Ukraine: US And UK Warn Of Further Sanctions

Police Hunt Fans Over Racist Station Chants

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 22 Februari 2015 | 00.57

A gang of men, believed to be Chelsea fans, are being hunted by police after being heard shouting racist chants at St Pancras station.

The men were returning from Paris by train on Wednesday, the day after the club played Paris St Germain in the French capital.

The incident happened at the central London station at around 8pm, and was reported by a member of the public who was "disgusted" by their behaviour, the British Transport Police (BTP) said.

It comes after police released images of three men - believed to be Chelsea fans - who they want to speak to in connection with a separate incident on the Paris Metro on Tuesday.

A group of fans were captured on video stopping a black man boarding a train and chanting: "We're racist, we're racist, and that's the way we like it."

Speaking about the incident at St Pancras station, Superintendent Gill Murray of the BTP said: "The men shouted as they walked through the station having alighted from the train a short time earlier.

"If you travelled on the train from Paris or were at the station and have information which can assist our investigation I would urge you to get in touch as a matter of urgency."

The club has suspended five people from Stamford Bridge, the club's stadium, while it investigates the incident on the Paris Metro.

Chelsea said it had received "substantial information" following an appeal for witnesses.

The club has reiterated its vow to ban for life anyone proved to have been involved, and is helping police in the UK and France.

Manager Jose Mourinho has said the club is "ashamed" of the supporters, and said he would welcome the victim - Souleymane Sylla - to a future home game.

But Paris-born Mr Sylla, who believes the fans who abused him should be jailed, has rejected the invitation.

"I appreciate Mr Mourinho's invitation, but I can't get my head around being in a stadium at the moment," he said.

In a coincidence, Chelsea's home match against Burnley on Saturday is the club's designated annual "Game for Equality".

Before kick-off, fans of the London side unfurled a banner that read: "Black or white we're all blue."

The matchday programme also denounced the Paris abuse over several pages, including in a column by captain John Terry.

Terry was banned for four matches in 2012 after being found guilty of racially abusing then Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

He wrote: "This club stands against all forms of discrimination.

"Football is a sport for everyone, that is one of the main reasons why we love it."

Club chairman Bruce Buck wrote: "We are all appalled at what we saw and the club would like to apologise unreservedly to Mr Souleymane S for the behaviour of a group of individuals and their unforgivable actions towards him.

He added: "The people involved in that incident in Paris do not represent Chelsea Football Club, they do not stand for the values of this club and they have no place at this club.

"This has been echoed loud and clear by the vast majority of Chelsea supporters."

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Mexican Mafia Hardman Too Dangerous To Release

California's governor has blocked the release of a notorious Mexican Mafia turncoat who now works with police.

Gerry Brown vetoed the parole of double-murderer Rene "Boxer" Enriquez, who has been behind bars for 22 years.

Enriquez' murky past includes ordering the killing of a female drug dealer he suspected of stealing, and personally shooting a fellow gang member five times in the back of the head.

He has also been convicted of multiple assaults, rape, armed robbery and conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances.

The gangster also once picked his handcuffs and stabbed a rival 26 times during a prison meeting with lawyers.

"He is a high-profile drop out targeted by the Mexican Mafia, Mr. Enriquez' parole poses a serious security risk to him, his family, his parole agents, and the community in which he is placed," wrote Governor Brown.

Despite providing "valuable information about the inner workings of the Mexican Mafia" and testifying as an expert in court, he said "negative factors" had won out.

"I find the evidence shows that he currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released," wrote the governor in his decision letter.

There was controversy last month when Los Angeles SWAT police escorted Enriquez to an intelligence meeting with senior officers and business leaders.

The city's District Attorney office opposed his parole despite the gangster being backed by letters of support from the FBI, a deputy state attorney general and other agencies he has cooperated with.

Enriquez took the high-risk strategy of turning on his ex-comrades in 2005 and now provides insight into the inner workings of prison gangs and the Mafia.

He claimed he was being paid $200 (£130) a week for his cooperation and has published a tell-all book on his criminal life, The Black Hand.

The government once booked him into custody under a false name for possession of a swordfish without a licence, which Enriquez said was a bogus or "ghost" charge to protect him.

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What's Luring Western Women To Join IS?

Young women are being lured online to join Islamic State in Syria by promises of rent free homes and war booty, including fridges and cookers, experts say.

According to recent reports, female jihadists also appeal to impressionable teens on forums and social media with stories about pancakes coated in nutella, pictures of kittens and smiling emojis.

While they may sound far-fetched, the reports are not without substance, Dr Erin Saltman, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue told Sky News.

She said: "Women have very specific propaganda aimed at them by Islamic State.

"There is propaganda tailored to females, especially young females, which includes the discussion that they will be married upon arrival which gives romantic notions about finding a husband once they get there".

According to a recent report published by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, as many as 550 western women have fled to Iraq and Syria.

It is feared the three missing teenagers will soon join that number.

Ross Frenett, director of the Against Violent Extremism (AVE) network and co-author of the report, said many are "conned" into believing they will be joining an Islamic "utopia."

One Tweet written by a young female IS convert and referenced in the report reads: "Hijrah [migration] is FARD [a duty]! :)".

Another message on Tumblr says: "In these lands we are rewarded for our sacrifices involved in our Hijrah for example one is by receiving Ghanimah [war booty]".

"Some of the many things include kitchen appliances from fridges, cookers, ovens, microwaves, milkshake machines ... and most importantly a house with free electricity and water provided to you due to the Khilafah and no rent included."

The report, entitled Becoming Mulan, notes that not only do women encourage others to leave their homes, they often give important travel advice, using private messaging to convey more specific tips on fleeing to Syria or Iraq.

Many posts include the juxtaposition of IS' trademark brutality with western cultural references, it says.

It quotes one girl who tweeted that she hoped to "pull a Mulan" while she was in Syria - a reference to a Disney film in which a woman becomes a soldier, despite being banned from fighting.

However this may not be the product of a carefully-constructed propaganda scheme designed to lure young women from their homes.

Many of the posts simply reflect the inevitable western influences which emerge in messages written by women who are in their teens and 20s, Mr Frenett told Sky News.

Furthermore to suggest that women who join IS have all been tricked by propaganda suggests they don't engage in the same ideological processes as men, he said.

He claims that, like their male counterparts, young women are driven by several factors including outrage over perceived atrocities being carried out in Syria, an engagement with IS ideology and a search for identity.

Nevertheless the scope of online propaganda is proving powerful and has taken authorities by surprise.

"This phenomena has caught everyone in the western world off-guard," he said.

"We will see more girls leaving from the UK before we get on top of this issue."

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Bodycam Captures 'Vicious' Attack On Officer

Footage has emerged of a "disgusting and vicious" attack on a woman police officer which was captured on her body camera.

Sergeant Kerry Lawrence's head was repeatedly banged on the ground by a handcuffed suspect during the assault in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

It happened in the early hours of 6 July last year when she was responding to a report of a burglary in progress.

The video released by her force showed her attacker, Craig Radbourne, apparently drunk, in handcuffs and protesting in a squad car before he lashes out.

An unknown man is then heard calling the emergency services, saying: "We need police, ambulance, everything. Your officer is down, she's on the floor."

The man tried to reassure the officer and she appealed on her radio for colleagues to "hurry up". Back-up is heard arriving minutes later.

Radbourne, 25, of Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

He was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court to three years in prison.

The video was described by Judge Susan Evans QC as "nothing short of sickening" and she added the officer was fortunate not to be more seriously hurt.

She is now back at work on full duties.

A Hampshire police spokeswoman said: "Radbourne was arrested by the officer on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly. He had been placed in handcuffs and into a police car before additional units arrived.

"However, before officers arrived, Radbourne managed to strike out at Sgt Lawrence, viciously attacking her and banging her head on the ground several times.

"He was subsequently re-arrested by other officers nearby and taken into police custody."

Chief Inspector Simon Dodds said: "This was a disgusting attack on a member of my team, who works tirelessly to serve her community."

Simon Hayes, police and crime commissioner for Hampshire, criticised the sentence as being lenient.

He said: "I am disappointed that Mr Radbourne has only been sentenced to three years in prison for the extremely violent assault against Sgt Kerry Lawrence. I would hope that he is made to serve the full sentence."

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Greece Agreement 'Old Deal In New Clothing'

The clue came right at the start of Yanis Varoufakis' press conference.

Up until last night's bailout extension deal, the Greek finance minister spent most of his international media appearances addressing an international audience - speaking fluent, verbose English, taking questions from outlets from around the world.

Last night, in the small Greek briefing room in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, he was talking to someone else entirely.

His eyes fixed down the barrel of the cameras, for a quarter of an hour he spoke only in Greek.

"We are now co-authors of our own destiny," he said.

"Negotiation means compromise. But this deal is a small step in the right direction.

"We are no longer following a script given to us by external agencies," he added.

Unusually for him, though, he was reading his speech rather than talking off the cuff.

It did not take a political genius to work out what was going on.

Syriza came to power in Greece last month promising not to do a deal with the shady characters in Brussels.

It promised not to sign up to a continuation of the unpopular bailout programme.

It promised not to have its domestic policies monitored and influenced by the so-called Troika of lenders (the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank).

But the deal it signed up to on Friday night involved, essentially, all of the above.

There were changes in some of the terminology.

The "programme" is now renamed the "contract"; the hated "memorandum of understanding" which entailed the reforms the country needed to make, is called the "Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement"; the "Troika" is now referred to as "the institutions".

But, for the most part, the bailout extension Greece signed up to looks like precisely the thing Syriza and Varoufakis said they would not agree to.

True, there are some important changes: Greece will be given more leeway on its public finances this year; it will have the opportunity to curtail some of the tougher reforms, such as firesales of assets and changes in pension provisions - though these, too, will have to be approved by the Troika, sorry, institutions, in conversations starting on Monday.

Crucially, Syriza can rightly claim that its government has eased the conditions on the bailout a lot more than its predecessors.

However, this was hardly the revolution in economic policy that many Greeks will have hoped for.

It does not represent a new deal - so much as an old deal in new clothing.

Then again, perhaps that is the best that could have been expected.

This is only a short-term extension to bide the country over.

Without it, there was a distinct chance it would have defaulted and left the euro - the latter of which the vast majority of Greeks are set against.

The country's financial system was looking perilously exposed.

Throughout the Eurogroup meeting, the ECB president Mario Draghi warned repeatedly that unless Greece and its euro counterparts came up with a deal soon, money could start escaping from Greek bank accounts rapidly that there might be a full-blown financial crisis as soon as Monday.

This was a difficult meeting for Mr Varoufakis.

The former academic has taken the political world by storm in recent weeks, carrying out a whistlestop tour of European capitals to explain the Greek position.

However, so visible has he been in this period, so adamant that Greece will not water down its demands, that the events of the past 24 hours may prove tough to contextualise.

What made the job harder still is the fact that he and the finance ministry were marginalised towards the end of the negotiations.

Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister, stepped in and carried out some of the talks behind the scenes with his fellow leaders when things looked as if they were breaking down.

After the previous Eurogroup meeting on Monday descended into farce, amid a flood of leaks, the PM insisted that all press communications should be done through his office, rather than Mr Varoufakis'.

It was said that behind-the-scenes, the Germans were refusing to talk to Mr Varoufakis - that some Greek finance officials had been urged to get rid of their boss.

That would be a terrific mistake: their new finance minister is one of the biggest assets Greece has, particularly when it comes to explaining to an international audience why austerity has not worked, and why future deals might have to be different.

And there will almost certainly need to be another deal once these four months have elapsed.

In the meantime, Mr Varoufakis and his colleagues have a tough job on their hands explaining why what was agreed in Brussels was a triumph rather than a defeat.

Their previous feat - overturning decades of two-party domination in Greece - may end up looking easy in comparison.

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Fire Engulfs Dubai's Torch Tower Skyscraper

A huge fire engulfed part of the Torch Tower in Dubai in the early hours of this morning, forcing hundreds of people to flee the 1,100ft skyscraper.

Witnesses said the blaze appeared to have started at around 2am in the middle of the residential building, rapidly spreading across some 15 floors.

In several videos posted on social media websites, multiple floors of the high-rise were seen ablaze.

Strong winds fanned the flames and burning debris from the fire could be seen falling from building.

One witness said flames shot out from two sides of the building as glass and metal rained down from near the summit of the structure.

Another witness said it looked "like the Titanic going down", according to Gulfnews.com.

One resident, Briton Steve Short, 53, from Liverpool, praised the work of firefighters who arrived quickly.

He said fire alarms alerted people to the blaze and building management sent workers knocking on doors to ensure residents got out.

Residents of at least one neighbouring tower were told to evacuate as a precaution because of high winds, but they were later allowed back inside.

It took firefighters several hours before they extinguished the blaze, according to a witness at the scene.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. Officials said there were no reports of casualties.

Opened in 2011, the Torch Tower has 79 floors and is one of the world's tallest residential buildings.

It is located in the Marina district of the city which is home to dozens of towering apartment blocks and hotels, many of them built over the past decade.

The apartments are popular with Dubai's large number of expatriate professionals.

Dubai, known for its skyline of hugely varied skyscrapers, has seen fires at towers in the past.

In 2012, a huge blaze gutted the 34-Tamweel tower in the nearby Jumeirah Lake Towers district. It was later revealed to have been caused by a cigarette butt thrown into a bin.

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Super Tide And Strong Winds Brew Up Flood Risk

"Super tides", 50mph winds and large waves are threatening to combine to bring flooding misery for coastal communities in England this weekend.

The warning comes as many in the South East woke up to a covering of snow on Saturday, with forecasters predicting further blizzards for northern areas.

The biggest flood risk is in the South West, with five "immediate action required" warnings issued by the Environment Agency (EA), mainly for the Somerset coast; and five for the North West.

Two warnings are also in place around the Wye Estuary in the Midlands. There are also dozens of lower-level amber flood alerts - meaning flooding is possible.

"It's possible we could see some large waves and spray and urge people to take care near coastal paths and promenades and not to drive through flood water," said the EA's flood risk manager, Jonathan Day.

The spring "super tides" occur regularly when the gravitational pull of the sun and moon combine.

But the pull of the planets is also at an 18-year peak, making the tides slightly bigger this year, according to the EA.

Surfers on the River Severn made the best of the tidal boost, riding the incoming bore wave on Saturday morning.

Crowds gathered on the banks to watch the phenomenon, which at its peak can reach 13mph and three metres in height.

Saturday's wave is one of several large surges expected in February and March.

Meanwhile, heavy snow is also set to add to a turbulent mix of weekend weather, causing travel problems in Pennine areas and the Highlands.

Parts of southeast England have already had snow this weekend, with rural areas of East Sussex, Surrey and Kent seeing some picture postcard scenes.

The Met Office said freezing temperatures on Saturday night would see more wintry showers sweeping in in the morning.

"The whole of the country will experience strong winds and severe gales over the course of tomorrow, meaning it will be a wet and windy day for many - and a snowy and windy day for northern parts," said Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge.

"Winter is not over just yet."

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Ukraine: US And UK Warn Of Further Sanctions

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Britain and the US have discussed further sanctions against Russia in the wake of the breakdown of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow is being "extraordinarily craven" in its support for Ukrainian separatists in fighting that has raged in recent days.

Mr Kerry said before a meeting in London with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond that the two countries would discuss new economic measures to put pressure on Russia to end such support for the rebels.

He said: "Russia has engaged in an absolutely brazen and cynical process over these last days.

"We know to a certainty what Russia has been providing to the separatists, how Russia is involved with the separatists.

"This is behaviour that is completely counter to everything that the global community has worked to achieve since World War II."

Mr Kerry accused Moscow of "land-grabbing" in Ukraine while cynically talking about peace.

He pointed specifically to the port of Mariupol, which pro-government forces say is threatened by a build-up of rebel military equipment.

If the rebels take the city, they would establish a land corridor between mainland Russia and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Mr Kerry said: "What's happening with respect to Mariupol even now is just simply unacceptable, so we are talking about additional sanctions, additional efforts."

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Gallery: Thousands Mark Kiev Sniper Killings One Year On

Thousands of people have attended a ceremony marking a year since snipers killed scores of anti-government protesters in the Ukrainian capital Kiev

Mourners lit candles to remember the 100 who died over three days of demonstrations against the then president, Moscow-leaning Viktor Yanukovich

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Beams of light shone up into the sky as a minute's silence was held in Independence Square for the 'heavenly hundred'

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Those attending the ceremony, including current president Petro Poroshenko and the young son of one of the victims, then sang the national anthem

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Mr Poroshenko has claimed an influential aide to Vladimir Putin was behind the sniper killings in February last year

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The message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, would be: "We're not going to play this game.

"We're not going to sit there and be part of this kind of extraordinarily craven behaviour at the expense of the sovereignty and integrity of a nation."

Mr Hammond also condemned the "unacceptable" way in which the ceasefire had been "systematically breached".

It comes as former Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the West should supply sophisticated weaponry, including anti-tank weapons and drones.

Kiev and the rebels have both accused each other of keeping up the attacks.

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Gallery: Ukraine: Protesters Bide Their Time (14 February 2014)

President Viktor Yanukovych ditched a planned EU trade and political pact in favour of closer ties with Moscow, sparking violent protests.

An anti-government protester drinks hot tea at the barricades built at the site of recent clashes with riot police.

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Ukrainian forces on Saturday reported attacks over the past day that killed one serviceman and wounded another 40, with mortars hitting the fringes of Mariupol, among other locations.

The rebels said Ukrainian forces shelled 15 locations overnight, including parts of Donetsk, the largest city the rebels control.

The current crisis was sparked by the ousting of Moscow-leaning president Viktor Yanukovych last February.

Weeks after Mr Yanukovych's removal, Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russian separatists seized key buildings in Ukraine's east, sparking a conflict that has killed more than 5,000 people.

The country's current president, Petro Poroshenko, has accused an influential aide to Mr Putin of being behind the killings of 100 activists during the demonstrations.

In Moscow, thousands of protesters gathered to demonstrate against what they called a "fascist coup" in Ukraine.

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