Ukraine finds new hero in besieged base commander

March 27, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — After Crimeans voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, a man in a black raincoat turned up at the gate of the Belbek Air Base to demand that Ukrainian forces holed up inside surrender to Russia.

The Ukrainian commander of the base came out wearing his cap decorated with gold wings — and refused. The Russian visitor persisted: "From yesterday, you are located on the territory of a foreign state. So I'm giving you your chance to keep your honor as an officer."

"As an officer with honor, I tell you I will stay," retorted Air Force Col. Yuliy Mamchur. That act of defiance against the overwhelming force of Russian troops that had put Belbek under siege created a new Ukrainian national hero. Today, Mamchur is hailed as an officer who stood up to the Russian juggernaut, remained true to his oath as a soldier and held out with his beleaguered unit in Crimea for as long as he could.

After Mamchur refused to cave, Russian forces overran Belbek with irresistible force and numbers. Mamchur stood calmly with his men. He led them in singing the Ukrainian national anthem, which begins with the lyrics "Ukraine's glory and freedom are not yet dead."

Russian forces then arrested Mamchur and took him away for questioning. He withstood five days of sustained intimidation and pressure to defect from his captors — and he was released on Wednesday after that pressure proved futile.

"They tried to get me to renounce my military oath to Ukraine and switch to the Russian army," Mamchur said in a televised interview shortly after his release. "Then they applied psychological pressure, they didn't let me sleep, banging with their rifle-butts on the door."

Mamchur is now heading to a hero's welcome in the capital, Kiev. As a pilot and instructor on the MiG-29, a fourth-generation jet fighter that can fly at over twice the speed of sound, Mamchur was a clearly a "top gun" among Ukrainian Air Force aviators, said Thomas Newdick, a Western air power analyst. At Belbek, Mamchur would have had in important role in preparing cadets and young flyers for combat duty, Newdick said.

For Mamchur, the saga of resistance began in early March when troops under orders from Moscow swarmed into Crimea. Ukraine's inexperienced government dithered over a response, uncertain over whether to order Ukrainian forces to evacuate Belbek in the wine country north of Sevastopol.

So Mamchur stuck to his ground whenever the Russians came calling to tell him to leave. "If there is an order, I will leave. If there is no order, I will stay," he told the man in the raincoat who demanded last week that Belbek stand down.

During the ordeal, the colonel gave reporters and TV crews the run of the base grounds still in Ukrainian hands, and held impromptu news conferences in front of brigade headquarters. Any hungry journalists were welcome to join his men for borscht and kasha in the mess hall, the colonel said.

Displaying a sense of cool under pressure as the inevitable storming of his base neared, Mamchur oversaw an impromptu wedding between two lieutenants — medic Galina Volosyanchik and communications officer Ivan Benera.

As the couple were handed a gift and bouquet of flowers, Mamchur said: "You will always remember this, the whole world is here watching." Hours later, armed pro-Russia forces smashed into and took control of the base.

The colonel's arrest provoked helpless outrage in Kiev. But any fear that Mamchur would defect to the other side proved unfounded. On Wednesday afternoon, acting Crimean Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchinov announced that officers detained by Russian troops were being released.

Mamchur was given the time to gather his belongings from home, bid farewell to his wife, and leave the peninsula. Like all military spouses left behind by retreating troops, Larissa Mamchur will be reunited with her husband once new accommodation is found for them.

If Mamchur was fazed by his ordeal, he showed no sign of it. "I feel good. I am in a fighting mood," he told reporters during his TV appearance. "What will I do now? First I will build up my strength and then I will make a decision. Glory to Ukraine!"

Ukraine says top commander held after base stormed

March 23, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian air force commander is being held after his base in Crimea was stormed by pro-Russian forces, and the acting president called for his release Sunday.

Col. Yuliy Mamchur is the commander of the Belbek Air Force base near Sevastopol, which was taken over Saturday by forces who sent armored personnel carriers smashing through the base's walls and fired shots and stun grenades. One Ukrainian serviceman was reported wounded in the clash. It was unclear if the forces, who didn't bear insignia, were Russian military or local pro-Russia militia.

President Oleksandr Turchynov, in a statement, said Mamchur was "abducted" by the forces. He didn't specify where Mamchur is believed to be held. However, prominent politician Vitali Klitschko said Sunday that Mamchur is being held by the Russian military in a jail in Sevastopol, the Crimean city that is the base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Klitschko was one of the leaders of the three months of protests in Ukraine that culminated in late February with President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country and interim authorities taking power before a May 25 presidential election. The protests were triggered by Yanukovych's decision to reject a deal for closer ties with the European Union and turn to Moscow instead.

Yanukovych's ouster was denounced by Russia and much of Ukraine's ethnic Russian population as a coup. Soon thereafter, Russian forces took control of Crimea and the region held a referendum to break off from Ukraine and join Russia.

Russia formally annexed Crimea last week, a move that Western countries say is illegitimate. The U.S. and the EU have imposed sanctions on Russia in the dispute, but Moscow appears unmoved. On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian flag was now flying over 189 military facilities in Crimea. It didn't specify whether any Ukrainian military operations there remained under Ukrainian control.

In Donetsk, one of the major cities in eastern Ukraine, about 5,000 people demonstrated in favor of holding a referendum on secession and absorption into Russia similar to Crimea's. Eastern Ukraine is the country's industrial heartland and was Yanukovych's support base. Donetsk authorities on Friday formed a working group to hold a referendum, but no date for it has been set.

Russia has deployed thousands of troops in its regions near the Ukrainian border and concerns are high that it could use unrest in the east as a pretext for crossing the border.

Yuras Karmanau in Donetsk contributed to this report.

Ukraine to hold military exercises with US, UK

March 19, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces seized military installations across the disputed Crimean Peninsula on Wednesday, prompting Ukraine's security chief to announce that his country will hold joint military exercises with the United States and Britain.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in Lithuania, trying to reassure nations along Russia's borders who were terrified by the sight of an expansion-minded Moscow. "We're in this with you, together," Biden said.

Ukraine has been powerless to prevent Russian troops from taking control of Crimea, which Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed on Tuesday. A day later, masked Russian-speaking troops moved into Ukraine's naval headquarters in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, detaining the head of Ukraine's navy and seizing the facility. They faced no resistance.

Andriy Parubiy, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said the government was drawing up plans to evacuate its outnumbered troops from Crimea back to the mainland and will seek U.N. support to turn the peninsula into a demilitarized zone.

He also said Ukraine will hold military maneuvers with the countries that signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. He didn't elaborate. The document was signed by the U.S., Britain and Russia to guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity when it surrendered its share of Soviet nuclear arsenals to Russia after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Ukraine has accused Russia of breaching the agreement by taking over the Crimean Peninsula.

In addition, Parubiy said Ukraine decided to leave the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of 11 former Soviet nations. The last nation to leave the group was Georgia, which lost a brief war with neighboring Russia in 2008 and ended up losing two separatist territories.

In a warning to Moscow, Biden declared that the United States will respond to any aggression against its NATO allies, which include neighbors to Russia. Standing side by side with two Baltic leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania, Biden said the U.S. was "absolutely committed" to defending its allies, adding that President Barack Obama plans to seek concrete commitments from NATO members to ensure the alliance can safeguard its collective security.

"Russia cannot escape the fact that the world is changing and rejecting outright their behavior," Biden said after meeting in Vilnius with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Latvian President Andris Berzins.

The several hundred Russian-speaking troops who captured the base in Sevastopol met no resistance. Sevastopol is also the home port of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and tens of thousands of Russian-led troops are now patrolling Crimea.

The seizure of the base came a day after a confrontation between Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian militia left two dead. The Russian-led troops, who arrived on the base after the storming, wore helmets, flak jackets and uniforms with no identifying insignia. By afternoon, they were in full control of the naval headquarters, a set of three-story white concrete buildings with blue trim.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said no one was injured in the raid, which it said was led by pro-Russian militiamen and Cossacks. The ministry said Rear Adm. Sergei Haiduk was detained by unknown people after the storming of the fleet headquarters. The Russian state ITAR-Tass news agency reported that he was being questioned by Crimean prosecutors.

Ukraine's defense minister and deputy prime minister had planned to travel to Crimea on Wednesday in what they called a bid to avert an escalation in hostilities — but the pro-Russian leader of Crimea warned they would be turned back.

"They are not welcome in Crimea," Sergei Aksyonov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "They will not be allowed to enter Crimea. They will be sent back." Interfax later cited Welfare Minister Lyudmila Denisova as saying the officials had been denied entry to Crimea.

At the Ukrainian navy headquarters, an Associated Press photographer said the militiamen took down the gate and made their way onto the naval base. They then raised the Russian flag on the square by the headquarters.

The unarmed militiamen waited for an hour on the square and, following the arrival of the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, they took over the building. The AP photographer saw the militia roaming around the headquarters while Ukrainian servicemen were packing up and leaving.

On Tuesday, Putin signed a treaty to incorporate Crimea into Russia following a referendum Sunday in which residents of the Black Sea region overwhelmingly backed the move. Jubilant crowds in Moscow and other cities across Russia hailed the annexation, while Ukraine's new government called Putin a threat to the "civilized world and international security" and the U.S. and the European Union threatened tougher sanctions against Moscow. On Monday, Washington and Brussels targeted Russian and Crimean officials with visa bans and asset freezes.

Russian news agencies on Wednesday cited Constitutional Court chairman Valery Zorkin as saying the treaty signed by Putin has been ruled valid, thus formally clearing another hurdle for Moscow to annex Crimea. The treaty now only requires ratification by the Russian parliament.

Thousands of troops under apparent Russian command took over Crimea two weeks before Sunday's hastily called referendum, seizing Ukrainian military bases, blockading others and pressuring Ukrainian soldiers to surrender and leave.

Putin insisted Russia's military presence in Crimea is legal under a treaty with Ukraine that allows Russia to have up to 25,000 troops at its Black Sea fleet base. Ukraine claims that Russia deployed further forces, however, and expressly went against its request for its troops to remain confined within their barracks.

AP writer John-Thor Dahlberg contributed from Sevastopol, Crimea.

Ukraine says Russian forces move outside Crimea

March 15, 2014

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces backed by helicopter gunships and armored vehicles Saturday took control of a village near the border with Crimea on the eve of a referendum on whether the region should seek annexation by Moscow, Ukrainian officials said.

The action in Strilkove appeared to be the first move outside Crimea, where Russian forces have been in effective control since late last month. There were no reports of gunfire or injuries. The incident raises tensions already at a high level before Sunday's referendum.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry denounced the foray outside Crimea, and said Ukraine "reserves the right to use all necessary measures to stop the military invasion by Russia." The village is on a long spit reaching northward from the main part of the Black Sea peninsula, about 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the border between Crimea and the Kherson region.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian border guard service, Oleg Slobodyan, told The Associated Press the Russians, about 120 in all, took control of a natural gas distribution station in the village. The Foreign Ministry said the force consisted of about 80 and didn't mention the station, but said the village was seized.

As Crimea prepares for Sunday's referendum, dozens of billboards throughout the regional capital proclaim "Together With Russia." But a few have been hit by spray-painters who scrawled out "Russia" and replaced it with "Ukraine."

The referendum is denounced by Kiev and the West as illegitimate ; the West is threatening costly sanctions against Russia if it moves to incorporate Crimea. But the result is seen as a foregone conclusion — Crimea is almost certain to vote to split off, further aggravating Ukraine's political crisis and one of the harshest East-West confrontations since the end of the Cold war.

In Moscow, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched in central Moscow against the referendum. Protesters carried banners that read: "For your freedom and for ours!" One demonstrator held up a plate of salo — cured pork fat that is a staple of Ukrainian cuisine and adored by many Russians — along with a poster that read: "Make salo, not war!"

Nearby, a rally of several thousand people was held close to the Kremlin in support of Russian intervention in Crimea. At the United Nations, Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution declaring the referendum illegal, and close ally China abstained in a sign of Moscow's isolation on the issue. Supporters of the U.S.-sponsored resolution knew that Russia would use its veto. But they put the resolution to a vote Saturday morning to show the strength of opposition in the 15-member Security Council to Moscow's takeover of Crimea. The final vote was 13 members in favor, China's abstention, and Russia as a permanent council member casting a veto.

The question of whether Crimea, a strategically important Black Sea peninsula that is home to a key Russian naval base, should become part of Moscow's orbit raises strong passions on both sides. Supporters say the region rightfully belongs to Russia and that the government that replaced fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych is a coterie of fascist-minded nationalists who will abuse Crimea's majority ethnic-Russian population. Opponents bristle at Russia's heavy hand. Crimea effectively is already under Russian control after forces were sent in last month.

Tensions are also high elsewhere in Ukraine. On Friday night, two people were killed and several wounded in a shootout that erupted after a clash in the city of Kharkiv between pro-Russian demonstrators and their opponents.

On Saturday, thousands of pro-Russia demonstrators in the eastern city of Donetsk stormed the local offices of the national security service, smashing windows, taking down the building's Ukrainian flag and raising a Russian one.

In downtown Simferopol, at least 1,000 people on Saturday jammed a square in front of a soundstage and two massive TV screens as a long succession of Russian musical acts lauding "friendship of nations" and Russia itself. Musical acts from distant regions of Russia sang folk songs and danced traditional dance. One ensemble dressed as fairy-tale characters sang "Don't Fall Out Of Love with Russia!" No Ukrainian flags or colors were visible.

"We have our great mother, Russia, who has taken us in her arms," said 40-year-old demonstrator Nikolai Antonov. "If Russia hadn't protected us, we would have had to take up arms" against the new authorities in Kiev.

Posters pasted to walls throughout the city center made comparisons between Russia and Ukraine for gasoline prices, doctors' salaries and student benefits. The comparisons all suggested Russia was a more prosperous country.

But referendum opponents at a smaller rally said the economic argument is foolish. "It's better to be poor and live in a normal country than to live in a police state," said Ine Sultanova, a 66-year-old retired engineer.

"I'm a citizen of Ukraine. I don't want to be a citizen of another country, or of Russia. It's well known what it's like to live in Russia. There's absolutely no civil society whatsoever. You can't say what you want. People can't gather for demonstrations unless it's good for the government," said Andrei Voloshin, a 20-year-old law student.

Details of the Friday night shooting in the city of Kharkiv were murky, but local news reports said it broke out after a skirmish between pro-Russia demonstrators and their opponents. Violence has escalated in Ukraine's Russia-leaning east in recent days, as pro-Russia demonstrators have seized government buildings and clashed with supporters of the new Kiev government. At least one person died and 17 were wounded in clashes in Donetsk on Thursday.

Kharkiv, near the Russian border, is a hotbed of pro-Russia sentiment and opposition to the acting Ukrainian government that took power last month after Yanukovych fled the country in the wake of months of protests.

After the skirmish, according to the reports, there was gunfire outside a building housing the offices of several nationalist groups including Right Sector, which was one of the drivers of the protests against Yanukovych and that vehemently opposes Russian influence in Ukraine.

Russia has denounced Right Sector and similar groups as "fascists" who allegedly want to oppress ethnic Russians in Ukraine. A spokesman for Right Sector in eastern Ukraine, Igor Moseichuk, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the shooting was a "planned provocation by pro-Russian forces."

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page that two people were killed and several wounded, including a policeman who was seriously injured. He said some 30 people "from both sides" had been detained.

The victims' identities were not immediately made public. Moseichuk was quoted as saying the two killed were not among those inside the Right Sector offices. The violence in Kharkiv and Donetsk has raised concern that Russia, which has massed troops near eastern Ukraine's border, could use bloodshed as a justification for sending in forces to protect the ethnic Russian population.

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, warned Saturday that "there's a real danger of the threat of invasion of the territory of Ukraine." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said Russia has no plans to send troops into eastern Ukraine.

But in the wake of Saturday's movement, U.S. Sen. John McCain, part of an American delegation visiting Kiev, told a news conference that "the United States and our European allies will be contemplating actions that we never have had before in our relations with Russia."

Jim Heintz reported from Kiev. Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, John-Thor Dahlburg in Simferopol, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Vatican says it's willing, wants to help Venezuela

March 28, 2014

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Friday it was "willing and desirous" to intervene diplomatically in Venezuela's crisis after weeks of deadly unrest but says it must study expectations and options about what role it could play.

On Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accepted the idea of a good-faith facilitator after coming under mounting pressure to reconcile with opponents who have been protesting for nearly three months. He mentioned Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, until last year the Vatican's ambassador to Caracas.

Critics of Maduro's socialist administration have pressed for Vatican involvement: Shortly before he was arrested, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez wrote an open letter to Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, asking him to guide the country.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Friday the Holy See and Parolin were "certainly willing and desirous to do whatever is possible for the good and serenity of the country." He said Parolin, in particular, "knows and loves" Venezuela.

But he said the Vatican needed to have more information to understand "the expectations and the premise for undertaking a useful role that could achieve the desired outcome." Such a study, he said, was underway.

The oil-rich nation has been widely criticized for its harsh crackdown on opponents protesting inflation, crime and shortages. Clashes between protesters and loyalists have left more than 30 people dead.

While direct Vatican mediation in conflicts is rare, the Holy See's diplomats often works behind the scenes and have helped resolve conflicts in Latin America before. In 1978, Pope John Paul II sent an envoy to help Francis' native Argentina and Chile reach a compromise on a territorial dispute. The two countries had been on the brink of war over the Beagle Channel and its islands.

Joshua Goodman and Hannah Dreier in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

Newcomer Andrej Kiska elected Slovak president

March 30, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Political newcomer Andrej Kiska has been elected to the largely ceremonial post of Slovakia's president, in an embarrassing defeat for his rival, Prime Minister Robert Fico, according to complete results released early Sunday.

Kiska, a successful businessman-turned-philanthropist, won 59.4 percent of the vote in a runoff ballot, the Statistics Office said. Fico, who trailed with 40.6 percent, conceded defeat and congratulated his challenger.

"I will try to make our politics more human," Kiska, 51, told a cheering crowd at a hotel in the capital, Bratislava. Kiska, who until recently had been a relative unknown in his country, attracted voters fed up with corruption and mainstream politics.

"I will stand by every decent citizen of this country," he said. Kiska becomes the Slovakia's fourth president since the country gained independence after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993. Kiska founded two successful credit companies in the 1990s that he sold to a bank in 2005. He later co-created the charity Good Angel, which contributes money to families who have financial troubles because they have seriously ill children.

The loss is a bitter pill to swallow for Fico. The leader of Slovakia's dominant left-leaning SMER-Social Democracy party is the country's most popular politician. The 49-year-old led his party to a landslide victory in the 2012 parliamentary election. That allowed it to govern alone, the first time a single party has held power in Slovakia since its 1993 split from Czechoslovakia.

The Slovak presidency is largely ceremonial, although the president appoints Constitutional Court judges and veto laws. A parliamentary majority can override vetoes. The president also picks the prime minister after parliamentary elections, generally choosing the chairman of the winning party or the leader who has the best chance to form a coalition. Slovakia's next parliamentary elections are in 2016.

Kiska succeeds Ivan Gasparovic, the only president since independence who has ever been elected to two five-year terms. Gasparovic's final term expires June 15. As prime minister, Fico remains the country's most powerful politician but will have to deal with a more critical president than Gasparovic has been.

Fico said he needed few days to think over the defeat.

Slovakians vote for a new president in runoff

March 29, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakians are casting ballots in a presidential runoff that pits the country's popular prime minister against a businessman-turned-philanthropist.

Prime Minister Robert Fico and Andrej Kiska made it into the runoff after leading the first round on March 15. The 49-year-old Fico heads Slovakia's dominant leftist SMER-Social Democracy party, which he led to a landslide victory in 2012 that allowed the party to govern alone in this central European nation.

A victory Saturday for Fico would cement his power, something his 51-year-old challenger — a political newcomer — wants to prevent. Kiska wants to fight corruption and make the government more efficient.

A corruption scandal in 2011 involving privatization deals has left many Slovakians disenchanted with politicians. Fico was favored in the first round, but there have been no runoff polls.

Slovak president race: known quantity vs. upstart

March 28, 2014

Slovakia's presidential runoff on Saturday pits the country's best-known politician — a prime minister whose party has a lock on parliament — against a businessman-turned philanthropist who is hoping to capitalize on a corruption scandal that reached up into high levels of government.

The winner will succeed Ivan Gasparovic, the first since Slovakia's independence in 1993 to be elected to two five-year terms. Here is a look at the vote:

AT STAKE

The president has the power to pick the prime minister, appoint Constitutional Court judges and veto laws in this central European nation of 5.4 million. But parliament can override the veto with a simple majority, so most executive powers reside in the prime minister and the Cabinet.

THE CANDIDATES

— Prime Minister Robert Fico's first term, from 2006 to 2010, saw Slovakia adopt the euro and turn against the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The 49-year-old led his left-leaning SMER-Social Democracy party to a landslide victory in 2012 that allowed the party to govern alone — a first for Slovakia.

— Andrej Kiska is a successful businessman-turned philanthropist who is running on a platform of anti-corruption and efficient government. He attracts those disenchanted by a 2011 scandal in which a financial group Penta allegedly bribed politicians in 2005-06 to win lucrative privatization deals. No one was ever convicted in the case.

WHY THE RUNOFF?

After none of the 14 candidates win a majority in the March 15 first round, the first two advanced to the runoff. Fico won the first round with a less-than-expected 28 percent of the vote. Kiska placed 4 percentage points behind, with turnout a fairly dismal 43.4 percent. Fico was favored in the first round, but there have been no polls for the runoff.

WHAT'S AHEAD

If Fico wins, he'll have to resign as prime minister, which automatically means the end of his government. As the president he will appoint his own successor. But with a comfortable parliamentary majority, many — if not all — current government officials would keep their posts. A win for Kiska would prevent Fico from cementing power — although he would keep his post as prime minister because of his party's majority — and would show widespread dissatisfaction with mainstream politics.

Greece bans protests at EU ministers' meetings

March 31, 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities have banned demonstrations in much of central Athens to forestall planned anti-austerity protests at this week's meetings of European Union finance ministers.

Labor unions and leftwing groups have called for three separate rallies Tuesday outside the prohibited area, but it was unclear whether demonstrators would challenge police cordons and try to reach Parliament, the customary focal point for protests.

Discussions at Tuesday and Wednesday's meetings will include Greece's austerity program and market reforms demanded under the terms of its international bailouts. Deeply-resented spending cuts and tax hikes since 2010 have slashed incomes and fueled a deep recession that Greece hopes to pull out of this year, while unemployment is a record 28 percent.

Strikes and protests have been common, and ferry seamen on Monday started rolling two-day walkouts.

1000s hold anti-austerity demo in Athens

Sun Mar 30, 2014

Thousands of people in Greece have held a protest rally outside the parliament in the capital Athens against government’s austerity measures.

Over 12,000 people rallied in the capital on Sunday ahead of the parliament vote on a bill for fresh international loans.

Lawmakers are expected to approve the bill required by the country's troika of international lenders -- the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- despite public dissatisfaction and eleventh-hour attempts to delay voting by the opposition.

The legislation will unlock for Greece over 11.7 billion dollars. However, the country's main opposition, Syriza party, slammed the vote.

Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras, who described the new bill as “a crime committed against the people and our country,” blamed Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras for being "the main administrator of the death contract against Greek society."

"You are passing a sweeping 600-pages multi-bill with which you are signing away the banking system and you are abolishing labor rights and the public insurance system," Tsipras said.

Greek officials are willing to have the bill ratified before meetings with European Union finance ministers in Athens on Tuesday to officially conclude the agreement for the new tranche of the international loans by the second half of April.

Greece has been at the epicenter of debt crisis in the eurozone and has so far experienced seven years of recession.

Since 2010, the national health, education and local government budgets have been cut down by some 40 percent and so have wages and pensions.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/03/30/356606/1000s-protest-austerity-in-greece/.

Lufthansa cancels 900 flights due to strike

April 02, 2014

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Lufthansa says it has canceled almost 900 domestic and intercontinental flights on the first day of a three-day strike by the pilots' union.

Airline spokeswoman Barbara Schaedler said that up to 900 flights were canceled for Wednesday and that it expects to cancel about 3,800 flights altogether, affecting more than 425,000 passengers. Schaedler said the airline had done whatever it could to offer alternative travel arrangements for its passengers and rebooked many customers on trains or different airlines.

The pilots' union Cockpit had called for the strike for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in a long-running pay dispute.

Manuel Valls named as new French prime minister

March 31, 2014

PARIS (AP) — President Francois Hollande named former Interior Minister Manuel Valls as France's new prime minister Monday, just 24 hours after his Socialists suffered heavy losses in nationwide municipal elections.

Valls is consistently voted France's most popular Socialist in opinion polls and is considered part of the right wing of the party. He replaces unpopular Jean-Marc Ayrault. The 51-year-old has drawn comparisons with former conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy and is also the most popular Socialist among France's conservative right — he wants, for example, to rethink France's 35-hour working week, a Socialist initiative.

In a prerecorded televised speech, Hollande said it was time for a France to enter a "new phase" and pledged Valls would lead a "combative government." He spelled out some key policy changes that included announcing new unspecified tax cuts and confirming a plan to slash 50-billion euros in government spending.

Valls is the Socialists' hardliner on immigration and security and has held very controversial stances while serving as interior minister. He allowed officials to ban shows by a comic considered anti-Semitic, Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala and once praised a policy of destroying illegal Roma camps and expelling their residents from the country.

Valls was born in Barcelona in 1962 and became naturalized as French 20 years later. He has four children from a first marriage that ended in divorce, and since 2010 has been married to his second wife, the distinguished violinist Anne Gravoin.

From 2001 to 2011 he was mayor of Evry, a town with 50,000 residents in the Parisian suburbs, and was in parallel a deputy for Essonne from 2002 to 2012. His bid for the Socialist presidency failed in 2011, when he got less than six percent of the votes. But the next year Hollande gave him the high-profile post of communications director of his successful bid for the Elysee in 2012.

The Elysee said the appointment of the new ministers would not happen before Tuesday and they will be officially selected by Valls — with the tacit approval of the president. Ayrault tendered the government's resignation late Monday afternoon.

Among names circulating as possibilities to enter the government, Hollande's former companion and one-time Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal is being tipped to get a major ministry such as Education or Justice.

Hollande met his 60-year-old former companion — whom he never married — in 1978 during their studies at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. Though they officially broke up in 2007, she is the mother of Hollande's four children.

Thomas Adamson and Angela Charlton in Paris and Juergen Baetz in Brussels contributed to this report.

New evacuations in Chile after major aftershock

April 03, 2014

IQUIQUE, Chile (AP) — Coastal residents of Chile's far-north spent a second sleepless night outside their homes early Thursday after a major aftershock rattled an area hit a day earlier by a magnitude-8.2 earthquake that caused some damage and six deaths. No new major damage or casualties were reported.

After the 7.6-magnitude aftershock struck just before midnight Wednesday, Chile's Emergency Office and navy issued a tsunami alert and ordered a precautionary evacuation of low-lying areas for the country's whole 2,500-mile (4,000-kilometer) Pacific coastline.

Among those moved inland was President Michelle Bachelet, who was in the city of Arica assessing damage in the north from Tuesday night's powerful quake. "I was evacuated like all citizens. One can see that the people are prepared," she tweeted early Thursday.

Chile's evacuation order initially applied to the full coast, but authorities quickly lifted the alert for all but the far-northern shore and even ended it there around 2 a.m. Thursday. The whole coast also was evacuated for several hours after Tuesday's quake, and for the night in the north, although the tsunami proved small.

The aftershock caused buildings to shake and people to run out into the streets in the port of Iquique, which was one of the cities that saw damage from the Tuesday earthquake. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries from the aftershock, which was one of dozens that have followed the magnitude-8.2 quake.

State television said the aftershock caused some landslides near Alto Hospicio, a poor area in the hills above Iquique where about 2,500 homes were damaged by Tuesday' earthquake. The Ministry of Education suspended classes again in schools in the north for Thursday.

The aftershock was felt across the border in southern Peru, where people in the cities of Tacna and Arequipa fled buildings in fear. Police Lt. Freddy Cuela in Tacna said no damage or injuries were reported. Peru's navy tweeted a tsunami alert for the country's extreme southern coast, which is next to the Chilean region hit by the quakes.

Earlier, authorities reported just six deaths from Tuesday's magnitude-8.2 quake, but didn't rule out the possibility others could have been killed in older structures made of adobe in remote communities that weren't immediately accessible.

The tsunami after Tuesday night's quake caused the sea to rise only 8 feet (2.5 meters) in Iquique, a city of nearly 200,000 people, although that was enough to sink and damage many fishing boats. Iquique's fishermen poked through the wreckage Wednesday trying to assess what it will cost to repair and replace.

Still, as Bachelet deployed hundreds of anti-riot police and soldiers to prevent looting and round up escaped prisoners, it was clear the loss of life and property could have been much worse from Tuesday's powerful tremor.

Tuesday night's mandatory evacuation lasted 10 hours in Iquique and Arica, the cities closest to the epicenter, and kept 900,000 people out of their homes along Chile's coast. The order to leave was spread through cellphone text messages and Twitter, and reinforced by blaring sirens in neighborhoods where people regularly practice earthquake drills.

But the system has its shortcomings: The government has yet to install tsunami warning sirens in parts of Arica, leaving authorities to shout orders by megaphone. And less than 15 percent of Chileans have downloaded the smartphone application that can alert them to evacuation orders.

Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and tsunamis are a particular danger because of activity in the fault zone just offshore where the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate.

Associated Press writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, and Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Five killed, several injured in strong Chile earthquake

Wed Apr 2, 2014

At least five people have been killed and several others seriously injured in Chile following an earthquake measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale in the country’s northern region.

According to Chile’s Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo, four men and a woman were confirmed dead in the cities of Iquique and Alto Hospicio.

The ministry said the victims had died of either a heart attack or falling debris.

Earlier reports had placed the number of the deaths at two.

The US Geological Survey said that the earthquake hit at 08:46 pm local time (2346 GMT) on Tuesday at a depth of 20.1 kilometers (12.5 miles), 95 kilometers (59 miles) northwest of Iquique on Chile’s northern coast.

Meanwhile, Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet has declared parts of the country’s north disaster zones. The president is expected to travel to the regions of Arica and Tarapaca on Wednesday.

Following the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for Latin America’s entire Pacific coast.

A number of roads in Chile were reportedly blocked by landslides. The quake has also caused power cuts.

Thousands of Chileans living in coastal areas have been ordered to evacuate their homes.

The northern areas of Chile had been witnessing quakes in recent days.

On March 30, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Chile’s Pacific coast, followed by at least two moderate aftershocks, the USGS said.

Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/02/356875/earthquake-kills-in-chile/.

Iran's Rouhani congratulates Turkey on local elections

Wed Apr 2, 2014

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has extended his congratulations to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the victory of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the recent local elections in Turkey.

In a telephone conversation with Erdogan on Tuesday, the Iranian president said the Turkish people’s turnout in the country’s municipal elections was a victory for democracy in an important Muslim country.

The Turkish premier on Sunday declared victory for the ruling AKP in the country’s local elections, which are seen as a key test for Erdogan ahead of a presidential vote scheduled for August.

The official results of the Sunday elections have not been announced yet; however, according to Turkish reports, Erdogan’s AKP has won around 45 percent of the votes compared to the nearly 30 percent gained by rival the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The Turkish opposition has, however, rejected the results of the votes in Ankara and Istanbul, saying there have been irregularities in these two mega cities.

In his phone conversation with Erdogan, the Iranian president further said that strengthening ties with the Muslim country of Turkey is among the priorities of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy.

The Turkish prime minister, for his part, expressed gratitude to Rouhani for the congratulation, and felicitated the Iranian government and nation on the Islamic Republic Day.

On Tuesday, April 1, Iran marked the 35th anniversary of the historic referendum in which the nation overwhelmingly voted yes to the establishment of the Islamic Republic following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Erdogan further said the elections in Turkey were a response by the people of his country to the “groundless allegations” against his government.

Rouhani and Erdogan further called for the continuation of bilateral consultation on regional developments.

The Erdogan administration has been faced with mass protests, a corruption scandal and criticism for blocking certain websites over the past months, which mark the most turbulent period in his 11-year rule.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/02/356860/iran-congratulates-turkey-on-elections/.