PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS REFUSE GENEVA DEAL
Pro-Russian protesters in Eastern Ukraine have rejected the deal reached yesterday in Geneva, refusing to leave the official buildings they have been occupying over the past week in more than 10 cities, the BBC reports. Alexander Gnezdilov, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said that they would only leave the buildings when the “illegal” government in Kiev resigned.
- This comes after Ukraine’s Interim Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchytsa was quoted by Russian media as saying that “the troops in the East of the country are carrying out a special operation and can remain where they are,” despite yesterday’s agreement to take “concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens.” Interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk told Ukraine’s Parliament this morning that he wasn’t placing any “unreasonable” hope in the agreement.
- French economist and Russia expert Jacques Sapir writes on his blog that yesterday’s deal between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union was welcome news, but ultimately offered a rather grim dose of realism: “Quite clearly it is not enough to stop the process leading to a civil war.”
FAREWELL TO LEGEND OF LITERATURE
Tributes and memories rolled in overnight across Latin America, and beyond for one of the great writers of the 20th century, Gabriel García Márquez, who died of pneumonia at age 87 on Thursday in Mexico City.
We’ve put together a collection of Front Pages from newspapers around the world that marked the passing of the Colombian-born 1982 Nobel Prize winner.
García Márquez will be notably remembered for his novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, which helped put a literary genre known as "magic realism" on the map.
Read García Márquez's obituary by Enrique Fernandez for The Miami Herald here.
Last month, Colombian daily El Espectador published a fascinating look at the writer's relationship with his mother, translated by Worldcrunch here.
ARREST WARRANT FOR CAPTAIN OF SOUTH KOREAN FERRY
South Korean prosecutors asked a court for an arrest warrant for the captain of the ferry that sank on Wednesday with 475 passengers, including 325 high school students, as the death toll rose to 28, with 179 people rescued. South Korean newspaper The Chosunilbo reports that the captain instructed the passengers to remain in their cabins as it was “dangerous” to go outside, while he and some of his crew fled the sinking ship without taking emergency measures. Investigators also said that the captain wasn’t at the helm. "It was the third officer who was in command of steering the ship when the accident took place," state prosecutor Park Jae-Eok told journalists. In another dramatic development, AP reports that the high school vice principal, who was rescued from the ferry, was found hanging from a tree.
DEADLY ATTACK ON SOUTH SUDAN UN BASE
At least 48 civilians were killed and 60 injured after gunmen pretending to be peaceful protesters stormed a United Nations base in the South Sudan city of Bor where some 5,000 civilians were sheltered, Al Arabiya quotes a UN source as saying. According to the website Sudan Tribune, the base was a shelter for the “Nuer ethnic group, of which former vice president turned rebel leader Riek Machar hails.” The ongoing violence in the three-year-old country has already forced more than 1 million people out of their homes.
SEARCH FOR NIGERIAN SCHOOLGIRLS
Inhabitants from the Nigerian town of Chibok are searching for the schoolgirls abducted on Monday in the Sambisa forest, known as a hiding place for Boko Haram, the Islamist group suspected of being behind the attack, AP reports. According to a local official, six more girls managed to escape, meaning that 20 are now free, with more than 100 still missing. Yesterday, Nigeria’s Defense Ministry’s spokesman retracted his previous statement, in which he had announced that all but eight girls had been freed by the army, blaming it on a field report which indicated "a major breakthrough."
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
Her mother Lea Garofalo was brutally killed by her father in 2009, with the help of her own boyfriend. Now in a witness protection program, Denise Cosco courageously speaks out against the dark underworld, and her murderous father. Here is what she toldLa Stampa’s Michele Brambilla: “Mom knew that he was murdering people, and she didn’t want to bring up a baby in that kind of environment. My father said there was no way she was having an abortion. I was to be an instrument that would unite the powerful Garofalo family. But then, everything capsized. Mom gave birth, alone, in a hospital almost 80 kilometers away, and I became her reason to live. Up until she died, we were inseparable.”
Read the full article here: The Tragedy And Courage Of A Mobster's Daughter.
MOUNT EVEREST’S DEADLIEST AVALANCHE
At least 14 Nepalese climbers died in an avalanche on Mount Everest early today which officials have described as the worst accident to have hit the world's highest peak, Nepalese website eKantipur reports. According to the BBC, the avalanche struck in an area known as the "popcorn field", just above Everest base camp at 5,800m (19,000ft). A rescue operation is underway to find missing people, believed to be trapped under the snow.
INSATIABLE APPETITE
Twelve bars of gold weighing 400g have been recovered from the stomach of a businessman in the Indian capital.
VERBATIM
"It’s a fraud on a large scale." Ali Benfils, the main opponent of Algerian president and fourth-term candidate Abdelaziz Bouteflika, claimed Thursday's presidential election was rigged.
RETRO YOUTUBE
British Pathé, one of the leading producers of newsreels and documentaries during the 20th Century is turning over its entire collection — over 85,000 historical films — to YouTube.
