. Almost every second product available in today's supermarkets contains the cheap natural resource, which is often labeled as "vegetable oil," masking its true identity. Palm oil can be found in shampoos, but also in margarine, frozen pizzas, ice cream and lipstick.

Nigeria president orders push to free kidnapped girls

04 MAY 2014 12:18 SAPA-AFP

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered top security chiefs and officials to secure the release of 223 schoolgirls abducted three weeks ago.

Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram Islamists stormed the girls’ boarding school on April 14, forcing them from their dormitories onto trucks and driving them into the bush.

Anger at the government’s ineffectual response has fuelled protests at home and abroad, including in New York where dozens of Nigerians staged a protest march on Saturday demanding action to free the children.

Jonathan held closed-door talks with military and security service chiefs as well as senior officials, Borno state’s governor and police chief, and the head of the school in Chibok where the girls were seized, Reuben Abati told reporters.

Brazil's long-impoverished northeast rides into the middle class

Northeast Brazil used to be known for poverty and migration south. But locals like Maria Joelma da Silva, who the Monitor first met in 2008, are redefining the region.

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer

CUMARU, BRAZIL

Surviving as a farmer in the semi-arid northeast of Brazil has never been easy – drought is perennial, poverty is highly concentrated, and for decades the region was known best known for its migratory patterns toward cities and the wealthier south. But Maria Joelma da Silva, standing on a dusty path that cuts through her cactus-covered backyard, emphasizes that farming here is “viable” – and her experience proves it.

Six years after The Christian Science Monitor first met Ms. da Silva, she's proving that Brazil's recent economic growth and social programs not only boosted her individual quality of life, but that of the region as a whole.

Back in 2008, The Christian Science Monitor’s Sara Miller Llana wrote a series on Brazil’s economic rise.

Etihad Airways unveils world's most luxurious passenger jets

By CNN Travel staff

May 5, 2014 -- Updated 0558 GMT (1358 HKT)

(CNN) -- Etihad Airways obviously had a clear agenda when redesigning the cabins on its Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jets -- come up a product so outlandishly luxurious that the world's jet setters are left with no question as to who's leading the inflight glitz game.

Case in point: on Etihad, travelers will soon be able to fly commercially in their own private residence with access to a Savoy Academy-trained butler, gourmet chef and concierge.

Unveiled at a weekend launch to introduce Etihad's redesigned/renamed A380 and B787 cabins, "The Residence by Etihad" -- available only on the airline's A380 jets -- is a three-room VIP suite with its own living room, double bedroom and ensuite shower.

Dien Bien Phu: Did the US offer France an A-bomb?

Sixty years ago this week, French troops were defeated by Vietnamese forces at Dien Bien Phu. As historian Julian Jackson explains, it was a turning point in the history of both nations, and in the Cold War - and a battle where some in the US appear to have contemplated the use of nuclear weapons.

"Would you like two atomic bombs?" These are the words that a senior French diplomat remembered US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asking the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in April 1954. The context of this extraordinary offer was the critical plight of the French army fighting the nationalist forces of Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu in the highlands of north-west Vietnam.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu is today overshadowed by the later involvement of the Americans in Vietnam in the 1960s. But for eight years between 1946 and 1954 the French had fought their own bloody war to hold on to their Empire in the Far East.