CALL FOR PEACEKEEPERS RANKLES RUSSIA
Russia reacted strongly to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s call yesterday for UN peacekeepers to be deployed in eastern Ukraine. Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said it “raises suspicions that he wants to destroy the Minsk accords,” the BBC reports. Pro-Russian rebels encircling the town of Debaltseve had refused to lay down their weapons despite the ceasefire that officially began Sunday, claiming the town was their own territory.
- According to French President Francois Hollande’s office, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France talked on the phone earlier today, during which both Poroshenko and Putin denounced the ceasefire breach and called for full implementation of the Minsk agreement.
OBAMA VS. EXTREMISM
During a counter-extremism summit in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama urged more than 60 countries to join the fight against violent extremism and terrorist groups such as ISIS. “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” he said, adding that it was crucial “to confront squarely and honestly the twisted ideologies” that target young people, The New York Times reports. This came amid claims that ISIS is harvesting organs from slain civilians for money. The United Nations said it would launch an investigation.
- Libya’s foreign minister, meanwhile, asked the UN to lift a weapons embargo to help the army fight the rise of an ISIS-affiliated group. But critics have repeatedly blamed the lack of a functioning government since the 2011 uprising as the main reason for the rise of extremist groups.
VERBATIM
“It was like a near-death experience without the inconvenience of coming close to dying,” Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste told the BBC about his 400 days in an Egyptian prison.
GREECE REQUESTS LOAN EXTENSION
After days of tough negotiations, Greece has formally asked the European Union for a six-month extension of its current bailout program in a last-ditch effort to avoid running out of cash at the end of the month, AFP reports. Eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels tomorrow afternoon to discuss a potential agreement. Greece has been trying not to renew the current bailout program and the austerity measures attached to it, but the loan request will buy the government some time to begin implementing reforms.
SNAPSHOT
Photo above: Cheong Kam Ka/Xinhua/ZUMA
People in Macau, southeastern China, perform a “dragon dance” Thursday to ring in the Year Of The Sheep.
$41.6 MILLION
The Pentagon spent $84 million on erectile dysfunction drugs for active and retired service members last year, including $41.6 million on Viagra alone, a report in The Military Times shows.
NIGER VILLAGE BOMBED
At least 37 people were killed Tuesday after a military plane dropped a bomb on a village in Niger, on the border with Nigeria. Survivors are blaming the Nigerian army for the attack, CNN reports. Nigerian officials have denied the charge, saying the army wasn’t conducting air raids against Boko Haram that day. According to Radio France Internationale, the bomb fell on a mosque during a funeral ceremony. The incident is likely to worsen an already tense situation between the two countries, as Boko Haram threatens the whole region.
FRANCE REGISTERS DEFLATION
Consumer prices in France fell 1% in January, meaning the year-on-year inflation rate was -0.4%, the lowest since 2009, business daily Les Échos reports.
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
As Clarin’s Berto Gonzalez Montaner reports, architectural and planning innovations have given new life to Bilbao, Spain, transforming it from a grey post-industrial city into a trendy tourist destination. “‘This used to be all filth,’ a local recalled of the area before. ‘All the industrial and sewage waste ended up in the river, which was completely polluted and gave off an unbearable stench. When it rained a lot and the sea rose, the waters of the Nervion could not be evacuated, so there was flooding. All the way to the Arriaga theater at the gates of the old quarter there were up to four meters of water!’ But when they took the polluting factories out of town, created the treatment plant and cleaned the river, everything changed.”
Read the full article, The Story Of Bilbao: Clean A River, Save The City.
VEGGIE TECH WEAR
Forget about Google Glass or the Apple Watch. This Japanese wearable tomato machine is the real deal.
