Failed Diplomacy: NATO Hardliners Push for Firmer Stance against Russia
After months of failed telephone diplomacy between Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, hardliners are gaining the upper hand in discussions over the appropriate response to Russia. They may soon prevail with demands that go far beyond new economic sanctions.
The official number is 25. That, according to the government, is how often German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the telephone since last November. But there are estimates and evidence to suggest that there have been closer to 35 such chats. All of the conversations focused on Ukraine. A breakthrough was never achieved.
The crisis in Eastern Europe, just two hours by plane from Berlin, is now entering its 10th month. What began with the collapse of an association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine can now be called a war. Heavy weapons are being deployed in the battle over cities and villages. Military reports speak of "strategically important highland." And each day, soldiers are dying -- some with and some without regular uniforms.
Hong Kong police detain activists during democracy protests
Chinese official faces activists' ire as city plunged into political crisis following Beijing's refusal to allow open elections
Hong Kong police have arrested at least 22 people during protests targeting a senior Chinese official visiting the city, according to authorities.
The city has been plunged into political crisis after pro-democracy activists vowed to take over the streets of the city's financial district following Beijing's refusal to grant citizens full universal suffrage.
In scenes that would be unthinkable on the mainland, Li Fei, a senior member of China's rubber-stamp parliament, has been dogged by angry demonstrations throughout his visit to the former British colony – including lawmakers heckling him during a speech on Monday.
Li is in town to explain China's controversial proposal to control who stands for the top post in the city's next leadership election, a decision that has prompted pro-democracy activists to embark on what they describe as a new "era of civil disobedience".
'Gruesome evidence of ethnic cleansing' in Iraq
Amnesty International claims to have found powerful evidence of systematic ethnic cleansing by the "Islamic State" jihadist group. Meanwhile, the United Nations has opted to send a team to investigate alleged atrocities.
Rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday accused "Islamic State" (IS) militants of carrying out the systematic ethnic cleansing of minorities across northern Iraq, citing "hair-raising" accounts from witnesses.
In its report - "Ethnic cleansing on historic scale: the Islamic State's systematic targeting of minorities in northern Iraq" - the group claimed jihadists had committed "war crimes, including mass summary killings and abductions." Among the methods of execution mentioned were decapitations, crucifixions and public stoning.
"The Islamic State is carrying out despicable crimes and has transformed rural areas of Sinjar into blood-soaked killing fields in its brutal campaign to obliterate all trace of non-Arabs and non-Sunni Muslims."
Misrata militias and Islamists seize control of Libyan capital Tripoli
September 2, 2014 - 5:49PM
David Kirkpatrick
Cairo: The government of Libya has lost control of its ministries to a coalition of militias that has taken over the capital, Tripoli, in another milestone in the disintegration of the state.
"The government reiterates that these buildings and the public headquarters are not safe and inaccessible, because they are under the control of armed men," the government said in a statement on Monday. It was issued from the eastern city of Tobruk, where the recently elected Parliament has convened in territory controlled by a renegade general who has tried to stage a coup d'etat.
The statement indicated the emergence of two rival centres of government – one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk, both of them all but powerless.
Why are Nicaraguan youths staying put while neighbors migrate north?
Of the 62,998 unaccompanied children who've been detained at the US border between Oct. 1 and the end of July, only 194 have been Nicaraguan.
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and, like its Central American neighbors, a transhipment point for cocaine headed to the United States.
But unlike El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to the north, Nicaragua hasn’t sent a wave of children and teenagers fleeing north. Of the 62,998 unaccompanied children who've been detained at the US border between Oct. 1 and the end of July, only 194 have been Nicaraguan, according to US Customs and Border Protection figures.
The reason? In part, it’s because while Nicaragua is poor, it’s also the safest country in Central America. Nicaragua’s homicide rate is slightly lower than neighboring Costa Rica, a nation known as the Switzerland of Central America.Vicious transnational street gangs that have overwhelmed police forces elsewhere have no presence in Nicaragua.
2 September 2014 Last updated at 00:04
Why Paris is forgetting Ernest Hemingway
American writer Ernest Hemingway had close links with Paris. He first lived there in 1920 and played a marginal, much-mythologised, role in the 1944 liberation of the city. But now, 70 years on, memories of the author are starting to fade.
Twenty years ago when I first started reporting from Paris, a story on Hemingway would have been so corny that you would have got short shrift from any editor had you ever had the gall to suggest it.
Paris was full of Hemingway wannabes - young people just out of university sitting dreamily in cafes and struggling to get their prose more muscular.
There were guided tours round the sites - his homes on the Left Bank and the Shakespeare and Company bookshop.
No self-respecting acolyte would be seen on the street without a copy of Hemingway's magisterial memoir of Paris in the 1920s, published posthumously under the title A Moveable Feast.
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