Tag: Six In The Morning

Freed Tymoshenko addresses Ukraine protesters

 Former prime minister tells crowds in Kiev to stay in central square as parliament impeaches President Yanukovich.

 Last updated: 23 Feb 2014 07:48

Hours after her release from prison, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has appeared before protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square, praising the demonstrators killed in violence this week and urging the crowds to keep occupying the square

Tymoshenko’s speech to about 50,000 people, made from a wheelchair because of the severe back problems she suffered in two and a half years of imprisonment, was the latest development in the country’s fast-moving political crisis, the AP news agency reported.

Tymoshenko, who appeared close to exhaustion, said: “You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!

“In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan [Independence Square] until you have concluded everything that you planned to do.”

Earlier on Saturday, parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovich from office, hours after he abandoned his Kiev office to protesters and denounced what he described as a coup.

Egypt’s Morsi due to stand trial on spying charges

 16 February 2014 Last updated at 07:56

 The BBC

Deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is due to start a new trial, on charges of espionage and conspiring to commit acts of terror.

He and 35 others are accused of working with Lebanese and Palestinian groups to carry out attacks in Egypt.

The charges are one of four prosecutions that the Islamist former leader now faces.

Mr Morsi was ousted by the military last July following mass street protests against his rule.

Since then there has been a severe crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood group, as well as on other activists seen as hostile to the military-backed government.

UN vows to press on with Homs aid delivery

 World body’s humanitarian chief, Valerie Amos, said aid workers were deliberately targeted by gun and mortar fire.

 Last updated: 09 Feb 2014 07:24

The UN’s humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has vowed to push on with relief deliveries to civilians trapped in Homs, after a Red Crescent aid convoy was attacked.

Amos’ comments come after the convoy came under mortar and gun attack on Saturday in the Syrian city, despite an agreed three-day ceasefire which began on Friday.

“I am deeply disappointed that the three-day humanitarian pause agreed between the parties to the conflict was broken today and aid workers deliberately targeted,” Amos said in a statement released late on Saturday.

“Today’s events serve as a stark reminder of the dangers that civilians and aid workers face every day across Syria,” she added.

Thailand elections: Politics of crisis

 

By Peter Shadbolt, for CNN

February 2, 2014 — Updated 0531 GMT

A state of emergency, streets paralyzed with protesters, the fatal shooting of a leading pro-government activist and an election campaign teetering on chaos may not sound like the script from a rising Southeast Asian economic powerhouse.

But for Thailand — which manages to combine economic success and political mayhem in equal measure — this weekend’s elections are just another page in an eight-year struggle between supporters and opponents of Thaksin Shinawatra.

Philippines and Rebels Agree on Peace Accord to End Insurgency

 

By FLOYD WHALEY

The Philippine government and the country’s largest Muslim insurgency group negotiated the final details of a peace accord on Saturday that many hope will end more than 40 years of violence that has killed tens of thousands of people and helped nurture Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia.

The agreement will create an autonomous Muslim-dominated region in the restive south of the predominantly Christian country, handing much of the responsibility for security there to local authorities as well as a large share of revenues from the region’s wealth of natural resources. The militants have agreed to disarm, with many expected to join Philippine security forces.

Syria crisis: US hails opposition move to attend peace talks

 19 January 2014 Last updated at 04:41 GMT



US Secretary of State John Kerry has welcomed a decision by Syria’s main political opposition group to attend next week’s peace talks in Switzerland.

His praise for the Syrian National Coalition’s “courageous” move was echoed by the UK and France.

The aim of the talks, to be held in Montreux, is to start the process of setting up a transitional government to end the war in Syria.

The three-year conflict has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.

An estimated two million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced.

Ariel Sharon: Peacemaker, hero… and butcher

 He was respected in his eight years of near-death, with no sacrilegious cartoons to damage his reputation; and he will, be assured, receive the funeral of a hero and a peacemaker. Thus do we remake history

ROBERT FISK Sunday 12 January 2014

Any other Middle Eastern leader who survived eight years in a coma would have been the butt of every cartoonist in the world. Hafez el-Assad would have appeared in his death bed, ordering his son to commit massacres; Khomeini would have been pictured demanding more executions as his life was endlessly prolonged. But of Sharon – the butcher of Sabra and Shatila for almost every Palestinian – there has been an almost sacred silence.

Cursed in life as a killer by quite a few Israeli soldiers as well as by the Arab world – which has proved pretty efficient at slaughtering its own people these past few years – Sharon was respected in his eight years of near-death, no sacrilegious cartoons to damage his reputation; and he will, be assured, receive the funeral of a hero and a peacemaker.

After typhoon, Philippines faces one of the most profound resettlement crises in decades

 

By Chico Harlan, Sunday, January 5, 8:19 AM E-mail the writer

TACLOBAN, Philippines – The typhoon that recently barreled through the Philippines has left in its wake one of the most profound resettlement crises in decades, with the number of newly homeless far exceeding the capacity of aid groups and the government to respond.

Two months after one of the strongest typhoons on record, recovery in the central Philippines has been marked by a desperate scramble for shelter, as people return to the same areas that were ravaged and construct weaker, leakier and sometimes rotting versions of their old homes.

That urgent but crude attempt to rebuild has raised the prospect that the storm-prone areas devastated by Typhoon Haiyan will emerge more vulnerable to future disasters.

Why Afghanistan’s election campaign may look familiar to American TV viewers

 

By Wajahat S. Khan, Producer, NBC News

American-style debates, polling and current affairs programming are bringing a whole new level of political punditry to Afghanistan as the country prepares to elect a new president.

Campaign managers, TV producers and pollsters are hot commodities in Kabul as live “town halls” and meet-and-greet interviews aimed at driving the democratic debate forward are getting more attention than ever before.

Despite a stubborn insurgency and an economy that the World Bank has warned will shrink as the U.S. and other Western powers begin their military withdrawal in 2014, the country’s 30 national and more than 20 regional TV channels are thriving ahead of April’s election.

Conditions for Abu Dhabi’s migrant workers ‘shame the west’

 Calls for urgent labour reform after Observer reveals construction workers face destitution, internment and deportation

David Batty

The Observer, Sunday 22 December 2013

Trade unions, human rights activists and politicians have called for urgent labour reforms to protect the thousands of migrant workers building a complex of five-star hotels and museums on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, including a new Louvre and the world’s largest Guggenheim.

The International Trade Union Confederation and art activism group Gulf Labor have urged the western institutions involved in the project, including the British Museum, to take active steps to address the workers’ welfare and press the UAE government to improve their conditions.