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Monday, May 11, 2015

Hamas fires back at Abbas, says ready for elections

Sunday, 03 May 2015

Palestinian resistance faction Hamas on Sunday said it is ready to compete in the parliamentary and presidential elections and accused President Mahmoud Abbas of hampering its conduct.

In a Sunday statement, the resistance faction declared its readiness to compete in Palestinian elections and accused Abbas of stalling its procedures.

Hamas said that Abbas is not serious about conducting the elections, as he hasn't issued a presidential decree setting a date for the polls.

The movement also condemned Abbas for demanding a written request from Hamas to hold elections, saying that the demand serves to "deepen the [Palestinian] divide" and avoid implementing the outcome of the reconciliation agreements.

On Saturday, former US President Jimmy Carter said that Abbas would hold presidential and legislative elections once he receives a written request in this regard from Hamas.

Rival Palestinian factions Fatah, which leader is Abbas himself, and Hamas signed a reconciliation deal in April of last year that called for the formation of a national unity government.

The government was formed last summer, but it has yet to assume full control of the Gaza Strip, which has been suffering under an all-out Israeli blockade since 2007.

The blockade has deprived 1.9 million residents in the coastal territory of almost all basic needs.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/18412-hamas-fires-back-at-abbas-says-ready-for-elections.

Hamas calls for new strategy to protect Aqsa Mosque

Sunday, 03 May 2015

Palestinian faction Hamas on Saturday called for devising an Arab-Palestinian strategy for the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israeli authorities are trying to impose a new fait accompli by allowing Israeli settlers to repeatedly force their way into Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, Hamas said in a statement.

Israel is trying to exploit the Arab world's preoccupation with its domestic problems to divide up Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and continue with its "Judaisation," Hamas said

The Palestinian faction went on to reiterate that Al-Aqsa Mosque was at the heart of the conflict between the Arabs and Israel and that the responsibility of defending it fell on the shoulders of Palestinian resistance factions.

In a Saturday report by Himma News – a media group focused on Jerusalem news and Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular – said that some 1,300 Israeli settlers have barged into Al-Aqsa Mosque complex throughout April.

In recent months, groups of extremist Jewish settlers – often accompanied by Israeli security forces – have repeatedly forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.

The frequent violations anger Palestinian Muslims and occasionally lead to violent confrontations.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the "Temple Mount," claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War.

It annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In September 2000, a visit to Al-Aqsa by controversial Israeli politician Ariel Sharon sparked what later became known as the "Second Intifada," a popular uprising against Israel's decades-long occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were killed.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/18403-hamas-calls-for-new-strategy-to-protect-aqsa-mosque.

Spain's soccer federation suspends matches from May 16

May 07, 2015

MADRID (AP) — Spain's soccer federation is suspending all league and cup matches from May 16 in protest at a proposed law on the sale of television rights and the division of the income earned.

The federation said the decision had been taken by its board of directors on Wednesday. The government approved the law on April 30, although it still needs to be approved by Parliament. It aims to regulate the rights to broadcast first and second division games as well as Copa del Rey and Supercup matches.

However, the federation said the proposed legislation "has not resolved any of the problems gravely affecting soccer." As a result, the federation has called an "indefinite strike" that will "suspend all competitions in all categories" from mid-May.

The last two rounds of the Spanish league, along with the Copa del Rey final on May 30, fall after that date. The Spanish government's sports council later rejected the football federation's claims and said the law was "the biggest historical achievement in defending the interests of players and clubs."

The sports council said the legislation would enable Spanish football to "reach levels of marketing, profitability and sustainability unthinkable so far." Enrique Cerezo, the president of La Liga club Atletico Madrid, said he expected all parties would negotiate.

"I think there's room for talk right up until May 16," Cerezo said. The strike is due to begin the day before his team hosts Barcelona in the penultimate round of the Spanish league. The council said the federation's action was "an excuse to justify a continuing confrontation whose only basis was to defend its own interests."

Once approved by Parliament, the legislation would come into effect in 2016. Currently, individual clubs negotiate their own TV contracts and big clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona claim large TV rights incomes, but leaving smaller and less well-known clubs often struggling for money.

The law aims to bring Spanish soccer in line with how British and Italian football leagues are marketed, and will correct existing "imbalances" in earnings that allow top clubs to claim a disproportionate amount of the TV income.

Most of Spain's 42 professional clubs were pressing governing bodies to negotiate a collective rights deal similar to that employed by the English Premier League, which in February struck a deal for 2016-19 worth about 5 billion pounds ($7.4 billion) for the domestic rights alone.

Chinese province to ban rooftop Christian crosses

May 07, 2015

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese province where authorities have forcibly removed hundreds of rooftop crosses from Protestant and Catholic churches has proposed a ban on any further placement of the religious symbol atop sanctuaries.

The draft, if approved, would give authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang solid legal grounds to remove rooftop crosses. Since early 2014, Zhejiang officials have toppled crosses from more than 400 churches, sometimes resulting in violent clashes with congregation members. They have said the crosses violate building codes, but critics say the rapid growth of Christian groups have made the ruling Communist Party nervous.

"The authorities have attached great importance to this religious symbol," said Zheng Leguo, a pastor from the province who now lives in the United States. "This means no more prominent manifestation of Christianity in the public sphere."

A draft of rules on religious structures released by government agencies this week says the crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade's height. The symbol also must fit with the facade and the surroundings, the proposal says. The draft does not provide the rationale for the proposal.

Fang Shenglan, an engineer at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Architectural Design and Research who was involved with the research for the draft rules, confirmed that rooftop crosses would not be allowed under the proposed rules, but declined to explain why over the phone and did not immediately respond to a written request.

Zhu Libin, president of a semi-official Christian association in Wenzhou, in southeastern Zhejiang, declined to comment. Calls to the provincial Christian association were unanswered Thursday. "This new draft law is just another attempt by the government to legitimize its existing illegal violent campaign of destruction and removal of the cross," said Bob Fu of U.S.-based China Aid, which has documented that 448 churches have had crosses removed or buildings destroyed.

"To continue to forcefully remove and ban the cross on the rooftop of the church buildings demonstrates the Chinese regime's determination to contain the rapid growth of Christianity in China," he said in an email.

Christianity has been expanding in China since the 1980s, when Beijing loosened its controls on religion. Estimates for the number of Christians in China range from the conservative official figure of 23 million to as many as 100 million by independent scholars, raising the possibility that Christians may rival in size the 85 million members of the ruling Communist Party. The religion's tight-knit parishes, proclivity for civil society, and loyalty to God have made the ruling party edgy about its own rule.

Last August, Beijing authorities called Christian pastors and religious scholars into meetings to deliver an edict that the Christian faith must be free of foreign influence but "adapt to China," a euphemism for obeying the Communist Party.

The Zhejiang city of Wenzhou is known as China's Jerusalem because it has half of the province's 4,000 churches. Rooftop crosses used to dominate the city's skylines, and local churches — often funded by well-off businesspeople — raced to build the largest church and the tallest cross as an ostensible display of their blessings.

In April 2014, authorities forcibly demolished the Sanjiang Church, a highly visible structure then under construction on a hill just off a major highway in Wenzhou. Most recently, a Wenzhou court sentenced Christian pastor Huang Yizi to one year in prison after he publicly questioned the removal of rooftop crosses.

Compared to the Communist Party's previous militant-style campaigns aiming at wiping out the religion, the latest crackdown is milder and its primary target is a symbol rather than the belief itself, Zheng said.

Still, he called it "a restriction on the public space for Christianity." The campaign comes amid Beijing's increasing restrictions on civil liberty, Zheng said, as authorities have stepped up persecution of advocates for civil society and rights lawyers, and placed more restrictions on non-governmental groups.

Although the crackdown on rooftop crosses has been limited to one province, Beijing has acquiesced to it, Zheng said.

Ukraine president says almost 7,000 civilians killed in war

May 08, 2015

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists, the nation's president said Friday.

Speaking before parliament, Petro Poroshenko said that more than 1,000 people remained unaccounted for. The figures mark a sharp increase from the most recent United Nations tally of around 6,100 people killed.

Addressing an assembly packed with soldiers, Poroshenko said that 1,657 Ukrainian troops had also been killed in combat — which he described as aggression from Russia. Moscow has always denied supplying separatist rebels with either equipment or manpower, but it has been open in its diplomatic support for the separatists.

Poroshenko said Russian involvement in the war had forced Ukraine to seek to align further with the West. "Given that the Russian threat is long-term and considering that the aggressive stance and policy of the Russian Federation poses a major threat to national security, the strategy aims to reach full compatibility in the security and defense sectors of Ukraine and NATO," Poroshenko said.

The uneasy cease-fire that has been in place in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since mid-February has been marred by regular violations, although the scale of fighting has largely subsided since its peak.

International cease-fire monitors say both parties are violating the peace agreement by deploying heavy weapons near the front-line. Separatists have been showing off large amounts of their hardware in rehearsal for a military parade to take place later this week in their stronghold of Donetsk. The city is only a few kilometers from the front-line, so deployment of any firepower with a caliber superior to 100 mm would nominally be in violation of the cease-fire deal.

SNP landslide ends Labor Party dominance over Scotland

May 08, 2015

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — When a 20-year-old political novice ousted a former shadow foreign secretary, the scope of the Scottish National Party's stunning victory over the Labor Party became totally clear.

Mhairi Black on Friday became the youngest member of the British Parliament since 1667 when she triumphed over Douglas Alexander - and the Scottish nationalists overturned decades of Labor Party dominance just seven months after they failed in a referendum to break up the 308-year-old political union with England.

She is a pro-independence university student with a history of volunteer work and activism who reached enough new voters to topple a Labor Party stalwart. "I have been elected alongside a strong group of SNP MPs," she said in her acceptance speech "We will work to put an end to the austerity cuts which are hurting people in communities both North and South of the border. We will call for the powers promised to Scotland in the referendum, starting with those that make the biggest impact of getting more people into work and making work pay."

The SNP took 56 out of the 59 U.K. parliamentary seats in Scotland. Some of Britain's most experienced Labor politicians lost their seats. Throughout Scotland, the vote for change — and for a party that favors independence — was overwhelming. The SNP will now become the third-largest party in the U.K. parliament - an ironic position for a party that wants to break off from the United Kingdom.

The SNP is also staunchly opposed to the austerity program imposed by the ruling Conservatives, and seeks the removal of the Trident nuclear fleet from Scottish waters. Jim Murphy, leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, lost the Renfrewshire East seat he had held for 20 years to Kirsten Oswald, a human resources professional who only joined the SNP 11 months ago.

One of the most dramatic results of the election was the loss of the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency which had been under the control of Labor for more than 80 years. Until recently the seat of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who enjoyed a majority of 23,000, it was taken by the SNP's Roger Mullin by a margin of almost 10,000 votes.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said the election had been a great result for the party, which has seen membership numbers rise from 25,000 to more than 105,000 in six months. "The tectonic plates of Scottish politics have clearly shifted and what we have seen is a historic shift in Scottish political opinion. It hasn't happened overnight, and not even in the last seven months since the referendum," she said. "Labor has been losing the trust of the people of Scotland over several years."

Five years ago, in the 2010 election, the SNP won only six seats and secured just 20 percent of the vote. Now, with 56 seats and more than a 50-percent share of votes cast, the party believes it is in a position to push Scottish issues to the forefront of British politics.

"The result of this election has proved that even if Labor had won every single seat in Scotland they would still not have had enough to beat the Conservatives," said Alan Pollock, 49, an SNP volunteer from the Glasgow area.

"For years they have said that only Labor can stand up to the Tories but if they can't convince enough English voters to back them it doesn't matter what we do. This time we have called their bluff and voted for a party that will stick up for Scotland. Now Westminster will have to sit up and take notice of what we have to say."?

As seat after seat fell to the nationalist advance, supporters who had gathered for an election-night party in the local campaign headquarters in Helensburgh near Glasgow clapped and cheered each result.

"We knew we were doing well, especially as none of the other parties even bothered to have representatives outside the polling stations all day," said Pollock. "The Tories, who have the campaign office across the road, even shut up shop and went home two hours before the polls closed."

Among the SNP politicians aiming to shake up the Westminster establishment is former First Minister Alex Salmond. He resigned from that position last September after losing the independence referendum but is now making a political comeback after winning a seat in the British Parliament with a majority of 8,000 votes.

"It's a very positive vote from an electorate that has been energized and electrified by the referendum process," Salmond said of the SNP performance. "We are not the same country as we were a year ago."

The Latest: Scottish nationalists engineer landslide vote

May 08, 2015

LONDON (AP) — 7:45 a.m. (0745 GMT, 2:45 a.m. EDT)

All seats in Scotland have been counted in Britain's latest vote, making clear the scale of the landslide by the Scottish National Party, which captured 56 of the region's 59 seats. That was a gain of 50 seats over the nationalists' previous six seats in the 650-seat House of Commons.

The opposition Labor Party lost 40 seats in Scotland. The result left the Conservatives, Labor and the Liberal Democrats with just one seat each in Scotland. 7:20 a.m. (0720 GMT, 2:20 a.m. EDT) With 568 of 650 constituencies reporting results Friday morning in Britain's parliamentary election, the Conservatives were leading with 269 seats, according to election officials.

The opposition Labor Party has won 214 seats and the Scottish National Party 55. Eight seats have gone to the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland and to the Liberal Democrats, and the U.K. Independence Party has earned one seat. Thirteen seats went to other smaller parties.

An exit poll has predicted that the Conservatives will be the top party in Thursday's vote and the chief pollster says the Conservatives may even capture a majority of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

7 a.m. (0700 GMT, 2 a.m. EDT)

With 508 of 650 constituencies reporting results Friday morning in Britain's parliamentary election, the Conservatives were leading with 222 seats, according to election officials.

The opposition Labour Party has won 203 seats and the Scottish National Party 55. Eight seats have gone to the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland, while the Liberal Democrats won six seats and the U.K. Independence Party earned one. Thirteen seats went to other smaller parties.

An exit poll has predicted that the Conservatives will be the top party in Thursday's vote, winning 316 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

6:40 a.m. (0540 GMT, 1:40 a.m. EDT)

Labor leader Ed Miliband has acknowledged that his party is facing likely defeat in Britain's general election.

He says "This has clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labor Party."

Miliband won his own Doncaster North seat, but Labor looks set to win fewer than the 256 seats it held before the election. It has been all but wiped out in Scotland, a former stronghold, as voters defected in droves to the Scottish National Party.

Miliband said "we haven't made the gains that we'd wanted in England and Wales and in Scotland we have seen a surge of nationalism overwhelm our party."

He said whoever is prime minister in the next government would face the challenge of uniting Britain after a divisive campaign.

6:25 a.m. (0525 GMT, 1:25 a.m. EDT)

George Galloway, one of Britain's most colorful and controversial figures, has lost his Bradford West seat to the Labor Party.

Galloway, an outspoken critic of Israel and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, won the seat from Labour in a 2012 special election. But some locals accused the left-wing firebrand — who once saluted Saddam Hussein and has appeared on a reality-TV show pretending to be a cat — of spending little time in Bradford, which has a large Muslim population.

The candidate from the tiny Respect Party lost by a wide margin to Labour's Naz Shah after a bitter campaign in the northern England city. Shah is a political newcomer who has overcome childhood poverty, a teenage forced marriage and the imprisonment of her mother for killing an abusive partner.

Shah had urged voters to reject Galloway because "we do not need a one-man Messiah to tell us how to come and fix up Bradford."

6:15 a.m. (0515 GMT, 1:15 a.m. EDT)

Prime Minister David Cameron has easily won his Witney seat in southern England, and stopped just short for declaring overall election victory for his Conservatives.

He told voters "this is clearly a very strong night for the Conservative Party."

Results seem to support an exit poll's prediction the Tories will be the biggest seat in the House of Commons and may even win a majority of seats.

A Conservative-led government would face a divided Britain, with the pro-independence Scottish National Party holding almost all the seats north of the border. Cameron has vowed to counter the rise of Scottish nationalism with more powers for Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom.

He says "I want my party, and I hope a government that I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost — the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom."

5:40 a.m. (0440 GMT, 12:40 a.m. EDT)

Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg managed to hang on to his seat in Parliament when results were announced Friday morning, but admitted that his party had suffered a terrible string of setbacks in Britain's general election.

The party that had been the junior partner in a Conservative-led government lost most of its seats. An exit poll suggested it would win perhaps 10 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons — down from 56 — and several major party figures were ousted by voters.

After his own win, a woeful Clegg said "It is now painfully clear this has been a cruel and punishing night for the Liberal Democrats." Clegg, who has served as the U.K.'s deputy prime minister for the last five years, hinted that he would be discussing his party leadership with colleges later Friday.

5 a.m. (0400 GMT, midnight EDT)

He's back. London Mayor Boris Johnson has once again won a seat in parliament, this time representing voters in the Uxbridge and Ruislip South district, as Conservative Party candidates did much better than expected in Britain's election.

The shaggy-haired mayor, seen as a possible future Conservative Party leader, had previously represented Henley.

"The people of Britain, after a long and exhausting campaign, have finally spoken," he said early Friday. "They have decisively rejected any attempt to take this country back to the 1970s. They want us to go forward with the sensible, moderate policies that have led to a sustained economic recovery."
Johnson will do both jobs until voters choose a new London mayor in 2016.

Poll: Opposition forces runoff in Poland's presidential vote

May 11, 2015

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Nationalist opposition candidate Andrzej Duda made a surprisingly strong showing Sunday in the first round of Poland's presidential election, apparently forcing a runoff with incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski who faces a tough re-election campaign, according to exit poll results.

Duda, who is no fan of the European Union, was predicted to receive 34.5 percent of the vote to Komorowski's 33.1 percent, according to the IPSOS exit poll released by the private TVN24 and the state-run PAP news agency.

The poll results suggest rising dissatisfaction with the ruling pro-EU establishment led by the center-right and pro-business Civic Platform party, which has been in power since 2007. Komorowski was a member but left in order to be a non-aligned president. The dissatisfaction was also reflected in the unexpectedly high support — 20.5 percent of the vote — predicted for punk rock star Pawel Kukiz, an anti-establishment candidate critical of the government.

Official results could be announced late Monday, the State Electoral Commission said. The results mean that Komorowski is in "gigantic trouble and must fight very hard to survive" in the May 24 runoff, said political analyst Antoni Dudek.

"The fact that (Komorowski) comes from the Civic Platform and defended all their decisions and never protested on any key issue has worked against him," Dudek said. "He also lost a lot by a poor campaign start and by underestimating the opponent."

He said Duda is a "dynamic candidate who has had a very good campaign," and could do well in the runoff by drawing support from Kukiz's voters. The exit polls indicate that the combined total for Duda and Kukiz tops 50 percent.

The vote was a test for Poland's two major political forces, represented by Komorowski and Duda, ahead of the country's parliamentary election in the fall. Duda's Law and Justice party backs a mix of national pride, Catholic values and social welfare programs and is more conservative than the current government. They both advocate a stern stance toward Russia and support neighboring Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow.

Komorowski, who has served as president since 2010 and made harmony his trademark, called for a debate with Duda and vowed to urgently present new reforms. Thousands of young people emigrate and seek jobs abroad as Poland's jobless rate remains well above 10 percent and earnings are much below the EU average.

"The result of the exit poll is a serious warning for the entire team in power," Komorowski said. "We should listen to the voters, because it's evidently necessary to mobilize all rational forces in Poland."

He appealed for energy and cooperation with the "large group of voters evidently disillusioned and waiting for fast, much faster change and modernization." A beaming Duda appealed to voters for more support in the runoff.

"We want to have a dignified life in a safe Poland, which needs to be mended in many areas," Duda said. "Today this primarily means a change at the presidential office." "We will win," he said. The exit poll forecast that no candidate would win more than 50 percent of the votes needed to avoid a runoff. It put turnout at 48.8 percent of Poland's more than 30.2 million voters.

Eight other candidates received single-digit support in the exit poll, including the main left-wing candidate, former actress and TV commentator Magdalena Ogorek, who had a mere 2.4 percent, reflecting the decline of the Democratic Left Alliance that she represented, the successor to the once powerful communist party.

With most power in the hands of Poland's prime minister and the government, the presidency has largely ceremonial duties but the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and has the power to propose and veto legislation.

Poles vote for president; incumbent expected to win 2nd term

May 10, 2015

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Poles are voting for president in nationwide balloting that is expected to see incumbent, Bronislaw Komorowski, re-elected, but not in first round balloting.

Ten other candidates are running in Sunday's election, but none are likely to receive the more than 50 percent of the vote needed to avoid a May 24 runoff. Some 40 percent of Poles support Komorowski, a center-right candidate, according to recent surveys that indicate he will most probably face Andrzej Duda, of the nationalist opposition Law and Justice party in a second round.

The vote is a test for Poland's two major political forces ahead of the parliamentary vote scheduled in the fall. Komorowski is aligned with the ruling Civic Platform party. Some 30.8 million eligible voters are free to cast ballots until 1900GMT.

Poland marks 70th anniversary of end of WWII

May 08, 2015

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's president led international commemorations late Thursday and into Friday marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, a gathering meant as an alternative celebration to Moscow's Red Square parade this weekend.

President Bronislaw Komorowski was joined by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European Council President Donald Tusk, who is Polish, and the presidents of Ukraine and several Central European countries for a ceremony that began just before midnight on the Westerplatte peninsula in Gdansk. That is the site of some of the first shots fired by Germany against Poland at the start of the war on Sept. 1, 1939.

The ceremony began so late so that it would continue into Friday, exactly 70 years after Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Light beams illuminated a monument to the Polish defenders of Westerplatte to the playing of the Polish national anthem and a gun salute.

Then Komorowski, a member of the pro-democracy Solidarity movement during the communist era, spoke of how Poland suffered under the domination of two totalitarian systems during the war, Germany and the Soviet Union, and of how the war's end also marked the start of decades of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe.

It's a very different reading of history from that promoted in Russia, which tends to stress only the heroic actions of Soviet troops during the war. Russia is preparing to celebrate the Victory Day holiday with great pomp on Saturday.

Recently Moscow has accused Warsaw of trying to deprive Russians of credit for their huge sacrifices in defeating Adolf Hitler. Komorowski originally organized the ceremonies in Gdansk in reaction to the deep divisions between the West and Russia over Moscow's actions in Ukraine. They were meant to give Western leaders a chance to pay homage to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany without traveling to Moscow.

Komorowski also criticized Russia for changing borders in Europe with its annexation of Crimea. "This is something that hasn't been practiced since 1939," he said. "There can be no acceptance of such a practice. These anachronistic attitudes will not stop the aspirations of peoples to decide their own destiny."

Though many Western leaders are boycotting Saturday's Moscow commemorations, they also mostly did not travel to the commemorations in Poland, perhaps in an effort not to anger the Kremlin as the West encourages a tenuous peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

Before the main ceremony, the U.N. leader met with Komorowski and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In a statement, the U.N. said Ban "encouraged the sides to swiftly and fully implement" the measures of the peace deal for Ukraine agreed on in Minsk, Belarus.

Later, Ban told a panel at a conference on the war that the anniversary holds special importance to the U.N. because "our organization was founded on the ashes of this calamitous war that claimed the lives of millions of fellow human beings."

Report: Death toll rises after 2nd day of Macedonia clashes

May 10, 2015

KUMANOVO, Macedonia (AP) — Fighting between police forces and members of an armed group has continued for a second day in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo.

Local TV channels Alfa and 24 Vesti on Sunday reported that another police officer has died due to severe injuries sustained in the fighting, increasing the death toll of officers to six. At least another 30 were injured in an exchange of fire between special police forces and an armed group that started in the town on Saturday.

Early Sunday, ambulances in Kumanovo were seen carrying wounded policemen and sporadic gunfire was heard. The Macedonian government has declared two days of mourning for those killed in the operation. Sport events and political gatherings have been canceled.

Interior minister Gordana Jankulovska told reporters late Saturday that over 20 members of the armed group had surrendered, but that others refused to give up arms and were holed up in houses in Diva Naselba, a neighborhood in western Kumanovo.

She said the "terrorist group," which had entered Macedonia from an unspecified neighboring country, planned plan to "use the current political situation to perform attacks on state institutions." She didn't provide any more details about the organization.

The clashes come as Macedonia is grappling with its deepest political crisis since its independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991. The government and the opposition have accused each other of planning to destabilize the country to take or preserve power, and some analysts fear leaders on both sides are ready to provoke ethnic clashes as leverage.

Kumanovo is an ethnically mixed town located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the capital Skopje, near the border with Kosovo and Serbia. The region was the center of hostilities between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces during the ethnic conflict in 2001.

Ethnic Albanians, who make up a quarter of Macedonia's 2 million people, took up arms in 2001 demanding more rights. The conflict ended after six months with a western-brokered peace deal that granted more rights to the minority group.

Center-left party seen winning German state vote

May 10, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's main center-left party won an election Sunday in the country's smallest state, Bremen, and is expected to prolong its decades-long dominance there despite losing significant support, exit polls indicated.

Bremen has been led by the center-left Social Democrats since the 1940s. Exit polls for ARD and ZDF television showed them winning around 33 percent of the vote, down from more than 38 percent four years ago.

The polls also pointed to a thin majority at best in the state legislature for Mayor Jens Boehrnsen's current coalition with the Greens, who also lost ground. Still, his party was well ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, who are traditionally weak in Bremen but improved their tally modestly to about 23 percent. The conservatives have previously served as a junior governing party in Bremen.

About 500,000 people were eligible to vote in Bremen, which is financially weak and has an unemployment rate of 11.1 percent — the highest of any German state. The pro-business Free Democrats, former partners in Merkel's national government who are still trying to claw their way back after being ejected from the federal parliament two years ago, were set to re-enter Bremen's legislature with 6.5 percent of the vote, the exit polls showed.

The polls put support for the two-year-old Alternative for Germany party, which advocates an end to the euro currency in its current form and talks tough on immigration, at about 5 percent — the minimum the party needs to enter the state legislature.

At national level, polls show a strong lead for Merkel's party over the Social Democrats, who are her junior partners in the federal government.