Six In The Morning

Ukraine is approaching point of no return, says UN chief

 18 May 2014 Last updated at 07:20

 The BBC

Ukraine is edging towards “the point of no return”, a senior UN official says, amid rising tensions between security forces and pro-Russia separatists.

UN Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told the BBC that the crisis had worrying echoes of the 1990s war in his native Croatia.

Reports from eastern Ukraine say clashes between government forces and separatist militants have continued.

The separatists have not taken part in EU-brokered talks to defuse the crisis.

China evacuates 3,000 nationals from Vietnam as conflict simmers

 Vietnamese government clamps down on demonstrations after attacks on Chinese and other foreign businesses

Kate Hodal in Ho Chi Minh City, and agencies

theguardian.com, Sunday 18 May 2014 04.28 BST

China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its nationals from Vietnam, state media reported on Sunday, after a wave of anti-China unrest following Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in contested waters.

But the anti-China protests planned for Sunday in Ho Chi Minh City, originally sanctioned by the Vietnamese government, were quickly stopped by scores of uniformed and secret police.

Armed with batons and walkie talkies, they contained the small group of protesters holding up notebook-sized banners reading “Vietnam is small but no coward” and chanting “Vietnam! Vietnam!”.

 Egypt elections: Is Hamdeen Sabbahy a challenger for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s presidency – or his stooge?

The oppositionist underdog in this month’s poll hopes to defy the odds

TOM DALE  CAIRO  Sunday 18 May 2014

Hamdeen Sabbahy has the photographs of two men in a frame on his desk: his father, with the lined, sun-worn face of a peasant farmer, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, widely described as the first leader of an Arab nation to challenge Western dominance of the Middle East.

Their inspiration has carried him through five decades as an opposition activist, and has now pitched him headlong into a race for Egypt’s presidency. When Egyptians go to the polls this month they are widely expected to return a landslide victory for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former military chief with austere personal habits and an austere vision for Egypt – hard work, sacrifice, and certainly no more protesting.

His lone challenger is Mr Sabbahy, an avuncular and warm lifelong oppositionist with roots among the impoverished farmers of the Nile Delta who promises to fulfil the aspirations of the revolution that broke out three years ago: bread, freedom and social justice.

Historic floods claim lives, wreak havoc in Bosnia, Serbia

Flooding continues to claim lives and devastate villages in Bosnia and Serbia. Three months worth of rain has fallen in three days, the worst downpour in 120 years.

DW

Rescue workers on Saturday were evacuating some 10,000 people from the northeastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina on the Serbian border as heavy rain left villages along the Sava River submerged in water.

So far, the floods have claimed more than 20 lives in Bosnia, according to officials. But the toll could rise as the waters recede and additional bodies emerge.

“More than 20 corpses have so far been brought to the city’s morgue,” Obren Petrovic, the mayor of northern town Doboj, told Bosnia’s FTV public broadcaster.

Pyongyang building collapse leaves many casualties



 By JUNG-YOON CHOI

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korean officials offered a rare public apology for the collapse of an apartment building under construction in Pyongyang, which a South Korean official said was believed to have caused considerable casualties that could mean hundreds might have died.

The word of the collapse in the secretive nation’s capital was reported Sunday morning by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, which gave no death toll but said that the accident was “serious” and upset North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Prisoners take scores hostage in Brazil

 At least 122 people, mostly visiting relatives of inmates, seized during prison riot in Aracaju in country’s northeast.

 Last updated: 18 May 2014 06:40

Inmates have taken 122 hostages in a prison in Brazil’s northeastern state of Sergipe, AFP news agency reports quoting a prison spokeswoman.

Sandra Melo, said on Sunday that negotiations had started for the release of the hostages, who were mainly visitors to the Advogado Jacinto Filho prison, near Aracaju city.

The hostages were taken during a riot on Saturday that had calmed, Melo added.

“The riot is only in one wing of the prison,” Melo said, adding that mostly visiting relatives of the inmates were among the hostages.