Both Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels have pulled back most of their heavy artillery from the front line in accordance with a February ceasefire deal, Ukraine’s president said late Monday, amid reports of fresh clashes in the east. However Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko told a state broadcaster that some heavy weaponry remains in place at the airport in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. World leaders hope the withdrawal of heavy weapons as agreed at high-level peace talks last month will help bring a definitive end to the conflict, which the UN estimates has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced almost 1.8 million. The pullback is being overseen by hundreds of monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has in the past cited a lack of cooperation on both sides. Poroshenko said in his interview that exchanges of artillery and rocket fire have largely stopped along the 485-kilometre (300-mile) front.
Hungary's foreign minister says his country has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the ‘brutal actions’ committed against Christians by the Islamic State group. Minister Péter Szijjártó said it was crucial for the Netherlands-based ICC to ‘prosecute the perpetrators’ of the anti-Christian violence ‘with rigour’. Islamic State militants have been beheading Christians, including at least 21 Egyptian Copts last month in Libya, after they refused to abandon their faith in Jesus Christ. Szijjártó's remarks came while concerns remained on Tuesday, 3 March, over more than 200 Christians abducted in Syria last week, the latest in a series of known kidnappings by the group. The minister said he spoke this week of Hungary's concerns about the crackdown on Christians during a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said his nation needs new, tougher rules allowing for the detention and expulsion of illegal migrants, otherwise Hungary would ‘turn into a refugee camp.’
Discrimination against Christians is being ‘ignored’ by governments and courts, MPs from across Europe have warned in the wake of a string of cases involving the rights of British workers to wear crosses or discuss their beliefs. The parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe has issued a formal declaration urging states to recognise the principle of ‘reasonable accommodation’ for the beliefs of traditionalist Christians on issues such as homosexuality for the first time. The first test of the new call will come as early as this week with the opening of an employment tribunal case involving a London nursery worker who claims she was dismissed for telling a lesbian colleague her beliefs on same-sex marriage. She also alleges that she was asked to act against her beliefs by reading stories about same-sex couples to children.
Almost one in five Dutch doctors would consider helping someone die even if they had no physical problems but were ‘tired of living’, according to one of the most comprehensive academic studies of such attitudes. The research, in which almost 1,500 GPs, geriatric care doctors and clinical specialists answered a detailed, anonymous survey, also found that 2% of them said they had taken part in such euthanasia or assisted suicide without medical grounds for a patient who was suffering, even though this is prohibited under Dutch law. The paper, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, also found that 40% of the doctors said it was conceivable they would help someone in the early stages of dementia to die, while 3% had done so. Just over a third said they might also be willing to assist people with a psychiatric disease who wished to end their life.
WHO 'taken aback' by measles outbreaks
27 Feb 2015Measles vaccinations must be immediately stepped up across Europe and central Asia after a series of outbreaks, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Officials say they have been ‘taken aback’ by more than 22,000 cases in 2014 and the first months of this year. The WHO demands that countries control the outbreaks with ‘no exception’. It say the surges threaten the goal of eliminating measles in the region by the end of 2015. Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, said: ‘When we consider that over the past two decades we have seen a reduction of 96% in the number of measles cases in the European region, and that we are just a step away from eliminating the disease, we are taken aback by these numbers. We must collectively respond, without further delay, to close immunisation gaps’
Ukraine: Troops retreat from key town Debaltseve
19 Feb 2015The Ukrainian president says his forces are making an ‘organised’ withdrawal from the embattled town of Debaltseve. Petro Poroshenko said 80% of Ukraine's troops left on Wednesday morning, with more to follow. Fighting has raged over the transport hub, with pro-Russian rebels seizing control of most areas, despite a ceasefire deal. Russia's foreign minister said Ukrainian forces had been encircled and were forced to battle their way out. ‘I'm reckoning that common sense will prevail,’ said Sergei Lavrov as he urged the rebels to provide troops who surrendered with food and clothes. Earlier, US Vice-President Joe Biden accused Russia of violating the accord, agreed in Minsk last week. Mr Lavrov told reporters that the rebel attack in Debaltseve did not violate the ceasefire agreement, because the town was part of the rebel-held area at the time the peace deal was signed. Eyewitnesses saw dozens of tanks and columns of weary Ukrainian troops retreating from Debaltseve on Wednesday.
Denmark: Large crowds mourn shooting victims
19 Feb 2015Tens of thousands of people have gathered in towns and cities across Denmark to commemorate the victims of weekend gun attacks in the capital. People holding candles and torches observed a minute's silence at the start of the main event in Copenhagen. Two people were killed and five police were injured in attacks on a free speech debate and a synagogue. The gunman was later shot dead by police. He did not appear to be part of a wider terror cell, Denmark's PM said. Earlier on Monday, two men were charged with providing and disposing of the weapon used in the attacks and helping the gunman to hide. The gunman was named by local media as Omar El-Hussein. Mourners left floral tributes outside the cultural centre that was targeted. The national flag flew at half-mast on official buildings across the capital on Monday.
Hundreds feared dead after boats sink off Italy
17 Feb 2015An estimated 300 people are feared dead after attempting to reach Italy from Libya in three inflatable rafts, the UN refugee agency said after speaking to survivors rescued by Italy's coastguard in the past few days. An Italian tug boat rescued nine people who had been on two different boats on Monday and brought them to the Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday morning. They are the only known survivors from their two boats, leaving more than 200 unaccounted for, according to a tweet by Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR spokesperson for Southern Europe. Three boats, each carrying about 100 people, are missing, according to interviews with survivors from two of the boats, Barbara Molinario, another UNCHR official, told the Reuters news agency