Section: Newsweek (USA)
Photos: Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians Celebrate Epiphany With Icy Plunge
Orthodox Christians across Eastern Europe, including conflict-plagued Ukraine, celebrated the feast of the Epiphany on Monday by taking a dip in freezing cold water, regardless of the subzero temperatures outside. The feast of the Epiphany is traditionally dated January 6 when using the more generally-used Gregorian Calendar. However, according...
Pro-Russian Separatists Renew Attack on Eastern Ukraine
KIEV (Reuters) – Pro-Russian separatists renewed attacks on Ukrainian forces at an airport complex in the east on Monday after Kiev launched a mass operation to reclaim lost ground there that Russia called a “strategic mistake”. Ukrainian officials said three soldiers had been killed and 66 wounded over the past 24 hours, during...
EU Not Ready to Lift Sanctions Against Russia
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers said on Monday there were no grounds to lift economic sanctions against Russia despite conciliatory proposals from the EU’s foreign policy chief, as violence intensified in Ukraine. Federica Mogherini had suggested in a confidential memo seen by Reuters that member states could...
Battles Rages at Ukrainian Airport
KIEV (Reuters) – Fighting raged on Saturday at the main airport of Ukraine’s city of Donetsk as separatists resumed attempts to break the tenuous grip of government forces on the complex and Kiev’s military said three more Ukrainian soldiers had been killed. With attempts to restart peace talks stalled, pro-Russian rebels have...
Lithuania Begins Trial of Two Alleged Spies With Suspected Links to Russia
The Vilnius District Court in the Lithuanian capital has heard the cases of at least two alleged Belarusian spies on Friday, both also under investigation for ties to Russian intelligence, Baltic news agency Delfi reported. The first alleged spy, 28-year-old Lithuanian military medic Andrejus Ošurkovas, who was arrested in January last year, is...
Anti-Kremlin Activist Navalny Detained By Police After Criticising Putin on Live Radio
The Russian Kremlin-critic and opposition figure Alexei Navalny was detained by police yesterday after saying on a live radio show that Russian president Vladimir Putin “created problems for years to come” by annexing Crimea from Ukraine. Navalny was then met by security forces outside the building of the independent radio station Echo of Moscow...
Cameron to Lobby Obama on Last UK Resident Held in Guantanamo
Prime Minister David Cameron plans to lobby U.S. President Barack Obama for the release of the last British resident held at Guantanamo Bay on his two-day visit to Washington this week, a government source and the detainee’s lawyer said. The trip, starting on Thursday and focused on the economy and security, is his last planned visit to...
Fighting Escalates in Ukraine With Attacks on Bus, Donetsk Airport
KIEV (Reuters) – A passenger bus came under heavy fire in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, Ukrainian authorities said, and fighting intensified around the international airport in the city of Donetsk as separatists tried to oust government forces. The latest violence flared after Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany...
Nazi-Era German Word ‘Luegenpresse’ Makes a Comeback
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German linguists’ panel has chosen a Nazi-era term “Luegenpresse” (lying press), which anti-immigrant protesters have revived and shouted at the media, as the country’s non-word of the year. Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the demands – an end to multiculturalism – of the...
Kim Jong-un ‘Snubs China’ and Accepts Putin’s Invite to Moscow
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has accepted an invitation from Russian president Vladimir Putin to attend a military march in Moscow this May, according to South Korean media, making his first ever foreign visit since coming to power in 2011. “It was confirmed that North Korea gave a positive response to the Russian invitation for Kim...
