In brief: Bus stop attack dashes peace hope
SOKILNYKY, Ukraine – Hours after a new peace initiative for Ukraine began taking shape, mortar shells rained down Thursday on the center of the main rebel-held city in the east, killing at least 13 people at a bus stop.
The deaths in Donetsk sparked wrath and grief that was swiftly exploited by pro-Russian rebel leaders, who paraded captive Ukrainian troops through the city to be punched, kicked and insulted by enraged residents.
Diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany had met in Berlin a day ago to thrash out a tentative dividing line from which the warring sides would pull back their heavy weapons. That solution already looks doomed.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine is now fiercer than ever in some locations, NATO’s top commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, said Thursday in Brussels.
In Kiev, President Petro Poroshenko appeared to be holding out hope for a new cease-fire, but said stern retribution would await anybody violating the peace.
Death not suicide, president now says
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – President Cristina Fernandez made an about-face Thursday, saying she now is “convinced” prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s death was not a suicide just days after she suggested the man who accused her of protecting Iranians charged in Argentina’s worst terrorist attack had killed himself.
In a letter published on social media sites, Fernandez said questions about Nisman’s death “have been converted into certainty. The suicide (I’m convinced) was not a suicide.”
The 51-year-old Nisman was found slumped in the bathroom of his apartment late Sunday with a bullet wound in his head. He was lying next to a .22-caliber handgun.
The death came days after Nisman gave a judge a 289-page report alleging Fernandez secretly reached a deal to prevent prosecution of former Iranian officials accused of involvement in the 1994 car bombing of Argentina’s largest Jewish center, an attack that killed 85 people and injured more than 200.
Hostage’s mother appeals for rescue
TOKYO – The deadline to pay ransom for two Japanese hostages of the Islamic State group was fast approaching today, as the mother of one of the captives appealed for her son’s rescue.
“Time is running out. Please, Japanese government, save my son’s life,” said Junko Ishido.
Ishido said she was astonished and angered to learn from her daughter-in-law that her son, 47-year-old journalist Kenji Goto, had left less than two weeks after his child was born, in October, to go to Syria to try to rescue the other hostage, Haruna Yukawa, 42.
The national broadcaster NHK reported that it had received a message from Islamic State “public relations” saying that a statement would be released soon.
The militants threatened in a video message to kill the hostages within 72 hours unless they receive $200 million.