Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko says peace agreement in danger
Deadline for warring sides to halt hostilities is at one minute after midnight tomorrow
Russian-backed separatists mounted a vicious assault late on Friday in eastern Ukrainebefore a ceasefire deadline, pummelling a strategic railway hub with wave upon wave of shelling in a last-minute grab for territory.
At least 26 people were killed across the region.
The fiercest confrontations focused on the government-held town of Debaltseve, a key transport centre that has been on the receiving end of dozens of artillery and rocket salvos in the 24-hour period after the peace deal was sealed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.
The deadline for the warring sides to halt hostilities is at one minute after midnight tomorrow. Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Petro Mekhed, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, as saying that separatist forces had been tasked with hoisting their flags over Debaltseve, as well as the key port city of Mariupol, before the ceasefire takes hold.Millions in Ebola funds unaccounted for in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has failed to properly account for almost a third of the money it earmarked to fight the Ebola epidemic, according to an audit. More than 3,000 people have died from the epidemic in the West African nation.
Sierra Leone's national auditor said authorities lost track of nearly a third of the 84 billion leones ($19.5 million, 16.9 million euros) in emergency funds, set aside by the government between last May and October.
According to the audit, the funds were mostly spent on personal protective equipment, medical supplies, consumables and bonus payments to healthcare workers.
There was no paperwork to support the spending of 14 billion leones ($3.2 million, 2.8 million euros) from the government's emergency health response account. A further 11 billion leones spent from the same account had missing receipts and invoices.
China's propaganda tool finds itself at centre of anti-graft drive
Edward Wong
Beijing: As President Xi Jinping accelerated his sweeping campaign against government corruption, political enemies and Western influences in China, he deployed the Communist Party's most powerful propaganda tool, the state television network, like a hammer.
News programs on the network, China Central Television, showed confessions by prominent businessmen before they had even been put on trial. Foreign companies like Apple were smeared by so-called investigations programs. Heavily edited excerpts from the trial of a fallen party leader were broadcast in prime time to hundreds of millions of viewers.
But now the wrath of the party has turned on the network itself. A party inquiry into corruption at CCTV, as the network is known, has shaken up the nation's most influential news and propaganda organisation, riveting the country with reports involving a seamy mix of celebrities, sex and bribery.
Marshall Islands setback on disarmament
By Josh Butler
UNITED NATIONS - A lawsuit by the Marshall Islands accusing the United States of failing to begin negotiations for nuclear disarmament has been thrown out of an American court.
The Marshall Islands is currently pursuing actions against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom in the International Court of Justice, for failing to negotiate nuclear disarmament as required in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Action against the US had been filed in a federal court in
California, as the United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ.
David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said the US conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonating daily for 12 years.
ISIS Terror: Yazidi Woman Recalls Horrors of Slave Auction
BY RICHARD ENGEL AND JAMES NOVOGROD
D OHOK, Iraq — Farida says there were 80 girls in that large room in Raqqa, the ISIS capital in eastern Syria. They were all about to be bought as slaves by ISIS fighters. She remembers the girls wept — and the men laughed.
The slave auction lasted for several days. The men would come into the large room to pay an ISIS official and then take away one or two or three girls each. Farida, 19, doesn't know how much money she was sold for and, until we showed her a video on an iPad, she had never seen a slave auction from the perspective of the buyers.
Farida stared at the video of about a dozen ISIS fighters. The militants laughed and cracked jokes about their sexual prowess, the older ones saying the younger men weren't ready for all the fun they were about to have with their personal sex slaves.
Government, Okinawa at loggerheads as Onaga eyes order to halt Henoko construction
JIJI, KYODO, AP
NAHA, OKINAWA PREF./SAN FRANCISCO – The planned relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has pitted the central government against Okinawa Prefecture, leaving the two increasingly at odds and adding to the complexities the move faces.
On Friday, Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga said that he is considering using his power as head of the prefecture to order a suspension of the Defense Ministry’s preparations for constructing a new base in the Henoko coastal district of Nago.
“I will use every means to fulfill my campaign pledge,” Onaga told a news conference, referring to his commitment during the gubernatorial election to block the U.S. base’s construction.
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