Sotloff Family Grieving After Hostage Killed

The family of US hostage Steven Sotloff have seen a video which purportedly shows him being beheaded by an Islamic State fighter, and are grieving privately.

Barak Barfi, a family spokesman, also said authorities have not established its authenticity.

He said: "The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately. There will be no public comment from the family during this difficult time."

Mr Sotloff, 31, was a freelance journalist for Time and Foreign Policy magazines who went missing in Syria.

He was apparently killed by IS in revenge for US airstrikes on the Islamist militant group in Iraq.

Mr Sotloff has reportedly been killed by Islamic State

His reported death comes two weeks after the release of a video showing the killing of fellow US citizen James Foley and Mr Sotloff being threatened with death.

That led to Mr Sotloff's mother Shirley pleading for her son's life.

A friend of both hostages, Matthew Van Dyke, told Sky News it was time for the US to consider paying ransoms to secure the release of hostages.

IS had reportedly demanded £80m for Mr Foley's release.

But the US - unlike several European countries that have given millions to the terror group to spare their citizens - refused to pay.

Mr Van Dyke told Sky News he hoped the apparent killing was a "wake-up call to Americans", adding: "This is a serious threat".

Shirley Sotloff had pleaded for her son's life

He went on: "They are executing Americans and videotaping it and we need to do something about that. The US administration needs to get serious about the problem."

Mr Van Dyke said there were more Americans being held by IS and "we need to bring them home".

He said authorities should "re-examine the policy of paying ransoms for prisoner exchanges to at least get these people home and then take on IS and kill them before they get to spend the money."

Mr Van Dyke said the news of Mr Sotloff's reported death was "horrible", adding: "I've lost two friends in two weeks."

He said Mr Sotloff was a "brilliant journalist, hard working and dedicated".

"He knew the dangers but he knew the story needed to be told."

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Russia And Ukraine Agree 'Permanent Ceasefire'

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko have agreed a ceasefire to end the conflict in Ukraine, Kiev says.

"Mutual understanding was achieved concerning the steps which will enable the establishment of peace," a statement from Mr Poroshenko's press office said, after he and Mr Putin spoke by telephone.

Despite the announcement a deal had been reached, a spokesman for Mr Putin declared the deal was not technically a ceasefire as Russia was not party to the Ukraine conflict.

Putin and Poroshenko were unable to agree when they met last week

But Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying the leaders' views "overlap to a considerable degree".

"The heads of state exchanged opinions about what needs to be done first in order to bring an end to the bloodletting in the southeast of the country as soon as possible," said Mr Peskov.

A few hours after the announcement witnesses said they heard loud artillery explosions on the northern outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

News of the developments was greeted with an immediate rally on the markets - the main Russian stock exchange, the Micex, rising 4%.

The rouble also clawed back 1.3% against the US dollar, having fallen to record lows at the height of the crisis. Airline and banking stocks also rose in London with the FTSE 100 reaching a 14-year high in morning trade.

The news came as Russia announced it was to hold major military exercises in September of the forces responsible for its long-range nuclear capability. The drills will involve more than 4,000 servicemen and 400 technical units. 

Meanwhile, world leaders have begun arriving in the UK ahead of a two-day Nato summit in Wales where the Ukraine crisis will be at the top of the agenda. 

The conflict will be at the top of the agenda at the Nato summit in Wales

At an address in Estonia today ahead of the summit, President Obama reminded journalists of America's military commitment to the region.

"In Ukraine earlier this year the United States increased our presence further," he said.

"We have contributed additional aircraft to the Baltic policing mission and we are continuously rotating personnel and aircraft through the Baltics."

Mr Putin and Mr Poroshenko met last week in Minsk but made no progress towards resolving the conflict, which has intensified in recent weeks as the West and Kiev accused Russia of deploying troops in Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond recently warned that Nato must show it still has the political will to fight back in the event of a Russian attack on any member states.

Mr Hammond said: "For Nato to maintain its credibility in the future, we have to demonstrate that we maintain the political will to act to defend ourselves and our interests.

"We have to be clear that we have not lost the appetite to intervene when our interests or our obligations require us to do so."

Despite the claims, Russia has repeatedly denied its soldiers were sent into eastern Ukraine.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

IS Beheading: Militants Threaten Brit Hostage

Sotloff: Driven Reporter And Mideast Expert

Updated: 12:29pm UK, Wednesday 03 September 2014

Steven Sotloff, the US journalist who was beheaded by Islamic State militants, was passionate about the Middle East and had long worked in the area.

Friends and colleagues described 31-year-old Mr Sotloff as an honest and courageous journalist who sought to understand the culture of the places he reported from and tell the stories of the people affected by conflict.

His work appeared in Time, Foreign Affairs and World Affairs magazines.

"Steven was very ethical, very driven, an exceptional journalist and an exceptional person," said Matthew Van Dyke, an activist and film-maker who met Mr Sotloff in Libya in 2012.

"He was also a cautious journalist, he did everything the right way," he told Sky News.

Mr Sotloff vanished in Syria in August 2013. His capture was kept secret for months at the request of his family, who said they were now grieving privately.

He then appeared in a video that showed the beheading of fellow US journalist James Foley last month.

A Miami native, Mr Sotloff attended the University of Central Florida, where he took an interest in journalism. He did not graduate from the university.

"Devastated and crushed. Steve was an amazing friend. Lucky to have him in my life. Heart is heavy for his family," Emerson Lotzia, who roomed with Mr Sotloff at UCF, said via Twitter.

He covered the Arab Spring uprisings and several Middle East hotspots, including Yemen, Egypt and Libya. He learnt Arabic.

"He lived in the region for a time, he really got to know the people, the culture," said Mr Van Dyke.

"This was a region that was important to him, he wasn't somebody who jumped from conflict to conflict all over the world, he was a regional specialist and he knew what he was doing."

In his Facebook and Twitter profiles Mr Sotloff called himself a "stand-up philosopher from Miami" and often spoke of his love for the Miami Heat.

In June 12, he tweeted: "Is it bad that I want to focus on #syria, but all I can think of is a #HEATFinals  repeat".

A statement by World Affairs released on August 20 described Mr Sotloff as "an honest and thoughtful journalist who strives to understand the story from local perspectives and report his findings straightforwardly. He is certainly courageous".

The executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Mr Sotloff, like Mr Foley, had gone to Syria "to tell a story".

"Journalists know that covering war is inherently dangerous and that they could get killed in crossfire," Joel Simon said.

"But being butchered in front of camera simply for being a reporter is pure barbarism."

The group said that at least 70 other journalists have been killed covering the conflict in Syria, including some who died over the border in Lebanon and Turkey.

More than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria, it said.

Some Western journalists are believed to be in the hands of IS.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese War On Terror May Breed Extremists

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent in Xinjiang Province, China

Sky News has obtained rare access to China's Xinjiang Province to investigate reports Muslims are being targeted and oppressed by the government.

China's leaders say foreign Islamist extremists, perhaps with links to IS and al Qaeda, are infiltrating its population, responsible for growing unrest in the region.

Since December, a series of bloody bomb and knife attacks have killed more than a hundred people across China.

There are reports of authorities targeting and oppressing Muslims

Urumqi, a city on the old Silk Road with a population of three million, is the provincial capital and a place on edge right now.

Soldiers stand guard outside the city's great mosque. Armoured police vehicles are parked in the shadows.

Oil and gas rich, the far-western province of Xinjiang is home to the Uighur people, China's Muslim minority. The province was once almost all theirs.

These days, they share it with the Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group; the people who would be globally recognisable as Chinese.

Xinjiang is home to the Uighur people, China's Muslim minority

In recent years, relations between the Uighurs and the Han have become increasingly difficult.

Ancient Uighur homes have been destroyed. Uighur culture has been diluted and their freedom to practise Islam has been restricted.

In May, two 4x4 vehicles drove up a busy market street in a Han Chinese district of Urumqi. It was early morning and Gongyuan Street was crowded with shoppers.

Explosives were thrown from the vehicles as they passed up the street. Forty-three died and more than 90 were injured.

Today, the same street is almost deserted. We meet Mr Sun, a retired Han Chinese teacher.

He saw it all happen and we ask him who did it. "Minorities," he says. He leans forward and whispers: "Muslims."

The Uighur heartland lies under 200 miles from Afghanistan and Pakistan

Our taxi driver, also Han Chinese, goes further. Echoing the government line, he says the attack was the work of religious fanatics infiltrating the south.

"From Kashgar," he says. "It's only those who are uncultured who cause problems.

"People who were not educated, who live in the south. They are brainwashed by terrorists."

The Chinese government says it is facing an unprecedented threat from Islamist extremism.

They say foreign extremists are infiltrating the Uighur population and radicalising them.

Ancient Uighur homes have been destroyed... ...and replaced by tower blocks

However, Uighurs in exile, human rights organisations and the US government doubt that Islamist extremism is to blame.

They believe the Communist Party is blaming external forces as a way of dealing with internal unrest.

The tactics used to counter the violence are exacerbating the problem, they say.

Kashgar is further west from Urumqi; closer to Baghdad than it is to Beijing.

It is the Uighur heartland and lies just under 200 miles from the Afghan and Pakistani borders.

10 million Uighurs live in China's far-western Xinjiang Province

At the city's centre, the Id Kah mosque is the country's largest. In July, the Imam was murdered here; stabbed and clubbed to death.

"He deserved to die," a Uighur shopkeeper tells me quietly. He does not want to be identified. All Uighurs fear government reprisals if caught talking to foreigners.

The shopkeeper tells me that the Imam was a stooge of the Chinese government and condoning a series of restrictions for Uighurs in the region.

The restrictions are spelt out on a sign in a neighbouring street. With pictures, it states that beards are banned for young men and veils are banned for women.

Other policies include preventing Muslims from fasting at Ramadan.

"You understand what this sign means?" a young Uighur man says. "There's no freedom for us here."

The message was the same from the other Uighurs we spoke to. If you pressure and restrict people, they will fight back.

There are signs all around that this Chinese "war on terror" is intensifying. As it does, the resentment will only increase.

If religious extremists are among the Uighur population, and we saw no evidence of it, their efforts to recruit and to rally will only be made easier.

For the Chinese government, Islamist extremism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

:: Click here to watch an extended version of Mark Stone's journey into Xinjiang

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rare Visit To Town At Centre Of Massacre Claims

Avoiding The Chinese Authorities

Updated: 1:55am UK, Tuesday 02 September 2014

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent in Xinjiang Province, China

Reporting anything sensitive in China requires planning, a bit of stealth and some luck thrown in too.

China's far western province of Xinjiang is one of those areas (like Tibet and Tiananmen Square) where the country's Communist government is particularly sensitive.

Foreign journalists are not banned from visiting Xinjiang, it's just that we can't report freely when we get there.

The Chinese government is obsessed with controlling the message. Its state-run media is the perfect tool, loyally conveying the government-endorsed line.

And so the idea of foreign journalists wandering around in a region which China considers to be the frontline in its "war on terror" is not something they are willing to allow.

They do not want scrutiny of the tactics they deploy to deal with those they believe to be Islamist extremists.

The team at Sky's bureau in Beijing had tried for months to get permission for a fully sanctioned trip to the region.

The Chinese government has pumped huge investment into the resource-rich province. They claim to have transformed the lives of millions - both indigenous Uighur Muslims and the Han Chinese who have moved here over the past few decades.

We wanted to see that investment: the new high-speed rail line, the new hospitals, schools, universities.

We also wanted to examine the suggestions that the Chinese government is eroding the culture and religion of the Uighurs, perhaps fuelling unrest.

Our trip was initially given a tentative green light. But then, a week before we were due to travel, they U-turned: the trip was off.

No explanation was given. We decided to come anyway.

Colleagues of mine from other media organisations have been here recently. Most have been detained and some have had their images and video deleted.

So it's necessary to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Flights are booked at the last minute, different hotels night to night, check in late, check out early. We use small tourist-style cameras.

I'll admit, it's easy to get overly paranoid. Do the authorities really care that much about what we're doing? It turns out they do.

In Kashgar we tried to check into one hotel but were turned away. The staff noticed our journalist visas in our passports.

"You can't stay here," the receptionist said. "You must stay in the hotel down the road: it's the hotel for journalists."

After a few days of moving every day, complacency set in: we stayed two nights in the same place. It was a mistake.

On the second day, we had a call. "This is reception. The Kashgar police are downstairs to see you. Please come down."

We had a chat with two men. What were we reporting on? Did we have permission?

We showed them the paperwork for our original pitch for the rejected trip. It seemed to work.

The police took photos of us and then left, but not before admitting that they'd been trying to track us down for three days.

A constant worry is the prospect of having our footage deleted or destroyed. In 2012, a German TV crew was on an assignment in another part of China.

They left their hotel room for dinner. When they returned, the reporter's tablet computer and smartphone had been dunked in water. They were still wet and their contents destroyed.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Islamic State Guilty Of 'Ethnic Cleansing'

Iraq Warns Of 'Imminent Danger' Of IS Militants

Updated: 3:17pm UK, Monday 01 September 2014

Miltants from Islamic State pose a threat to every country in the world, Iraq was warned the United Nations.

The jihadist group - previously known as ISIS - has committed barbaric acts against civilians and threatens to break up Iraq in its aim of establishing a caliphate across a large swathe of the Middle East, Iraq's human rights minister told an emergency debate at the UN Human Rights Council.

The debate took place as Human Rights Watch (HRW)  released evidence of Islamic State (IS) fighters using widely-banned cluster munitions in Syria - where they are already in common use by President Bashar al Assad's forces.

Mohammed Shia al Sudani said: "The land of ancient Babylon is subjected to threats starting with its very independence, they are attempting to change its demographic and cultural composition.

"ISIS is not an Iraqi phenomenon, it is a transnational phenomenon that poses an imminent danger to all countries of the world, it defies all human rights principles and international law."

Iraq's appeal came after the first Islamic State suicide bomber captured in Iraq spoke to Sky News, warning that jihadists from around the world, including Britain, are flooding into Iraq and Syria to join the extremist cause.

Senior UN officials said there was evidence that both IS and Iraqi government forces have killed civilians and committed atrocities in three months of fighting.

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said there was "strong evidence" that IS fighters and linked groups had carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, sexual abuse and torture.

She also said Iraqi police have executed detainees, while Iraqi soldiers have shelled towns and carried out airstrikes, killing and injuring many civilians.

Ms Pansieri voiced deep concern at the persecution of Christians, Yazidis, Shia, Turkmen and other ethnic groups by IS forces that have swept through western and northern Iraq since June, driving 1.2 million Iraqis from their homes.

She said: "The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale."

Violence in Iraq killed at least 1,420 people in August, with more than 1,370 injured during the month, the UN's Iraq mission said.

The one-day session in Geneva was called by Iraq with the support of allies including the United States.

The 47-member state forum is expected to agree to Baghdad's request to send a team of UN experts to investigate crimes committed by IS and others in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdish forces and Shia militiamen retook Sulaiman Bek from IS on Monday - regaining a key stronghold held by the extremists for more than 11 weeks.

Fighting to retake the village of Yankaja, also located in Salaheddin province, northeast of Baghdad, was ongoing, the official responsible for the nearby Tuz Khurmatu area said.

In Amerli, where Iraqi security forces, Kurdish fighters and Shia militiamen broke an 11-week siege over the weekend, outgoing PM Nouri al Maliki vowed that Iraq would be "a graveyard" for IS.

A clean-up was also under way in Ramadi - 70 miles (115km) west of Baghdad - after a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-packed car into a police checkpoint, killing at least 14 people.

In Syria, New York-based group HRW said reports from local Kurdish officials and photographic evidence suggested IS had used cluster bombs on July 12 and August 14.

They were deployed in fighting around the town of Ayn al Arab in Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey, in clashes between the jihadist group and Kurdish fighters.

The group said it was believed to be the first time IS had used cluster bombs, but it was unclear how it had acquired them.

Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of small bomblets and can be fired in rockets or dropped from the air.

They spread explosives over large areas and are indiscriminate in nature, often continuing to maim and kill long after the initial attack when previously unexploded bomblets detonate.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Captured IS Suicide Bomber Reveals Threat

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent

A wing of Sulaymaniah's military hospital has been sealed off and 24-hour security has been posted at the door of a ward.

Inside lies an injured young man; a very special patient and prisoner.

He is 23-year-old Horr Jaffer, from Chechnya, and he is an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber.

His capture has been a secret until now.

Sky News is the first to get access to this man who was caught in the southern Kurdish town of Jalula after his bomb part exploded.

He had been attempting to destroy a Kurd checkpoint by driving a bomb-laden car into their midst.

The 23-year-old militant killed four people in his bomb attack

Four people died and many others were injured, but he was captured attempting to escape.

Under questioning he admits that he joined IS in Syria after his father, mother and six family members were killed there.

He says they had moved from Chechnya to Pakistan before going to Syria.

The Kurds believe his father and brothers were to all intents and purposes professional jihadists; moving to countries where they could ply their trade. That trade is killing people.

"I want to be a martyr. I decided after they killed my family," he says in barely audible Russian.

"They didn't tell me anything about what I was doing or where I was. I just had to press the button."

The killer claims that Syria is filling with foreign fighters; a constant stream from all over the world.

"There are nations from all over the world there. There is British amongst them. They are from Asian countries, Europe and America. From everywhere," he told me.

He says that they used to talk together and mix together but didn't understand a lot of what was said.

Spending an hour with him it was striking how little he knew about what IS is doing across swathes of Syria. He denied any knowledge of the creation of a caliphate by IS for example.

He struck me as a rather stupid boy, upset by the loss of his family and totally open to indoctrination by his IS handlers.

He was just the guy prepared to die and kill others with him and it seems there are lots like him.

When asked if he regretted what had happened he broke down.

Britain is growing increasingly concerned about the threat from IS

Arching his back in pain and misery, saying he just wanted to live a normal life that he did not mean to do what he did.

It is hard not to be moved by his anguish. Hard but not impossible. He is a killer.

Like many western governments and security services, Britain is growing increasingly concerned about both IS and the numbers of young men being radicalised and coming to Syria and Iraq.

Out here the Kurds say they are right to be concerned.

"It is almost like super-terrorism and this is the frontline," Bafle Talabani, the British-born founder of the Kurds' elite Counter Terrorism Group, told me in the grounds of his father's house, which happens to be the Presidential Palace.

"It is more aggressive, more merciless more brutal. This is the front of the war on terror," he says.

"If we don't stop this here they will come for the West, for England, for Europe or the United States. They need to be stopped."

Bafle Talabani says IS represents a super-terrorism and needs to be stopped

IS, he believes, is the most dangerous single entity in the world today.

He is urging western governments to allow the Kurds to buy their own weapons or supply them.

"The special forces have good equipment. The peshmergas' weapons go back to the Iran-Iraq war. They are fighting against good weapons and a well-organised outfit with lots of money," he says.

With so many willing jihadists available IS is unlikely to miss this single bomber.

When he is treated and well, he will go to prison and rot there for the rest of his life.

He will be denied martyrdom. The Kurds want the foreign fighters to know that.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Homeless Shooter Kills Two At Welfare Office

A homeless man suspected of shooting dead two people at a welfare office in New Zealand has been detained after a seven-hour manhunt.

A third person was seriously injured when a man opened fire inside the Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) office in Ashburton before fleeing on a bike.

Police named the suspect as 48-year-old John Tully - who was interviewed by the local newspaper last month talking about his struggles with the benefit system and finding somewhere to live.

Tully is alleged to have entered WINZ at 10am (local time) wearing a black balaclava.

The shooting took place at 10am

Residents of the small town were warned to stay indoors before Tully was apprehended near a lake by a police dog unit at 5pm.

He was treated for minor dog bite injuries.

Superintendent Gary Knowles said: "Nothing will give the families that have lost their loved ones closure but the community can go to sleep tonight with the thought that the person who we believe may be responsible is in custody."

Police are still searching for the murder weapon - believed to be a sawn-off shotgun.

The manhunt lasted seven hours

The Ministry of Social Development confirmed all three victims worked for the agency but gave no further details.           

"We are all devastated by the deaths of two of our colleagues in the shocking attack," chief executive Brendan Boyle said.

Local media reported that both of the deceased were women.

The third victim was reported to be in a serious but stable condition in hospital.

In an interview last month, Tully told the Ashburton Guardian he previously worked in Australian mines but now lived in a tent after being unable to secure government-assisted accommodation.

Two people died and a third is in a serious condition after the shooting

He also wrote to the authorities about his struggles.

Lawmaker Winston Peters confirmed Tully emailed his political party on August 14 about the difficulty of finding a house.

"We replied immediately and also followed up," Mr Peters said. "However, the emails kept bouncing back."

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key offered his condolences to the victims and their families.

"There will be many questions to be asked and answered in the coming days about how this happened," said Mr Key.

"Every day New Zealanders get up in the morning to go to work, and their families expect them to return home. In this case that hasn't happened and my thoughts are with the loved ones."

Ashburton is home to about 18,000 people and is 90 kilometres (56 miles) southwest of Christchurch.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Russia Warns Ukraine Troops To Pull Back

Ukrainian forces must pull back from areas of eastern Ukraine where they can harm civilian targets, Russia's foreign minister has warned.

Sergei Lavrov spoke amid reports of fierce fighting for Luhansk airport between Ukrainian troops and Russian tanks - the latest allegation of direct Russian involvement in the conflict.

Ukrainian forces have been ordered to pull back from the airport in the face of the onslaught, a military spokesman said.

Ukraine's Defence Minister Valeriy Geletey said that Russian units were moving into other towns in the region, including the largest city of the region Donetsk.

The attack on a Ukrainian vessel took place off the coast of Mariupol

"The information that Russian troops are there has been confirmed," he said.

"We are fighting Russia and it is Russia which is deciding what will happen in Donbass," he told Ukraine's Inter channel, referring to the informal name of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Sergei Lavrov warned Ukraine to pull its forces back from areas in the east

Mr Lavrov again denied that Russian troops were in Ukraine and said he hoped talks taking place on Monday in the Belarussian capital Minsk today will focus on agreeing an immediate, unconditional ceasefire.

Speaking in the east Siberian city of Yakutsk on Monday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin accused Europe of ignoring the Ukrainian army "directly targeting its fire on residential areas".

He said he hoped "common sense will prevail" and that Russia and the West would not harm each other with further sanctions.

A rights group that works to expose Russian army abuses has claimed that up to 15,000 soldiers have been sent to Ukraine by Moscow in the last two months, and several hundred may have died in combat.

Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, a prominent organisation representing the families of military servicemen, said that some 7,000-8,000 Russian troops are believed to be in Ukraine at present.

"Military commanders are conducting a secret special operation," said Melnikova, who is a member of the defence ministry's public council.

Satellite imagery reportedly shows Russian military vehicles inside Ukraine

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian military spokesman said a rescue operation was continuing for two seamen missing in the Azov Sea after pro-Russian separatists attacked a Ukrainian navy vessel for the first time.

Eight other seamen survived the attack and were being treated for wounds and burns after the vessel was hit by artillery from the shore.

Separatists in the region claimed responsibility for the attack on social media.

Writing on the site VKontake, former separatist military commander Igor Strelkov said: "The militia have dealt the enemy their first naval defeat."

Vladimir Putin's face has been used as a target at a Lviv shooting range

Although pro-Russian rebels have been fighting government forces since April, this is the first incident at sea.

Separatists have made significant gains in several towns close to the Azov Sea in recent days and are said to have set their sights on Mariupol. 

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said the events of the past few days have shown that Russia has launched "a direct and open aggression" against Ukraine.

Leading American senators have called for the US to send weapons to help Ukraine defend itself against what they called "a Russian invasion".

Democrat Robert Mendez, who runs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN: "We should provide the Ukrainians with the type of defensive weapons that will impose a cost upon Putin for further aggression."

The call was echoed by former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who told CBS's Face the Nation that Mr Putin was "an old KGB colonel that wants to restore the Russian empire".

Earlier, the European Union gave Russia a week to scale back its intervention in Ukraine, warning of further sanctions.

China said it opposes additional sanctions against Russia and has urged world leaders to find a political solution to the crisis.

Mr Putin has consistently denied sending in troops, but has defiantly called for immediate talks on "statehood" for southern and eastern Ukraine.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More

Large Earthquake Strikes Icelandic Volcano Site

A large earthquake has hit the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland where authorities have been on high alert since a surge of small quakes this month.

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake was recorded under Bardarbunga's main volcano on Saturday - but there were no immediate signs of a fresh eruption.

The quake is the latest in a series of tremors which have sparked concerns there could be a similar eruption to the one that hit the country's Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010.

That eruption shut down much of Europe's airspace.

On Friday, there was a small eruption in a fissure in a glacier at the Holuhraun lava field around 25 miles from the main crater.

It caused the Icelandic Met Office to raise the aviation warning to red. It later reduced the alert level to orange and withdrew airspace restrictions after the eruption stopped.

Seismologist Martin Hensch said there were currently no signs of magma heading towards the surface, but added it was impossible to predict what would happen.

He said: "There are so many parameters in this system. We cannot make a forecast for the next hours or the next few days.

"So we have to continue to monitor and react to events when they happen."

Thousands of flights across Europe had to be cancelled during the 2010 eruption over fears volcanic ash could harm jet engines.

18.46 | 0 komentar | Read More