Putin slams Trump ties as top diplomats spar on Syria
Russian president says ties with US worsened in recent months as top diplomats lock horns over Syria conflict.
The trust between Washington and Moscow has "deteriorated" since Donald Trump was elected US president, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, as the Kremlin dismissed US calls to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as "short-sighted" and "absurd".
The comments came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the Trump adminstration to clarify its policies as he opened a fraught meeting with his American counterpart, Rex Tillerson.
"One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated," Putin said in an interview broadcast on Russian television.
Anger in Asia over passenger forcibly removed from United Airlines flight
Call for boycott of company in Vietnam while China’s state-run media sees it as proof of the US’s hypocrisy on human rights
Outrage over the violent removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight swept across Asia on Wednesday, with Vietnamese internet users calling for a boycott of the company and China’s state-run media seizing on the episode as proof of the US’s hypocrisy over human rights.
The eviction of David Dao, a 69-year-old American doctor, from United Airlines Flight 3411 on Sunday night prompted a massive outpouring of indignation and criticism on social media in China after initial reports that he was Chinese.
By Wednesday afternoon a post about Dao’s treatment on Weibo, the Chinese microblogging site, had been viewed more than 600m times.
Tabua: Demand for Fijian love necklaces made from sperm whale teeth shows no sign of slowing
Trinkets made from dentures of mammals considered sacred part of tradition dating back centuries
Tucked inside a dark shopping plaza in this otherwise enchanting city in the South Pacific is Henry’s Pawn Shop. Inside, Joseph Baivatu, 29, prepares to make the next payment on a layaway for something very special: a large sperm whale tooth. Known as a tabua in Fiji, a sperm whale’s tooth is often given by a groom and his family to the parents of the man’s (hopefully) future bride when he asks permission to marry her.
“The whole of my life I want to be married, so I give my goods and my time,” said Mr. Baivatu, a Vodafone technician in Suva, Fiji’s capital and largest city. “I give the tabua, and that means ‘I love you’ from the inside.”
Mr. Baivatu, who is as soft-spoken as he is tall and broad shouldered, said he had yet to meet the future Mrs. Baivatu, but that detail does not get in the way. He is determined to be ready with tabuas when she turns up.
Four lives upended by Erdogan's
'cleansing'
urkey, the transcontinental country that straddles Europe and Asia, has been witnessing tectonic shifts in recent years that accelerated after the July 15, 2016, coup attempt. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised a “cleansing” of state institutions that led to a tightening of his grip on power and sparked a major purge that upended the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Turks. On the eve of the April 16 constitutional referendum, FRANCE 24 met with four victims of this purge.
July can be an oppressive month for the residents of the Turkish coastal city of Antalya. Temperatures soar, the Mediterranean belches a muggy vapour over the city and many Antalyans try to escape for the cool of the surrounding Taurus Mountains even as tourists pour into local resorts.
But for the Yildirim* family, the summer of 2016 offered no escape.
Dortmund bus attack: 1 detained, 'terrorist involvement' suspected
Updated 1321 GMT (2121 HKT) April 12, 201
German authorities suspect "terrorist involvement" in a bomb attack on the bus of the Borussia Dortmund soccer team and are investigating a possible radical Islamist link, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office said Wednesday.
The investigation is focused on two suspects from the "Islamist spectrum," spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said. Their homes have been searched and one has been temporarily detained, she said.
Three explosive devices shattered windows and injured a player on the Borussia Dortmund team bus Tuesday evening local time as the German squad was en route to its home Champions League match against AS Monaco.United Airlines boss Oscar Munoz will not resign
United Airlines' chief executive has said he will not quit amid an explosive backlash to video of a screaming man being dragged off a plane.
Oscar Munoz said he felt "shame and embarrassment" and vowed it would never happen again to a seated passenger on one of United's overbooked aircraft.
The embattled aviation boss said the passenger in question, David Dao, deserved "certainly an apology".
Mr Munoz had initially described Mr Dao as "disruptive and belligerent".
"That shame and embarrassment was pretty palpable for me and for a lot of our family," the contrite chief executive told ABC's Good Morning America programme.
Asked if he would stand down, Mr Munoz said: "No. I was hired to make United better and we've been doing that and that's what I'll continue to do."
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