Ceasefire In Eastern Ukraine From Sunday

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 12 Februari 2015 | 20.18

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A ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has been agreed after all-night talks in Belarus involving the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

It will come into effect on 15 February and will be followed by the withdrawal of heavy weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"We have managed to agree on the main things," he told reporters after the talks, which began on Wednesday evening and lasted 16 hours.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said: "The main thing which has been achieved is that from Saturday into Sunday there should be declared without any conditions at all, a general ceasefire."

The truce was signed by the so-called "contact group", comprising pro-Russian separatist leaders, Russian and Ukrainian envoys and European mediators.

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Gallery: Ukraine Crisis: Fighting Increases (February 11)

Local residents look at the remains of a rocket shell on a street in the town of Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine

Seven civilians have been killed and 26 wounded in rocket strikes on the town of Kramatorsk

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The body of a woman killed by the recent shelling lies on a street in the town's residential sector

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Members of the Ukrainian armed forces ride on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) near Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine

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A previous truce signed last September collapsed soon after.

The key points of the latest agreement are:

:: A general ceasefire to start on Sunday

:: Heavy weapons to be pulled back from a division line determined by both sides

:: Ukraine to take control of the border with Russia

:: The provision of special status for the rebel regions

:: Measures for addressing the humanitarian crisis affecting thousands of civilians caught up in the fighting

Mr Putin said there was still disagreement over Debaltseve, a key transport hub and the centre of fierce fighting.

He understood rebels had surrounded up to 8,000 Ukrainian troops and expected them to lay down arms ahead of the ceasefire, but Mr Poroshenko disputed this.

The ceasefire deal was welcomed by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who led the discussions.

Mr Hollande said Mrs Merkel, Mr Poroshenko and himself would ask the European Union to back the agreement at a summit later on Thursday.

Mrs Merkel said it offered a "glimmer of hope" that the conflict, which has claimed over 5,300 lives since April, would come to an end.

However, she added that "concrete steps must of course be taken and there will still be big hurdles ahead".

Ukraine received an extra boost when the International Monetary Fund confirmed a $17.5bn aid package for the country, conditional on sweeping economic reforms.

Russia also benefited from the ceasefire agreement. Its main stock market rose 6% on the news amid hopes it would lead to an easing of western sanctions.

Before the deal was announced reports suggested little progress had been made at the summit, in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Sky's Stuart Ramsay, in Minsk, said: "This has been quite a remarkable night where it looked like they weren't even going to come at one point.

"Then we had this huge marathon meeting where everyone was convinced it would come up with a plan, then everyone thought there was a plan and then suddenly there wasn't a plan.

"Our understanding from the Ukrainians is that the rebels aren't happy with the agreement and of course the Ukrainian government itself said they weren't happy with the agreement."

Fighting in eastern Ukraine intensified ahead of the talks and continued as they were taking place, with 10 civilians and two Ukrainian soldiers killed in the last 24 hours, officials said.

Kiev claims around 50 tanks and dozens of other heavy weapons entered Ukraine from Russia while the summit was being held.

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Written By Unknown on Rabu, 11 Februari 2015 | 20.18

A Belgian court has convicted the leader of an Islamist group and many of his followers for sending jihadists to Syria.

Fouad Belkacem, the chief of the now disbanded Sharia4Belgium group, was led into the court in handcuffs and smiled as he was jailed for 12 years.

Only eight of the 46 accused appeared in Antwerp's tightly secured courtroom during the five-month trial, with the remainder believed to be in Syria or to have died fighting.

Judge Luc Potargent said: "Belkacem is responsible for the radicalisation of young men to prepare them for Salafist combat, which has at its core no place for democratic values.

"Sharia4Belgium recruited these young men for armed combat and organised their departure for Syria."

Belgium has more jihadist fighters per head of population than any other European country, with authorities estimating 350 Belgians have left for Syria, and the sentence comes with the country on high alert after a plot to kill police was uncovered last month.

Belkacem, 32, a Moroccan-born car engineer, is already serving a two-year sentence for inciting hatred against non-Muslims.

He is known for his street sermons and was a leading figure in persuading young Belgians to fight in Syria, despite never having been there himself.

The aim of his group of radicals was to establish Sharia law in Belgium, an intention he expressed in a series of YouTube videos.

Public prosecutor Ann Fransen told reporters: "Belkacem's words can only be interpreted as a call to violence and jihad."

One of the young men Belkacem was accused of radicalising is 20-year-old Jejoen Bontinck, who was charged with belonging to Sharia4Belgium.

Bontinck later became a key prosecution witness and was given a 40-month suspended sentence.

The teenager claimed he had travelled to Syria to help victims of the conflict, but his father, Dimitri, who brought him home, said he knew his son was being indoctrinated.

The other members of the group were sentenced to between three and five years in prison, with some of the sentences being suspended.

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TransAsia Offers Â£307,000 To Crash Families

Taiwan's TransAsia Airways will pay nearly half a million US dollars in compensation to relatives of each victim following a plane crash earlier this month.

The offer of $14.9m Taiwanese New Dollars (£307,000) for each family comes seven months after the airline made a similar payout to the families of 48 passengers killed in another crash last July.

TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 crashed last Wednesday just minutes after taking off from Taipei's Songshan airport.

There were 53 passengers and five crew on board and at least 42 of these were killed.

Dramatic footage captured by a bystander showed the plane hitting a road and cart-wheeling into the Keelung River.

The compensation deal comes after private discussions held in Taipei between the airline and representatives of some of the families affected.

A spokesman for the airline said the amount was offered as compensation for each person who died in the accident, adding: "We hope to reach a settlement with the families.

"We can fully understand that it would be hard for the families to accept it immediately. Still we hope the representatives could take the proposal back and take it into consideration."

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Gallery: Survivors Of TransAsia Plane Crash

Rescuers are working to help survivors. Click through for more photos

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Man Arrested Over Muslim Family's Murder

A man has reportedly been arrested on three counts of first-degree murder following a shooting in North Carolina.

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, is being held in Durham County jail following the killings of three members of the same family in Chapel Hill.

Local media say the victims have been identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh.

Mr Barakat is believed to have been a dental student at the University of North Carolina and volunteered with a charity providing emergency dental care to children in Palestine.

Hicks reportedly turned himself in after the shooting on Tuesday afternoon.

At the moment, police in Chapel Hill are not sure what the motive was.

Hicks reportedly described himself as an atheist on his Facebook page and regularly posted images and text condemning religion.

Some people on social media have claimed that the Muslim family were murdered "execution style", but that has not been confirmed.

In a statement police confirmed the three deaths and said the department is "questioning a person of interest in the crime and has reason to believe that there is no ongoing threat to the public".

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Over 300 Migrants Missing In Mediterranean

More than 300 migrants are missing after their boats sank in the Mediterranean, according to international agencies.

The information has come from nine survivors who arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.

They were among more than 300 who had left Libya on Saturday in two rubber dinghies, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

"Nine were saved after four days at sea. The other 203 were swallowed by the waves," a UN refugee agency spokeswoman said on Twitter.

The IOM said the surviving migrants spoke French, so probably came from west African nations such as Ivory Coast and Senegal.

"Because of the bad weather conditions, the two dinghies collapsed and the people fell at sea. Many drowned," IOM official Flavio Di Giacomo said.

He said the migrants had left with another dinghy carrying a group of Africans, 29 of whom died from exposure.

The tragedy is the latest in a whole series involving migrants trying to get to Italy from North Africa.

The crossing is short but perilous and the vessels used are often overcrowded and in poor condition.

Earlier this week, the Italian coastguard said at least 29 people had died from hypothermia while travelling from North Africa to Italy's coast.

In late December the coastguard said they narrowly averted a "massacre" after a cargo ship was abandoned off the southern coast of Italy with more than 900 Syrian refugees on board.

Officers said the Blue Sky M's engines had been locked and its steering set on a course which would have seen it run aground in Italy's Puglia region.

A few days later another cargo ship was found abandoned by its crew off Italy with over 300 migrants on board, mostly from Syria.

The Italian navy took control of the ageing Sierra Leone-flagged ship, the Ezadeen, and steered it to the port of Corigliano Calabro.

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Russia Looks With Envy At China's Economy

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 10 Februari 2015 | 20.18

By Katie Stallard, Moscow Correspondent, in Blagoveshchensk

Blagoveshchensk translates as the "city of good news", but there has been precious little of that for the Russian economy lately.

The value of the rouble has plummeted and the country is heading into recession, hit by the falling oil price and Western sanctions.

Russia's sovereign credit rating has been downgraded to one notch above junk level.

The government says inflation could reach 17% this year, but people we spoke to on the streets of Blagoveshchensk in the Russian Far East said prices in shops were already spiralling.

"The prices have really jumped here," said 75-year-old Valentina Kirrilova.

"It's awful, horrible. I can come to a shop with 1,000 roubles (approximately £10) and it's not enough to buy anything."

An elderly couple said prices were rising "for everything".

From the riverside in Blagoveshchensk, they can look across to the gleaming towers of Heihe City in China.

The two great powers are separated by just a few hundred metres, the breadth of the frozen Amur River.

There were plans to build a bridge to make this a trade gateway between Russia and China.

But, as with so much of the Russian economy, the promised development has so far failed to materialise.

Instead, you take an old bus over a temporary pontoon bridge - in summer everything has to go by boat.

This time last year Russians found shopping on the Chinese side cheap, but now it's the other way around - the rouble buys you half as much.

Lubov Pikolova moved here from Russia five years ago. She works in one of Heihe's hotels and sees better prospects in China.

"We have non-stop crises in Russia," she explained.

"We always have to pay for this or for that. It's not easy economically to live in Russia, so many people are trying to leave it."

Others are coming for health care. In a Chinese dental clinic we found a number of Russian patients.

"Many Russians are coming here for dentistry because it's high quality," patient Inna Sergienko said.

"The prices are low and they are excellent doctors."

Back on the Russian side, we met businessman Dmitry Gudzovskiy, who runs two Chinese restaurants in Blagoveschensk.

He outlined the problems of doing business in Russia - the endless battle with bureaucracy, and to stay on the right side of the many laws.

"Not a single businessman will tell you on camera that he is paying bribes, but you should guess yourself," he said.

"You cannot do everything correctly in business, it's just impossible. If you will act as it is written in law you should stop your business right now and just go home.

"I think that the biggest problem of the Russian economy is that there is no dialogue between the Russian government and businessmen, they don't talk to us, they treat us as vassals."

Down by the Amur River, a bronze Soviet border guard stands to attention, a monument to a lost empire.

While the oil price was high, it was easy to believe President Vladimir Putin was rebuilding that power, reclaiming Russia's place in the world, but it doesn't feel so convincing here now.

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Topless Protesters Climb On Strauss-Kahn's Car

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been confronted by topless protesters outside a courthouse in France before taking the stand at his "aggravated pimping" trial.

The economist was ambushed as his car approached the building, with Femen activists climbing on to the roof and shouting insults.

Many of the women had "guilty" scrawled on their half-naked bodies, amid allegations that Strauss-Kahn was involved in a prostitution ring.

Police handcuffed the demonstrators and forcibly removed them from the scene, throwing coats over the women's exposed chests.

Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, faces 10 years behind bars and a £1.1m fine if he is found guilty of organising prostitutes to attend sex parties with him in luxury hotels around the world.

In court, the 65-year-old denied any wrongdoing and insisted that his attendance at sex parties was rare.

The one-time presidential hopeful is expected to say that engaging in orgies with consenting adults is within his rights, and that he was unaware that the women giving him attention were prostitutes.

In 2011, a maid accused Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault at a luxury hotel in New York. That case was eventually settled in a civil suit.

His lawyer, Henri Leclerc, said at the time: "In these circumstances one isn't always clothed, and I challenge you to tell the difference between a prostitute naked and any other woman naked."

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