McDonald’s has decided to suspend operations at its three Crimean restaurants following ongoing diplomatic tensions in the region.
The company said that it would try to support staff, and hopes to re-open its restaurants in Simferopol, Sevastopol and Yalta as soon as possible.
McDonald’s is the second in the Crimea to alter its operations after heightened tensions between Russia and the west.
Deutsche Post said on Thursday that it was no longer accepting letters for Crimea.
“Due to operational reasons beyond our control, McDonald’s has taken the decision to temporarily close our three restaurants in Simferopol, Sevastopol and Yalta,” McDonald’s said.
A Reuters report said that the company had offered to relocate staff who wished to move to Ukraine.
According to a Kiev-based restaurant consulting group, losing the three restaurants would only result in a 5 percent loss for McDonald’s Ukraine Ltd, where the average daily revenue for each restaurant is about $8,800 (100,000 UAH).
“Calculating net income at about 30 percent of revenue, with the Crimean restaurants remaining closed the American corporation will lose $240,000 [UAH 2.7 million] in profits each month,” Olga Nasonova, director of Restaurant Consulting, told Russia Forbes.
According to Olga Nasonova, McDonald’s has invested about $10 million in the three sites.
A McDonald’s restaurant was first opened on May 24, 1997 in Kiev, and the company now has 79 restaurants in 23 cities across Ukraine.
McDonald’s is the fifth most popular restaurant for Ukrainians, according to Olga Nasonova. There are more than 300 restaurant locations in Russia.
Michael Schumacher is showing “moments of consciousness” after months in a coma, his agent Sabine Kehm has said.
Sabine Kehm said in a statement to the media that he was “making progress”, adding that they remain “confident”.
Michael Schumacher is showing “moments of consciousness” after months in a coma
Doctors in France have been working to bring the seven-time F1 champion out of a medically induced coma.
Michael Schumacher, 45, suffered a severe head injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps on December 29.
“We are on his side during his long and difficult fight, together with the team of the hospital in Grenoble,” Sabine Kehm said in the statement.
“We would like to thank you all for the continuous sympathies. At the same time we again ask for understanding that we do not intend to disclose details.”
Last month Michael Schumacher’s relatives said in a statement that he had been showing “small, encouraging signs”.
Two foreign journalists have been shot by a police officer in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, officials say.
One of the women died, the other was critically wounded.
The incident took place in the remote town of Khost near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
It comes as Afghanistan intensifies security ahead of presidential elections on Saturday, in response to threats of violence by the Taliban.
Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus, 48, was killed instantly in the attack, the news agency confirmed.
Veteran reporter Kathy Gannon, 60, was said to be in a stable condition and receiving medical treatment.
Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed instantly in the attack (photo CBC)
They came under attack whilst sitting in a car in a convoy protected by Afghan soldiers and police.
The new president will succeed Hamid Karzai, who has been in power since the 2001 fall of the Taliban but is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
“Two female journalists were shot this morning inside a district police headquarters, one has been killed, while the other is seriously wounded,” Khost provincial spokesman Mobarez Mohammad Zadran told the AFP news agency.
The two journalists had been visiting Tanay district in Khost province with an official from the Independent Election Commission when the attack took place.
The police officer behind the attack is currently being questioned in custody.
The Taliban has stepped up its attacks in recent weeks, in a bid to disrupt preparations for the election.
Last month, a senior reporter for AFP, Sardar Ahmad, was killed alongside eight other people when Taliban gunmen attacked a hotel, which was popular with foreigners, in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Nearly 200,000 troops have been deployed across the country to prevent attacks by the Taliban.
Rings of security have been set up around each polling centre, with the police at the centre and hundreds of troops on the outside.
The election is being protected by the biggest military operation since the fall of the Taliban.
Reporting restrictions are in place, limiting what can be broadcast about the candidates.
If nobody wins more than 50% of the vote in this round, a run-off election will be necessary.
There are eight candidates for president, including former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmai Rassoul, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Samsung has been criticized by the White House for promoting a selfie taken by Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz with President Barack Obama.
The picture was taken by David Ortiz on his phone this week and was re-tweeted by Samsung to millions of the phone maker’s 5.2 million followers.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president’s image should not be used for commercial gain.
Samsung representatives have not so far commented on the issue.
Samsung has been criticized by the White House for promoting a selfie taken by Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz with President Barack Obama (photo Getty Images)
Jay Carney said that White House lawyers were being consulted over the issue.
“Without getting into counsel’s discussions, I can tell you that as a rule, the White House objects to attempts to use the president’s likeness for commercial purposes, and we certainly object in this case,” he said.
Jay Carney declined to discuss how the White House had objected.
David Ortiz gave Barack Obama a special Red Sox jersey with the president’s name on it at the function on Tuesday and then persuaded him to pose for the smartphone selfie.
“I gave him the jersey, and the photographers were going to take their pictures and I thought, really at the last second, maybe I should snap a shot with my phone while I have the chance,” David Ortiz told the Boston Globe.
“You don’t get a chance to get a photo with the president every day.”
David Ortiz denied that Samsung paid him any more money for taking the photo.
A towed pinger locator is now being used to hunt for the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Two ships with locator capabilities are searching a 150 mile underwater path, in the hope of recovering the plane’s data recorder.
Up to 14 planes and nine ships were due to take part in Friday’s search.
Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying 239 people.
It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, although no confirmed debris has been found from the plane.
The search is being co-ordinated from the city of Perth in Western Australia.
The battery-powered pingers on the plane’s black box stop transmitting about 30 days after a crash, giving the searchers now perhaps only a few days to locate it.
Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agencies Coordination Centre (JACC) leading the search, said that two ships had “commenced the sub-surface search for emissions from [the] black box pinger”.
Search teams have begun using a towed pinger locator to hunt for the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
Australia naval vessel Ocean Shield was using a towed pinger locator from the US Navy, while HMS Echo, which had similar capabilities, was also searching.
“The two ships will search a single 240km track converging on each other,” Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is retired, said.
ACM Angus Houston said that the area had been picked on the basis of analysis of the satellite data.
It was based on work regarding “how the aircraft might have performed and how it might have been flown”, to choose the “area of highest probability as to where it might have entered the water”.
He pointed out that this data was continuing to be refined, but the current search was based on the “best data that is available”.
Given the progress in data evaluation and calculation, “there is some hope we will find the aircraft in the area we are searching”, Angus Houston added.
The two ships will be moving at reduced speeds, of around three knots, in their attempt to detect any signal from the pinger.
Commodore Peter Leavy, Commander of Joint Task Force 658, said that search operations generally preferred to use “physical evidence” and “drift modeling” to locate a plane.
However, “no hard evidence has been found to date so we have made the decision to search a sub-surface area on which the analysis has predicted MH370 is likely to have flown,” he said.
In a statement, JACC said up to 10 military planes, four civilian planes and nine ships would be deployed in Friday’s search efforts.
The focus is on a search area of about 84,000 sq miles, 1,000 miles north west of Perth.
Fair weather was forecast for Friday, with visibility of around 6 miles, JACC said.
Malaysia Airlines ex-steward Patrick Chow says the cabin crew he knew could not be responsible for the plane’s disappearance
Meeting staff involved in the search on Friday, Australian PM Tony Abbott said: “It is probably the most difficult search that’s ever been mounted.”
“A large aircraft seems like something that would be easy enough to locate – but a large aircraft that all but disappeared and disappeared into inaccessible oceans is an extraordinary, extraordinary challenge that you’re faced with.”
ACM Angus Houston said there was still a “great possibility of finding something on the surface [of the ocean]”.
“There’s lots of things in aircraft that float,” he said, citing previous searches where life jackets from planes were found.
A new study has found that poor oral health and irregular dental checks can increase the risk of oral cancer.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer report also found excessive use of mouthwash – more than three times a day – can also increase risk.
Smoking, heavy drinking and “low socio-economic status” are established risk indicators of mouth and throat cancers.
The study covered 1,962 cancer patients and a further 1,993 control subjects across nine countries in Europe.
The study was led by the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology in Bremen, Germany, (BIPS) and backed by researchers from Glasgow University Dental School.
Prof. Wolfgang Ahrens, deputy director of BIPS, described the study findings as “really important”.
Poor oral health and irregular dental checks can increase the risk of oral cancer
“Up until now, it was not really known if these dental risk factors were independent of the well known risks for mouth and throat cancers – smoking, alcohol and low socio-economic status,” he said.
Prof. Wolfgang Ahrens said the report findings were highly “nuanced” and there was an interconnectedness of many of the risk factors.
The definition of poor oral health included people who had complete or part dentures and people with persistently bleeding gums.
Dr. David Conway, clinical senior lecturer at Glasgow University Dental School, said: “People should not assume that if they wear dentures and have none of their own teeth left, they have no need to see a dentist.
“On the contrary, even if you have got dentures, you should make sure you go for regular check-ups.”
People with poor dental care were defined as those who hardly ever or never brushed their teeth or visited the dentist.
Dr. David Conway said the frequency of dental visits should be determined by a dentist’s risk assessment and if people fell into the low-risk category it could be once a year or even every two years.
“It is not a case of one size fits all,” he added.
“Visits could be six-monthly, but certainly not five-yearly.”
The research team said the possible role of mouthwash as a risk factor would require further research.
They were unable to analyze the types of mouthwash used many years ago by participants in the study.
Dr. David Conway added: “I would not advise routine use of mouthwash, full stop.
“There are occasions and conditions for which a dentist could prescribe a mouthwash – it could be that a patient has a low salivary flow because of a particular condition or medicine they are taking.
“But for me, all that’s necessary, in general, is good regular brushing with a fluoride toothpaste and flossing combined with regular check-ups by a dentist.”
The new study findings have been published in Oral Oncology.
The US Senate has voted to recommend declassification of part of its report into “brutal” interrogation methods used by the CIA when questioning terror suspects.
But the Senate Intelligence Committee officials say it will be some time before the summary is made public.
Leaked parts of the report showed that the CIA often misled the government over its interrogation methods when George W. Bush was president.
The CIA disputes some of the findings, saying the report contains errors.
Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein said that it had voted 11-3 to declassify what she called the “shocking” results of the investigation.
“The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do,” California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said.
Senate report showed that the CIA often misled the government over its interrogation methods when George W. Bush was president
Correspondents say that while some of the committee’s Republicans voted with the Democrats in favor of declassifying the report, it was clear there were bitter divides within the panel.
Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss said that while he voted for the report’s declassification “to get it behind us”, it was still “a waste of time”.
A statement released by Dianne Feinstein said that the report highlighted “major problems” with the CIA’s management of its secret Detention and Interrogation Program, which involved more than 100 detainees.
“This is also deeply troubling and shows why oversight of intelligence agencies in a democratic nation is so important,” the statement said.
“The release of this summary and conclusions in the near future shows that this nation admits its errors, as painful as they may be, and seeks to learn from them.
“It is now abundantly clear that, in an effort to prevent further terrorist attacks after 9/11 and bring those responsible to justice, the CIA made serious mistakes that haunt us to this day.”
The statement said that the full 6,200-page report – which took five years to compile – has been updated and will be declassified at a later time.
It said that the executive summary, findings and conclusions – which total more than 500 pages – will be sent to President Barack Obama for declassification review and subsequent public release.
Leaks of the report in the Washington Post on Tuesday said that the CIA used secret “black sites” to interrogate prisoners using techniques not previously acknowledged.
These included dunking suspects in icy water and smashing a prisoner’s head against a wall.
Vybz Kartel has been sentenced to life in prison for murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams and he won’t be eligible for parole for 35 years.
A jury found the 38-year-old Jamaican dancehall artist, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, guilty of the death of his associate in March.
Clive “Lizard” Williams was killed after being asked to Vybz Kartel’s home to discuss two missing illegal hand guns.
Vybz Kartel is one of Jamaica’s biggest music stars with hits including Clarks, Ramping Shop and Summer Time.
His success led to him launching lines of shoes and alcohol.
The singer also became the first dancehall artist to star in his own reality TV show, Teacha’s Pet.
Vybz Kartel was previously arrested in 2011 on drug charges.
They were later dropped, but an investigation by Jamaica’s Major Investigation Taskforce (MIT) discovered illegal firearms during a search of his house.
Vybz Kartel has been sentenced to life in prison for murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams and he won’t be eligible for parole for 35 years
Police also charged Vybz Kartel with being involved in the deaths of two men from the Portmore district of the island.
One murder case was dropped due to lack of evidence, however the musician and three other men went on trial for the killing of Clive “Lizard” Williams.
The trial lasted 65 days and was the longest court case in the history of the Caribbean island, having started last November.
A key piece of evidence was a text message said to be sent from Vybz Kartel’s phone.
It claimed Clive “Lizard” Williams had been chopped up into so many pieces his body would never be found.
Vybz Kartel’s career has never been short on controversy.
Over the years, his skin tone appeared to become lighter but the rapper always denied using skin bleaching chemicals.
Vybz Kartel instead claimed his change in complexion was due excessive time spent in air conditioned environments.
However, he has admitted to using Cake Soap – a Jamaican detergent that contains bleach.
Vybz Kartel was also involved in a lyrical war of words with fellow dancehall star Movado, with the pair exchanging several diss tracks.
However, Vybz Kartel and Movado called a truce in 2007 after being called into a meeting with then Jamaican Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields.
Tensions between rival supporters of the musicians often turned violent, but this stopped almost immediately after a plea from Movado and Vybz Kartel.
Despite being held on remand since 2011, the demand from radio stations and fans for new music has been so high that Vybz Kartel continued to record songs from his cell.
Using his smartphone voice note feature Vybz Kartel released singles which were later compiled into a 61-song album.
“If we are going to play an artist’s music based on their personal lives then a lot of artists’ songs wouldn’t be played,” said DJ Sparks who is a leading radio presenter in Jamaica.
She says she plans to continue to play music from Vybz Kartel on her show for station Zip FM.
“His legacy will be a mixed one. He’s been able to capture the imagination of many.
“He studies his audience carefully and gives them what he thinks they want.
“He’s not only a good writer and lyricist but he knows how to delve into the mindset of his audience.”
Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake may be forced to cancel their sell-out shows in Finland as a result of US sanctions against Russia.
Helsinki’s Hartwall venue is owned by Gennady Timchenko and brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.
All three appear on the US sanctions list as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle”.
Helsinki’s Hartwall venue is due to host Justin Timberlake in May and Miley Cyrus in June.
Other acts due to appear this summer include Robbie Williams, Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith and Elton John.
Gennady Timchenko is a co-founder of Russian oil trader Gunvor and was estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth $15.3 billion before the sanctions came into force last month.
Arkady and Boris Rotenberg are the billionaire co-owners of SMP Bank and childhood friends of President Vladimir Putin.
Helsinki’s Hartwall venue is due to host Miley Cyrus in June
The three men are among a list of 27 individuals named by the US as being closely tied to President Vladimir Putin personally or politically.
Together, the three own events management company Arena Events Oy, which bought the Helsinki Hartwall Arena last year, as well as taking a minority stake in the local hockey club, Jokerit.
Arena Events Oy is managed by Boris Rotenberg’s son Roman.
Under the US sanctions no American citizen or business can provide Gennady Timchenko or the Rotenberg brothers with “economic resources”, effectively preventing business from being conducted with them.
But the concerts’ US ticket promoter, Live Nation, could apply to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the Treasury Department, for a license to authorize the transaction.
Live Nation said it was currently reviewing its portfolio and would work to ensure the US sanctions were upheld.
Tom Stocker, partner at law firm Pinsent Mason, said much depended on whether any money was still to be paid to the venue.
If not, Tom Stocker, the concerts could go ahead as planned. But if money was still owed to the venue it was possible the concerts could be cancelled.
“OFAC will need to provide a license to authorize the transaction and will have to take into account that the show forms part of a pre-existing agreement,” he said.
“But it has quite a wide discretion to grant licenses. If this was Europe then a license would most likely not be granted.
“It is a real area of ambiguity. The company that owns the venue is not on the sanctions list, but Timchenko is.
“The question is whether you are giving Timchenko economic resources by allowing the concerts to go ahead.”
Tom Stocker added there was potential for the concerts not to go ahead, as US companies would be likely to take a “cautious approach” for fear of falling foul of the current sanctions.
He said British artists like Robbie Williams, Elton John and Peter Gabriel, who were all likely to have US management, might find they were unable to discuss details of their forthcoming concerts at the Finnish venue while they were on US soil.
“The individuals themselves can’t do anything in furtherance of the concerts while on US soil,” Tom Stocker said.
“They can’t send emails to their US management while on American soil, they can’t discuss arrangements for the concert.”
As yet there is no evidence that any concerts at the venue have been cancelled. The Hartwall venue’s website shows all the concerts going ahead as planned.
Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been taken to hospital in Mexico City.
Winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is 87, is being treated for a lung and urinary tract infection, said Mexican officials.
He has made few public appearances in recent years.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is 87, is being treated for a lung and urinary tract infection
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is considered one of the greatest Spanish-language authors of all time, best known for his masterpiece of magic realism, A Hundred Years of Solitude.
The 1967 novel has sold more than 30 million copies around the world.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who has lived in Mexico for more than 30 years, was admitted on Monday night to a hospital in Mexico City, the National Nutrition Institute Salvador Zubiran.
He was suffering from dehydration and the infection.
“The patient has responded to treatment. Once he has completed his course of antibiotics his discharge from the hospital will be evaluated,” Mexico’s Secretary of Health said in a statement.
Two years ago, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s younger brother admitted publicly for the first time that the writer was suffering from dementia and had stopped writing.
Jaime Garcia Marquez said that Gabo, as the author is affectionately known, often phoned to ask basic questions.
“He is doing well physically, but he has been suffering from dementia for a long time,” Jaime Garcia Marquez said.
“Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’m losing him.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s other novels include Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and the The General in His Labyrinth.
According to the US Army, there is a “strong possibility” soldier Ivan Lopez, who killed three colleagues at Fort Hood base in Texas, was involved in an argument before the shooting.
Lt. Gen. Mark Milley formally identified the attacker as Specialist Ivan Lopez, 34, who later shot himself.
He told reporters there was “very strong evidence” that Ivan Lopez, originally from Puerto Rico, had an unstable psychological condition.
Sixteen others were wounded in the attack.
Officials have said that Ivan Lopez had served in Iraq and was being assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“There may have been a verbal altercation with another soldier or soldiers,” Gen. Mark Milley said.
Soldier Ivan Lopez killed three colleagues at Fort Hood base in Texas before taking his own life
“And there’s a strong possibility that that in fact immediately preceded the shooting, but we do not have that definitively at this point, but we do have strong indications of that.”
He also told reporters: “We have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates an unstable psychiatric or psychological condition… we believe that to be a fundamental, underlying causal factor.”
Gen. Mark Milley also confirmed that the pistol used in the attack was bought from the same store, Guns Galore in nearby Killeen, where the soldier behind the 2009 gun rampage at Fort Hood purchased his.
Wednesday’s shooting took place at two buildings on the base at about 16:00 local time.
Ivan Lopez walked into one of the buildings and opened fire with a .45-calibre semi-automatic pistol.
He then got into a vehicle and continued firing before entering another building and opening fire again.
It was here that Ivan Lopez was eventually stopped by military police, shooting himself in the head when confronted by a female officer in the car park.
The shooting incident lasted between 15 and 20 minutes.
Nine of those injured are reported to be in intensive care, with three in critical condition.
The shooting has shocked America’s political and military community.
President Barack Obama said: “To see this unspeakable, senseless violence happen in a place where they’re supposed to feel safe – home base – is tragic.”
Fort Hood was the scene of a gun rampage in 2009 that left 13 soldiers dead and 32 wounded.
Maj. Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death last September for that attack.
It was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history.
The US government aid agency USAID was behind ZunZuneo, a text-message service that was allegedly designed to foment unrest in Cuba, the White House confirmed today.
ZunZuneo, dubbed a “Cuban Twitter”, had 40,000 subscribers at its height in a country with limited web access, reports the Associated Press.
The Cuban Twitter project is said to have lasted from 2009-2012 when the grant money ran out.
The US reportedly hid its links to the network through shell firms and by routing messages via other countries.
There has been no official Cuban government reaction to the story.
ZunZuneo is a text-message service that was allegedly designed to foment unrest in Cuba (photo CBS News)
The scheme, first reported by the Associated Press news agency, was operated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
It is a federal international development organization run under the aegis of the Department of State.
At a daily news briefing on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the project had been debated by Congress and passed oversight controls.
Jay Carney said: “These are the kinds of environments where a program like this and its association with the US government can create problems for practitioners and members of the public.
“So appropriate discretion is engaged in for that reason but not because it’s covert, not because it’s an intelligence programme, because it is neither covert nor an intelligence program.”
The USAID said it was proud of its efforts in Cuba and that it worked to help people everywhere to exercise their rights and connect them with the outside world.
However, the report could undermine USAID’s longstanding claim that it does not take covert action in the countries where it operates aid programs.
ZunZuneo, slang for a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet, was reportedly designed to attract a subscriber base with discussion initially about everyday topics such as sport and weather.
US officials then planned to introduce political messages to spur the network’s users into dissent from their communist-run government, the Associated Press reports.
Executives set up firms in Spain and the Cayman Islands to pay the company’s bills and funneled the text messages away from US servers.
A website and bogus web advertisements were reportedly created to give the impression of a real firm.
Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, said the revelations were troubling.
David Letterman is to retire in 2015, broadcaster CBS has announced.
The announcement was made by the veteran late-night TV host during a recording of Late Show with David Letterman, CBS added.
David Letterman is to retire in 2015 (photo CBS)
David Letterman, who will be 67 next week, began hosting the show on CBS in August 1993, after leaving the rival NBC network.
He began his TV career in 1978 on the CBS variety series Mary, starring Mary Tyler Moore.
David Letterman’s show has since won a host of TV awards.
During the taping of Thursday’s show, David Letterman said he had informed his CBS bosses that he would step down in about a year’s time, when his current contract expires.
The news comes nearly two months after Jay Leno retired as host of NBC’s The Tonight Show.
Correspondents say both Jay Leno and David Letterman had seen their ratings fall as rival TV presenter Jimmy Kimmel on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live gained popularity with a younger audience.
Israel has decided to cancel the release of a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said Palestinian actions had violated the terms of the release, which was part of a US-backed peace process.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has applied to 15 UN conventions, accusing Israel of backtracking on its promises.
Washington said Israel’s latest move “creates challenges”.
But White House spokesman Jay Carney said it would not deter US Secretary of State John Kerry from keeping talks between both sides going.
“There has been progress in narrowing some of the questions that have arisen as a result of the events of the last few days,” he said.
The previous three releases of Palestinian prisoners were deeply unpopular with the Israeli public
“Neither side has indicated that they want to walk away from the talks. They both indicated they want to find a way to move forward.”
Tzipi Livni was quoted as saying “new conditions were established and Israel cannot release the fourth batch of prisoners”.
She urged the Palestinians to avoid unilateral measures and return to the negotiating table, her spokesperson said.
In recent days, the US had reportedly been trying to broker a deal in which the Palestinians would agree to extend the peace talks beyond the end of April deadline in exchange for the releasing of prisoners by Israel, and the US would free Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in return.
The previous three releases of Palestinian prisoners were deeply unpopular with the Israeli public because many of those freed had been convicted of murdering Israelis.
But the Palestinians – many of whom regard the prisoners as heroes – believed the final batch of prisoners would be freed under a US deal that got the talks started last year.
Each side blames the other for initiating that sequence of backward steps.
Kris and Bruce Jenner have been spotted holding hands at LAX airport on Wednesday after returning home from Thailand trip.
Kris and Bruce Jenner have been spotted holding hands at LAX airport on Wednesday after returning home from Thailand trip (photo Splash News)
Kris and Bruce Jenner, who have been married for more than 22 years, announced their separation in October 2013.
The Kardashian-Jenner brood has been visiting Southeast Asia for the past week, and has been photographed filming the next season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
This isn’t the first time Kris and Bruce Jenner have spent time together, but it is the first photograph of them being intimate since their separation.
Bruce Jenner, 64, moved into his Malibu pad while Kris Jenner, 58, stayed in the family’s Calabasas compound.
Lauren Conrad posted a picture of herself with purple hair on April 1st, but it was all just a gag in honor of April Fools’ Day.
Lauren Conrad’s hairstylist Kristin Ess confirmed the prank in hilarious fashion via Instagram on April 2.
Lauren Conrad’s purple hair was just a gag in honor of April Fools’ Day (photo Lauren Conrad)
“To get this exact shade of purple, we went out and gathered rare amethyst stones. Next, we ground them up by hand until they turned into a fine powder. Then we added 2 pinches of grape koolaid. Mix that in a bowl with 2 oz. of mermaid tears. Apply all over and let it sit for 16 hours. Lather, rinse, repeat. #aprilfoolsyall#shedoesntevenlikepurple,” Kristin Ess wrote.
Lauren Conrad, 28, recently said that she’s just not into the purple hair trend.
Turkey has lifted the controversial ban on Twitter following Wednesday’s constitutional court ruling, officials and media reports say.
Turkey’s constitutional court had told the country’s telecommunication authorities the two-week-old ban must be lifted as it was a breach of freedom of expression.
It may take a couple of hours for full access to Twitter to be restored.
Turkey has lifted the controversial ban on Twitter following constitutional court ruling (photo CBC)
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan had vowed to “wipe out Twitter” after users spread allegations of corruption.
Users across the country found many ways of circumventing the prohibition, which was widely criticized and ridiculed.
Access to Twitter was blocked in Turkey in the run-up to local elections, which Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party won resoundingly.
Following the Twitter ban the government also banned access to YouTube, after a video on the website appeared to reveal top officials discussing how to stage an undercover attack inside Syria. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is heard asking about the possibility of sending tanks in.
The YouTube recording has not been verified as authentic, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleges that such recordings are being fabricated to turn people against him.
While the rest of the Keeping Up With The Kardashians family is living it up in Thailand, Rob Kardashian took to his Twitter on Tuesday with a cryptic, troubling message for his 4.82 million followers.
“No one will ever understand how much it hurts,” Rob Kardashian, 27, wrote a few hours past midnight.
The tweet came shortly after his ex-girlfriend Rita Ora made headlines for gushing about her romance with DJ Calvin Harris in Elle U.K.
Rita Ora told the magazine that she’d never been in love before Calvin Harris.
Rob Kardashian took to his Twitter with a cryptic, troubling message for his 4.82 million followers (photo ABC News)
The singer and the sock designer had an ugly split in 2012, after he accused her of cheating on him with 20 other men.
Rob Kardashian also deleted everything from his Instagram account this week, replacing all of his previous photos with a single post about a particularly cheerless April Fools’ joke.
“April Fools prank: replace all the sugar in your house with cocaine,” the text in the picture read.
Rob Kardashian has been struggling in his attempts to lose weight in recent months.
Nearly the entire Kardashian-Jenner family flew out of Los Angeles late last week to go to Thailand, where they’ve been enjoying the sights and frolicking on the beach in their bathing suits. On April 2, Kris Jenner posted a photo of the picturesque scenery, hashtagging all of her kids except Rob and Kourtney.
“Gorgeous Thailand,” Kris captioned the pic, along with shout-outs to Brandon and Brody Jenner, Brandon’s wife Leah, Bruce Jenner, and daughters Kim, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie.
According to an investigation by the Associated Press news agency, the US secretly created ZunZuneo, a text-message social network designed to foment unrest in Cuba.
ZunZuneo, dubbed a “Cuban Twitter”, had 40,000 subscribers at its height in a country with limited web access.
The project reportedly lasted from 2009-2012 when the grant money ran out.
The US is said to have concealed its links to the network through a series of shell companies and by funneling messages through other countries.
The project appears to have taken advantage of the thirst for information on the island, where there is no independent media.
ZunZuneo, dubbed Cuban Twitter, had 40,000 subscribers at its height in a country with limited web access
The scheme was reportedly operated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a federal international development organization run under the aegis of the Department of State.
In a statement, USAID said its work was “consistent with US law”.
It told the Associated Press it was “proud of its work in Cuba to provide basic humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to help information flow more freely to the Cuban people”.
But the Associated Press report could undermine USAID’s longstanding claims that it does not take covert action in the countries where it operates aid programs.
ZunZuneo, slang for a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet, was reportedly designed to attract a subscriber base with discussion initially about everyday topics such as sport and weather.
US officials then planned to introduce political messages in the hope of spurring the network’s users, especially younger Cubans, into dissent from their communist-run government, the Associated Press reports.
“There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement,” said a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord, one of the project’s creators, obtained by the news agency.
Executives set up firms in Spain and the Cayman Islands to pay the company’s bills and routed the text messages away from US servers.
A website and bogus web advertisements were created to give the impression of a real firm, the Associated Press reports.
As the money dried up, US officials reportedly approached Twitter founder Jack Dorsey for funding.
Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the foreign operations appropriation subcommittee, said the ZunZuneo revelations were troubling.
Ukraine’s government inquiry found that special police forces were behind the killings of dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev in February.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters that 12 members of the Berkut police had been identified as snipers and arrested.
Arsen Avakov presented what he said was new evidence from the shootings on February 18-20, when 76 people were killed.
Months of mass protests led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
More than 100 people – including police officers – are now known to have died in Ukraine since the unrest began in November over Viktor Yanukovych’s last-minute rejection of a landmark deal with the EU in favor with closer Russian ties.
Ukraine’s new authorities have since signed the political part of the association agreement with the EU.
Meanwhile, Russia – which backed Viktor Yanukovych – last month annexed Crimea in southern Ukraine following a controversial referendum branded illegal by Kiev and the West.
Ukraine’s government inquiry found that special police forces were behind the killings of dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev in February (photo Getty Images)
At a news conference in Kiev, Arsen Avakov presented the initial findings of an initial investigation into the mass shootings that shocked Ukraine and the world.
Most of the demonstrators who died were killed on Instytutska Street near the main protest camp on Independence Square, widely known as the Maidan.
Arsen Avakov gave details of one particular episode where he said the inquiry had established that eight of those killed were hit by bullets from the same machine-gun.
He identified Maj. Dmytro Sadovnyk as commander of a unit suspected of shooting dead at least 17 protesters.
“From the side of the Zhovtnevy Palace, a special squad from the riot Berkut police, wearing yellow armbands, opened fire at the protesters. Much of this fire was targeted. We are carrying out ballistics tests on the weapons,” Arsen Avakov said.
Members of the security services’ special unit Alfa are also believed to have taken part in the shootings, he added.
The interior minister also showed a number of slides and photos illustrating where he said police snipers were firing from. He named two buildings on Khreshchatyk and Kostyolna streets, saying other spots were still being investigated.
And he added that the previous authorities had tried to make the inquiry impossible by burning uniforms, dumping weapons and destroying documents.
A number of those responsible for the shootings are believed to have fled to Crimea.
Ukrainian Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives had been involved in planning operations against the protesters.
He added that the FSB had sent “tonnes” of explosives and weapons by plane to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian authorities also said that the killings of the protesters took place “under the direct leadership” of Viktor Yanukovych.
They said arrest warrants had been issued for the ex-president and Oleksandr Yakymenko, Ukraine’s former security service chief.
Viktor Yanukovych – who is now in Russia – has repeatedly denied the allegations.
In a TV interview on Wednesday, Viktor Yanukovych claimed the shooting in February came from buildings held by protesters.
Justin Casquejo, a daring teenager who sneaked to the top of the US’s tallest building – 1 World Trade Center – will be assessed in a program for youthful offenders, a judge said Wednesday.
Justin Casquejo, 16, appeared before Midtown Community Court Judge Felicia Mennin, who ordered him to return on April 30.
He said nothing during the brief hearing. He and his lawyer declined comment as they rushed out of the building into a taxi.
Justin Casquejo, of Weehawken, New Jersey, is charged with criminal trespass and B.A.S.E. jumping, a reference to his alleged movements around the unfinished building. Both charges are misdemeanors.
He was arrested on March 16 after slipping through a hole in the fence surrounding the 104-story skyscraper at about 4 a.m. and taking an elevator to the spire.
Justin Casquejo sneaked into the WTC site and spent almost two hours on the roof of the nearly completed Freedom Tower (photo Facebook)
According to court documents, Justin Casquejo “slipped through an opening in the gate that is approximately 4 feet off the ground and approximately 1 square foot in area”.
He used a ladder to reach scaffolding that took him to the sixth floor, Detective Deborah Scheffold said in the documents. Justin Casquejo then took the elevator to the 88th floor, climbed the stairs to the 104th floor and rooftop, then used a ladder again to reach the peak of the antenna.
He said he had plotted on March 15, the eve of the climb, how to enter the building.
“I was walking around all night trying to figure out how I would enter it,” he was quoted as telling a police officer the next morning.
“I know there is no trespassing there,” the youth told the officer.
The 1,776-foot skyscraper is the US’s tallest building. It was built to replace the twin towers destroyed in the September 11 attacks.
Authorities said Justin Casquejo slipped through dressed like a construction worker and took photographs from the top.
Pharrell Williams will join talent show The Voice as a coach for its seventh season.
Pharrell Williams, 40, will join The Voice‘s panel when the new series starts later this year.
Following the announcement, the singer, who was Oscar-nominated for his hit single Happy, tweeted: “This is going to be so fun.”
Pharrell Williams will join talent show The Voice as a coach for its seventh season (photo Los Angeles Times)
In response to Pharrell Williams’ comment, current coach Adam Levine wrote: “Welcome to the circus dude!”
The Maroon 5 singer is on the panel with Shakira, Blake Shelton and Usher.
NBC said it would announce the remainder of the coaching line-up to appear alongside Pharrell Williams, who previously appeared as an advisor to Usher on season four, at a later date.
Christina Aguilera has also been a judge in the past.
