Ukraine

Ukraine

7/16/14

KIEV (Reuters) - Fighting raged in Ukraine's east on Wednesday when separatists tried to break through the lines of government forces near the border with Russia and a tentative step towards agreeing conditions for a ceasefire failed.

Eleven more Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the space of 24 hours while hundreds of bodies of rebels were found in shallow graves in a former separatist stronghold, the army said.

Fighting has escalated sharply since Friday with the downing of a Ukrainian military transport plane and the deaths of civilians in air and artillery attacks on residential areas on both sides of the border, which Russia and Ukraine have blamed on each other.

Accusations of direct Russian involvement in the three and a half month conflict, in which hundreds have died, is being pushed hard by Ukraine to persuade the United States and its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on Russia.

In telephone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, late on Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko again set out evidence of fighters crossing into Ukraine from Russia with heavy military equipment, his website said.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk leveled harsh criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Everything which is happening in Ukraine has been planned by Russia since 2004. Putin has a clear plan and that is to destroy Ukraine and establish his influence over post-Soviet space," he said in a public speech carried by his website.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council, told journalists that separatists had kept up attacks overnight on government positions along the border.

Government troops had been ambushed by separatists at Izvarino on the border and there had been early morning clashes near the border settlement of Stepanivka when separatists tried to break out of encirclement by the army.

Lysenko said that in Slaviansk, a former rebel stronghold re-taken by government forces, "hundreds of bodies of...(rebel) fighters" had been found under a light covering of earth.

Eleven people were said by local health authorities to have been killed in an air strike at the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, 20 km (12 miles) from the border.

{whose airstrike?}

Since losing Slaviansk, rebels has been pushed back to the main industrial city of Donetsk though they also remain in control of the border town of Luhansk.

Donetsk, which had a pre-conflict population of about 900,000 people, has been steadily emptying as thousands, fearing a government offensive, have fled.

Lyudmila, 35, who was leaving Donetsk, said: "I have been forced to gather up my things and get away from this lawless, genocide, which is happening. I am simply saving my children. My husband is staying behind. I have left my home and my work. I am leaving to save my children."

People:

Ukraine

Ukraine President – Petro Poroshenko

Ukraine Prime Minister - Arseny Yatseniuk

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council,

Ukraine Defense Minister Valery Heletey

Rebels

Aleksandr Borodai – Separatist Leader

Alexander Khodakovsky – rebel leader

Nikolay Kozitsyn – rebel leader

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk

The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter

Towns –

Rebel control – Slaviansk (former) – hundreds of bodies found in shallow grave, Donetsk, Luhansk

Snizhne – 11 people dead in airstrike –

Rebel attacks in the towns of Izvarino and Luhansk

Zelenopillya,

Marinivka – rebel owned?

Places;

Luhansk airport

Organizations:

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

Countries

Russia versus Ukraine

France + Russia

US + Ukraine

Others – Germany,

EU – is on Ukraine’s side – is this conflict about Ukraine joining the European Union?

07/14/14

President Petro Poroshenko held an emergency meeting of his security chiefs after a weekend of Ukrainian air strikes on rebel positions near the border with Russia

Diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis have so far made little progress. However, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said a "Contact Group" - which includes Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - aimed to talk to the rebels by video link on Tuesday and meet them in person soon afterwards.

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

(look this organization up ) – who are they? What do they do?

Lysenko added that three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 12 more injured in the fighting in the past 24 hours.

The Ukrainian army said it had broken a rebel encirclement of Luhansk airport on Sunday night. A spokesman for the so-called Luhansk People's Republic said 30 volunteer fighters had been killed in Ukrainian fire on Oleksandrivka, a village to the east of the town, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

As military action continued on Monday near the rebel-controlled border town of Luhansk, Ukraine's defence minister said a Ukrainian AN-26 transport plane, taking part in the military campaign against the rebels, had been shot down by a rocket which was "probably" fired from Russian territory.

Lysenko said separatists, backed by what he described as Russian "mercenaries", had fired on Ukrainian border guards in an attempt to give cover as armored vehicles and equipment were being brought into the country.

Russia said it had invited monitors from the OSCE, a European security and rights body, to visit two of its border crossings with Ukraine as a sign of goodwill.

(Does Russia have an undue influence on this organization?)

A few hundred Ukrainians protested against France's sale of two Mistral helicopter carrier vessels to Russia outside a museum in Kiev on Monday where the French national day was being celebrated.

Russian seamen are training in France on the amphibious assault ships which will be delivered by the end of the year under a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal signed in 2011.

(France sold Russia amphibious assault ships - $1.6 billion)

The EU - Ukraine's strategic partner with which it signed a landmark political and trade agreement last month - targeted a group of separatist leaders with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday but avoided fresh sanctions on Russian business.

(who are these individuals?)

US Ambassador Anthony Gardner told Brussels journalists that his country had have maintained a high degree of collaboration with the EU.

July 12, 2014

The European Union targeted Ukrainian separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai and 10 other rebels with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday, avoiding fresh sanctions on Russian business to avoid antagonizing its main energy supplier.

EU governments widened their blacklist

(there is a blacklist – who is on the blacklist?)

Borodai, a 41-year-old Russian citizen, told a news conference in May that he was a political advisor who helped Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea in March and then moved to eastern Ukraine to help separatists there.

He denies any links to Moscow.

Others on the EU list include Alexander Khodakovsky, a defector from the Ukrainian state security service who now commands rebels, and Nikolay Kozitsyn, identified by the EU as another rebel commander.

Poroshenko had pledged to "find and destroy" the pro-Russian rebels responsible for the missile attack at Zelenopillya, which also injured nearly 100.

OSCE

From their website

http://www.osce.org

The OSCE has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities. All 57 participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis.

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter, at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014. (OSCE/Isabella Zaratsyan)

2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014

7/17/14

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk, said one rebel militiaman was killed and 15 others injured in fighting in the village of Marinivka. The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin, told the Russian television station LifeNews that his men destroyed two Ukrainian armored vehicles and captured another.

In the rebel-held city of Donetsk, a stronghold for insurgent forces

Russia

Russia

July 16

Flowers are left in memory of victims of Tuesday's accident, in which three carriages derailed on a train during morning rush hour, at the entrance to a metro station in Moscow July 16, 2014. Russian state investigators said on Wednesday they had detained two Moscow metro workers suspected of safety breaches that may have caused an accident that killed at least 21 people

Nigeria

Nigeria
MAIDUGURI Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 26 people were killed when suspected Islamist Boko Haram militants stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and a government warplane opened fire to repel the attackers, local residents and a security source said on Tuesday.

The warplane strafed Boko Haram fighters fleeing in pick-up trucks after raiding Dille, near Lassa in the south of Borno State, for several hours on Monday. The attackers fired on inhabitants and burned homes and churches.

"I counted 26 corpses yesterday evening," one of the residents, Dauda Illiya, told Reuters.

Most of the deaths occurred during the raid but cannon fire from the government jet also killed at least six civilians - four women and two children, residents said.

"The pilot was just spraying bullets anywhere ... People were running here and there. Many people were injured from the bullets," said a local man, Suleiman Haruna.

Nigeria's defense headquarters in Abuja did not respond to a request for comment on the incident, but a security source in Borno State confirmed the deployment of the military plane.

The residents and the security source said 20 militants were killed by local vigilantes who fought back, but this could not be confirmed as witnesses said the raiders carried off their dead in their trucks.

Nigeria's armed forces are facing a fierce offensive in the northeast by the Islamist group Boko Haram, whose marauding bands of fighters have stepped up attacks against towns and villages after kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in April.

That abduction triggered an international outcry and increased support from Western governments for President Goodluck Jonathan's fight against Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and abducted hundreds since launching an uprising in 2009.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", says it wants to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose population is split between Christians and Muslims.

With the abducted schoolgirls still missing three months after their kidnap, Jonathan faces criticism at home and abroad over the deteriorating security situation in Africa's leading oil producer and biggest economy. [ID:nL2N0PJ0CP]

Authorities and military experts fear Boko Haram, which has claimed bomb attacks in recent months in the capital Abuja and in the coastal commercial hub Lagos, is seeking to push its insurgency into the more prosperous south. [ID:nL6N0PN09G]

BOMBING SUSPECT EXTRADITED

Nigeria's state security services said on Tuesday that a Boko Haram suspect and national army deserter, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, who was sought for alleged involvement in April 14 and May 1 bomb attacks in the Abuja area that killed 94 people, had been extradited to Nigeria from Sudan.

"Yes, he's with us", State Security spokewoman Marilyn Ogar told Reuters. She said Ogwuche was arrested by the international police agency Interpol in Sudan on a warrant from Nigeria.
The suspected militants who on Monday attacked Dille, which is not far from the Cameroon border, were believed to have come from Boko Haram's Sambisa forest stronghold where at least some of the kidnapped girls are thought to be held.
On Monday, Jonathan promised that the missing 219 girls, snatched on April 14 from Chibok, also in Borno State, would soon return home, teenage Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai said after meeting him. [ID:nL6N0PP439]
Malala, who became a global celebrity after surviving being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, was visiting Nigeria to support the international campaign for the release of the abducted Nigerian students.

Iraq

Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Residents of a town north of Baghdad found 12 corpses with execution-style bullet wounds on Monday following fighting between rival Sunni insurgents that could eventually unravel a coalition which has seized much of northern and western Iraq.

Cuba spy Base

Cuba

Moscow (AFP) - Russia has provisionally agreed to reopen a major Cold War listening post on Cuba that was used to spy on the United States, a Russian daily reported Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin visited the island last week.

Kommersant reported that Russia and Cuba had agreed "in principle" to reopen the Lourdes base, mothballed since 2001, citing several sources within Russian authorities. "The agreements were finalised while President Vladimir Putin visited Havana last Friday," the respected daily wrote.

Russia had closed the Lourdes spy base south of Havana on Putin's orders to save money and due to a rapprochement with the United States after the September 11 attacks.

But Moscow has since shown a new interest in Latin America and its Cold War ally Cuba and relations with the West have deteriorated amid the Ukraine crisis.

The base was set up in 1964 after the Cuban missile crisis to spy on the United States. Just 250 kilometres (155 miles) from the US coast, it was the Soviet Union's largest covert military outpost abroad with up to 3,000 staff.

A secret Russian listening station conducts it's activities October 18, 2001 in Lourdes some 18 mile …

It was used to listen in to radio signals including those from submarines and ships and satellite communications.
"All I can say is -- finally!" one Russian source told Kommersant of the reported reopening.
The defence ministry and military high command declined to comment on the report to Kommersant.
Ahead of Putin's visit to Cuba last week as part of a Latin American tour, Russia agreed to write off 90 percent of Cuba's debt dating back to the Soviet era, totalling around $32 billion.
Russia paid Cuba rent of $200 million per year to use the base in the last few years it was open.
A former head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, told the newspaper the base would strengthen Russia's international position.
"Lourdes gave the Soviet Union eyes in the whole of the western hemisphere," he said. "For Russia, which is fighting for its lawful rights and place in the international community, it would be no less valuable than for the USSR."

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near a busy market and a mosque in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 89 people in the deadliest insurgent attack on civilians since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. (July 16)