Two Killed in Ukraine Protest!

Kora Saint-Lot

02/13/2014

Y News

Mr. Calic

In the Ukranian capital Kiev protest the turn unruly. Two protesters were killed on Sunday, January 22nd during clashes with the riot police. On Wednesday afternoon things take a turn and start trowing protesters burning tires. : The black smoke rises, petrol bombs are hurled back and forth as well as stun grenades. things are getting rather messy.

Th two protesters, killed by bullet wounds, were fighting / protesting against the riot police, who were trying to clear the campsite established by the protesters. "Several riot police came up to the body and started to prod it with their hands and feet." a BBC reporter reported. Maidan Square (Independence Square) was filled with protesters trying to get their point across. "We must do all we can to stop them from clearing us out." said Mr. Klitshko one of the protesters.

The three-hundred injuries and two deaths were caused by the protesters, some armed with hand-guns, petrol bombs and stones, and by the riot police, armed with stun grenades and rubber bullets. Another man, it is said, nearly died by falling of an archway where protesters were throwing rocks down to the police.

Castaway Washes Up after 13 Months at Sea | by: Jared Rogerson

Jared Rogerson

2/13/2014

Y News

Mr Calic

Castaway Lost at Sea for 13 Months Washes Ashore

Castaway claims to have been adrift in the Pacific ocean for 13 months, starting in December 2012. This man is Jose Alvarenga, and he is a native of El Salvador. Earlier this month he washed ashore, and was in a very unstable medical condition. He claims to have lived off of birds and turtles, as well as rainwater and his own urine to survive. He was discovered about twenty miles of the Marshall Islands.

Alvarenga told the press that he had gone on a fishing trip with a teenage companion, and had been blown of course in a terrible storm, where the engines broke down. They were stranded in the middle of the pacific, with no land anywhere near them. His teen companion died within the first few weeks because he refused to eat raw fish and turtles, and to drink his own urine. Officials are not sure what Alvarenga did to the body at this point. Alvarenga said this about how he found land, "I had just killed a bird to eat and saw some trees".

He eventually arrived ashore and then passed out. He woke up sometime later and there were two native women who found him in only his torn underwear, and also found his broken fiberglass "boat". Since then, he has been in the hospital with unstable medical condition, and he is very dehydrated. Also, officials now have no reason to doubt the castaways story because of research that shows that the time he had spent in the Pacific is indeed possible and even probable, due to currents around where they think he was stranded.

Winter Olympics Start with a Glittering Opening

Nadia Tokovic

Mr. Calic

Humanities 8B

13 February 2013

With many lights, fireworks, dance and music the most expensive Winter Olympics in history, have started in Sochi, Russia.

At 20:14 on February 7^th by the local time lights and music filled the Fisht Olympic Stadium with over 40,000 spectators from the stands. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin was joined by over 40 other world leaders. This worldwide competition will last from the 7^th of February until the 23^rd of February and for these 16 days results of the games will dominate the sporting channels and websites.

"Most of the ceremony focuses heavily on Russian classical music," said Konstantin Ernst, who was the main creative producer of the ceremony. The music for these Olympic Games was to be focused on is the music that Russia is most famous for; classical music. The opening scene also included a little girl who was dreaming about Russia’s landscapes, landmarks and artists and then was lifted up into the skies by wires as if she was flying. The performance of the little girl was followed by the athletes walking up ceremoniously onto the stage. Dmitry Chernyshenko, who was the head of the games, wanted to make sure that the Olympics would be “the safest place on Earth”, and indeed there were 37,000 policemen and officers placed around Sochi to handle any conflict. These Olympic games were being prepared for since 2007, when Russia first bid to host the Winter Olympic games. The cost for the games was at that time expected to be around 12 billion dollars but got up to 50 billion dollars making these the most expensive Olympics in history, both summer and winter. Overall, this spectacular opening to the ongoing Winter Olympics really proved to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the spectators. “We came with all our family,” said one of the spectators. “It is a big event for us, for our city, and for the whole country. This happens only once, and you have got to watch it, like this, at least.”

Sources: 

1.http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/07/winter-olympics-start-with-glittering-opening-ceremony/

2.http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/07/world/europe/russia-sochi-winter-olympics/

Syrian Peace Talks to Begin Amid Escalating Violence

Before you start to read, the second article is under the line that you will soon see.

Washington — In the wake of  escalating violence against civilians in Syria, a heightened sense of urgency surrounds the United Nations–led peace talks set to begin January 22 in Montreal, Switzerland.

The conference, known as Geneva II, represents the concerted bilateral efforts of the United States and Russia to bring together delegations from the Syrian regime of President Bashar AL-Assad and Syrian opposition groups to begin negotiations on a transitional government with full executive powers.

The conference was said to begin on January 22, it will focus on implementing a six-point plan, known as the Geneva I communique, that emerged from a U.N.-led “action group” meeting of Western and Arab nations in Geneva in June 2012. The plan calls for a Syrian-led transition toward a democratic, pluralistic nation guided by the rule of law and respecting rights of all its people and all communities, regardless of ethnicity, sect or gender.
Members of an alliance of opposition groups known as the Syrian Opposition Coalition General Assembly met January 17 in Istanbul to decide whether to attend the conference, but they adjourned for the night without reaching a decision. The assembly is attempting to represent the various concerns of numerous factions within the opposition.
Another major objective of the conference is to gain the regime’s complete commitment to allow U.N. humanitarian agencies full access to the country to supply food and medical supplies. The United States recently committed $380 million for humanitarian assistance, bringing the total U.S. contribution to $1.7 billion.
More than 130,000 lives have been lost since the war began in March 2011, and millions have lost their homes and security. It is estimated that 8 million people are displaced and well more than 2 million are refugees in neighboring countries.
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“The conflict in Syria has raged for too long,” a U.N. spokesman said in a statement. “It would be unforgivable not to seize this opportunity to bring an end to the suffering and destruction it has caused.”

The talks were originally scheduled for last May, but deep differences among Syria’s fractious opposition forces have proved a barrier to getting both sides to the negotiating table. The U.N. announcement on Monday appears to be an effort to force the issue and set a firm date for what could be a forum laying the groundwork for a new political order in Syria.

The aim of the Syria talks is to set up a transitional government in Damascus based on the “mutual consent” of the opposing parties. The transitional administration would have full executive powers, including control of military and security units, according to a blueprint hammered out last year by world powers.

The major, U.S.-backed political opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, has limited presence on the ground in Syria and has been rejected as illegitimate by some rebel groups fighting inside the country. The coalition has put down various conditions for its presence at peace talks, including seeking a guarantee that the process will lead to Assad’s departure from power -- a demand rejected by the Syrian government.

Various Islamic rebel alliances have also sprung up inside Syria recent months, along with Kurdish militants fighting for a degree of autonomy in northern Syria. Also, several factions affiliated with Al Qaeda and seeking establishment of an Islamic state in Syria have become powerful blocs in the rebel ranks.

Changes proposed to NSA’s phone surveillance program

Petra Duff

Humanities 8B

Y News

2/13/2014

Changes proposed to NSA’s phone surveillance program

                Following Snowden leaks on the NSA phone bulk phone records, American President Barack Obama made a speech on January 17^th, proposing changes to the phone surveillance program.

                One of the changes was that the query results to metadata was limited to two hops rather than three, meaning that the data of a person who is two steps removed from a suspect can be looked at, bringing it down from three, limiting the amount of data looked at. Also, there is a motion that the data will only be queried after it is found by the court that there is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion”.

                It has also been said by the President that custody of the records may be transferred to a third party outside of the government. However, this plan, as put by David Medine, “just doesn’t seem to address the concerns”.

                “What we need now, though, is not tinkering around the edges but an end to bulk collection,” said the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office director Laura W. Murphy. Many are concerned that the changes proposed by the president are mainly surface changes and will do nothing to actually change the situation. Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, says; “This should be seen as an important stopgap measure on the way to legislative reform of the underlying authority. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/obama-to-announce-nsa-reforms-live-coverage)
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/07/obama-administration-starts-to-implement-changes-to-nsa-phone-records-program/)

Stanislas Wawrinka Wins Australian Open

Stanislas Wawrinka shocks No. 1 Rafael Nadal and the rest of the tennis fans to win Australian Open for the first time in his life. 

Sunday, January 26th is when the tennis history changed, and when Stanislas Wawrinka won Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia. Stanislas found himself in the finals of Australian Open with one of the greatest players in the tennis history, Rafael Nadal. Even though no one really believed in him, Wawrinka found various ways to defeat the tennis legend. 
The injury that stroke Nadal all of the sudden, made the path for Wawrinka for winning the Australian Open even easier that in was before. But of course, Nadal's injury doesn't change the fact that even before his injury, Wawrinka yet played his best tennis of his life. Even though Nadal' had very hard time struggling with his back injury, he did not decide to quit. He continued fighting till the end of the match, and eventually lost in only 2h and 21 minutes in 4 sets: 6:3, 6:2, 3:6, 6:3.

''Last year I lost a semi-final in five sets to Novak and even if I had won that match, I had to play with Rafa afterwards in the finals. That's why I never dreamed about winning a grand slam. I don't think a lot of people in Switzerland were expecting me to win this grand slam'', Wawrinka said after winning. 
Even though it was only one match, Wawrinka jumped from No.8 to No.3 on the ATP List after winning the finals. As already mentioned, he did not see himself as a potential winner, but he still surprised all of us, especially in the last set of the match. At that point, Wawrinka gave the best of himself and he found himself serving for the match when the result was already 5:3 where right afterwards he won. 

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jan/26/stanislas-wawrinka-rafael-nadal-australian-open

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/australianopen/10600395/Australian-Open-2014-Stan-Wawrinkas-grand-slam-victory-has-broken-the-spell-of-the-Big-Four.html

Kiril Todorov Post one Ukrainian Protests

Ukraine Protests

On 21^st of November 2013 the demonstrations began in the capital of Kiev, the cause of these protests was due to the government rejecting a far-reached accord with the EU. The protests where at first calm, but later escalated “They turned violent on 19 January, and deadly on 22 January in the capital…”. The protesters fight the police by torching the buses, throwing rocks, Molotov’s, while the police respond with tear gas and rubber bullets. But while the politicians seem not to be acting out so violently 2 people were shot dead at the site of the Kiev protest camp on 22^nd of January, also another was found dead in a forest with torture marks in a forest near Kiev showing that someone must have been angry and also a protest leader, Dymtro Bulatov has showed up with serious facial injuries and has claimed he was abducted tortured for eight days and left to die. Showing that the people who are against the far-reached accord with the EU are ready to do some extreme things to make sure that this does not happen. Even with all of these things happening the protesters continue strong making barricades to stop the police from snow in snow bags making walls up to 5 meters high making the politicians no way in breaking through except waiting for the weather to get warmer. Meanwhile the protesters showing a good sense of humor and creativity and fighting a police squad off with a catapult firing fire missiles and coming dressed the next day with a bigger and the protesters where dressed as knights and once again fought the police off.
Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/09/medieval-knights-catapults-ukraines-protesters
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25182823
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25182823