| ‘That’s how dictators get started’: McCain, critics blast Trump’s view of the media as ‘the enemy’ Posted: 19 Feb 2017 09:56 AM PST  Critics on both sides of the aisle are blasting President Trump's assertion that the media is "the enemy of the American people" — and comparing his escalated attack on the press to that of a dictator. "That's how dictators get started," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in an interview that aired on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. McCain stopped short of calling Trump one.
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| Philippines' Duterte ordered murders: ex-police aide Posted: 20 Feb 2017 02:08 AM PST  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ran a death squad that killed many people, including a journalist and a pregnant woman, when he was mayor of a southern city, a retired policeman who claimed to be part of the group said Monday. Arthur Lascanas, sitting alongside three prominent human rights lawyers, broke down in tears as he listed a series of murders in Davao city that he alleged Duterte ordered either to eliminate critics or fight crime. Lascanas said he even killed his two brothers, who were involved in drug trafficking, due to "blind loyalty" to Duterte as well as cash rewards.
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| Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT Posted: 19 Feb 2017 12:05 PM PST ![Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT]( "Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT") A Democrat who sits on the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) is planning to resign before her term expires amid frustrations about partisan gridlock, the New York Times reported on Sunday. FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel told the Times in an interview she intended to submit her letter of resignation this week, a move that would open the door for President Donald Trump to make his own appointment to the panel. "The ability of the commission to perform its role has deteriorated significantly," Ravel told the newspaper.
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| Atlanta, other cities eye test tracks for self-driving cars Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:27 AM PST  ATLANTA (AP) — Self-driving vehicles could begin tooling down a bustling Atlanta street full of cars, buses, bicyclists and college students, as the city vies with other communities nationwide to test the emerging technology.
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| New Homeland Security guidelines aggressively crack down on illegal immigration Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:12 AM PST ![New Homeland Security guidelines aggressively crack down on illegal immigration]( "New Homeland Security guidelines aggressively crack down on illegal immigration") Under the new guidelines, outlined in a pair of memos, the agency plans to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests, and speed up deportation hearings – directives that would replace nearly all guidelines put in place by previous administrations. Since taking office in January, President Trump has come under fire for what immigrant rights advocates have denounced as unprecedented action against undocumented people in the United States.
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| Four North Korean suspects fled Malaysia after airport murder: police Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:11 AM PST ![Four North Korean suspects fled Malaysia after airport murder: police]( "Four North Korean suspects fled Malaysia after airport murder: police") By Joseph Sipalan and Praveen Menon KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Four North Korean suspects in the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fled Malaysia on the day he was attacked at Kuala Lumpur airport and apparently killed by a fast-acting poison, police said on Sunday. A North Korean man, a Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman have been arrested already in connection with the death of Kim Jong Nam last Monday, which has triggered a diplomatic spat between Malaysia and Pyongyang.
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| "Blind Sheik" guilty of 1990s terror plots dies in US prison Posted: 18 Feb 2017 11:37 PM PST  The so called Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of plotting terror attacks in New York City in the decade before 9/11 has died in a federal prison. He was 78.
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| Trump Needs to Make a Speech About Europe Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:02 AM PST  Members of the EU are on the verge of moving past their grief and toward a constructive relationship with the new administration. Here's how Trump can help.
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| Kim Dotcom Eligible For US Extradition Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:07 AM PST  The New Zealand High Court said, however, that the extradition is not based on copyright grounds, and Dotcom's legal team is "confident" the decision will be reversed.
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| Debt-saddled Mongolia agrees $5.5 bn IMF bailout Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:07 PM PST  Mongolia has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a $5.5 billion bailout package, officials announced, as the debt-wracked country tries to stabilise its economy. The landlocked north Asian nation has been hit hard by a more than 50 percent fall over the past five years in the price of copper, its main export. Billions of dollars' worth of natural resources lie buried beneath Mongolia's sprawling steppes, but development has been delayed for years and slowing growth in its biggest customer China has hobbled the economy.
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| Shocker! World’s first self-driving car race ends in a crash Posted: 20 Feb 2017 11:40 AM PST 
The world's first race on a professional track involving self-driving cars ended, not surprisingly, with a crash. As part of the Roborace competition held in Buenos Aires over the weekend, one of the two self-driving Devbot vehicles involved in the race slammed into a wall after miscalculating a particularly sharp turn.
While the Devbot vehicles weren't going all out, they weren't exactly driving at a leisurely pace either. At their best, both cars were driving in excess of 100 MPH, with one reaching a top speed of 115 MPH at one point. In addition to racing around the track at high speeds, it's worth noting that each car can communicate with the other as to prevent them from crashing into each other. Unfortunately, the racetrack wall proved to be an insurmountable foe. As for the software malfunction that caused the crash, Roborace's Justin Cooke explained what happened in an interview with the BBC: One of the cars was trying to perform a manoeuvre, and it went really full-throttle and took the corner quite sharply and caught the edge of the barrier. It's actually fantastic for us because the more we see these moments the more we are able to learn and understand what was the thinking behind the computer and its data.
Indeed, for as far along as self-driving software and hardware has progressed, it's clear that there's still a lot of work to be done before self-driving cars can replace human drivers completely across all driving environments. While the DevBot vehicles are designed such that they "can be driven by a human or a computer", the versions used in the race over the weekend did not have any humans inside. Photos of the crash can be seen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSbSUeKEj00
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| Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport Posted: 18 Feb 2017 09:51 PM PST ![Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport]( "Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport") HONOLULU (AP) — A man is dead after he breached security at Honolulu International Airport and stopped breathing, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
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| Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:04 AM PST ![Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests]( "Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests") Indonesian Islamist groups on Monday called on the government to suspend the Christian governor of the capital and for the courts to convict him of blasphemy, demands they will make again at a rally outside parliament on Tuesday. Islamist groups have held two big rallies since November against the governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is on trial for insulting the Koran, and in the midst of an election in which he hopes to win a second term. "Our demands to parliament are that they urge the government to suspend Purnama ... and urge the Supreme Court and judges to detain him and impose the maximum sentence," said Muhammad al Khaththath of the Islamic People's Forum.
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| Nigeria urges AU to intervene over 'SAfrica killings' Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:27 AM PST  Nigeria on Monday urged the African Union to step in to stop what it said were "xenophobic attacks" on its citizens and other Africans in South Africa. "This is unacceptable to the people and government of Nigeria," a senior presidential aide on foreign affairs, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said in an emailed statement. There was no independent verification of the claimed number of deaths, which may have been the result of wider criminal activities rather than anti-immigrant sentiment.
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| Pence says US to hold Russia accountable, stand with NATO Posted: 19 Feb 2017 06:19 AM PST  MUNICH (AP) — U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday conveyed a message to jittery partners that the Trump administration will "hold Russia accountable" and maintain steadfast support for NATO, a military alliance the American commander in chief once dismissed as "obsolete."
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| ‘I am a Muslim too’ rally in Times Square Posted: 19 Feb 2017 11:34 AM PST !['I am a Muslim too' rally in Times Square]( "'I am a Muslim too' rally in Times Square") Russell Simmons and Rabbi Marc Schneier hosted a large demonstration in Times Square on Sunday in response to Trump's executive order barring travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
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| Explosive blog post details ‘abhorrent’ sexism at Uber Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:46 PM PST 
In a blog post published Sunday, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler Riggetti details her experiences working for the company. Sadly, given she's a female engineer working at a thrusting, big-name Silicon Valley startup, the experiences are exactly what you'd expect.
In the post, Riggetti details numerous instances of overt sexist behaviour. She reportedly sent evidence, including email and chat logs to HR, but ran into a brick wall multiple times. In the end, she says that her attempts to quietly report sexist behaviour were turned against her: I forwarded this absurd chain of emails to HR, and they requested to meet with me shortly after. I don't know what I expected after all of my earlier encounters with them, but this one was more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined. The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that *I* was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem. I pointed out that everything I had reported came with extensive documentation and I clearly wasn't the instigator (or even a main character) in the majority of them - she countered by saying that there was absolutely no record in HR of any of the incidents I was claiming I had reported (which, of course, was a lie, and I reminded her I had email and chat records to prove it was a lie). She then asked me if women engineers at Uber were friends and talked a lot, and then asked me how often we communicated, what we talked about, what email addresses we used to communicate, which chat rooms we frequented, etc. - an absurd and insulting request that I refused to comply with. When I pointed out how few women were in SRE, she recounted with a story about how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds were better suited for some jobs than others, so I shouldn't be surprised by the gender ratios in engineering. Our meeting ended with her berating me about keeping email records of things, and told me it was unprofessional to report things via email to HR.
Beyond the reports to HR, Riggetti also details a company overrun with internal politics and management problems: In the background, there was a game-of-thrones political war raging within the ranks of upper management in the infrastructure engineering organization. It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor's job. No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: they boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like.
Shortly after the blog post was published, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a statement promising a (secret, internal) investigation into the matter, and reaffirmed Uber's committment to a equitable workplace where everyone isn't trying to stab each other in the back: "I have just read Susan Fowler's blog. What she describes is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in. It's the first time this has come to my attention so I have instructed Liane Hornsey our new Chief Human Resources Officer to conduct an urgent investigation into these allegations. We seek to make Uber a just workplace and there can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber -- and anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired."
This isn't the first time that Uber has run into human resources problems within its internal teams and management. In 2014, an Uber exec famously suggested digging up dirt on journalists to discredit them. That statement came in response to a journalist who had accused Uber of sexism once again. More recently, #DeleteUber trended on Twitter after Uber removed surge pricing at JFK airport during a taxi strike -- a strike that was in protest of President Trump's Muslim travel ban. The same hashtag is trending again tonight following Riggetti's blog post.
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| 2017 Mercedes-Maybach S550 4MATIC Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:15 PM PST  A perfectly restrained chauffeur-mobile.
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| Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:25 AM PST ![Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk]( "Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk") By Cod Satrusayang and Aukkaraporn Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Monks and police scuffled on Monday at a Buddhist temple in Thailand where security forces are trying to arrest an influential former abbot on money-laundering charges. The standoff at the scandal-hit Dhammakaya Temple represents one of the biggest challenges to the authority of Thailand's junta since it took power in 2014. Police said they would try to avoid violence while threatening arrest for followers of the sprawling temple who have defied orders to leave and instead flocked there, hampering the search for 72-year-old Phra Dhammachayo.
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| Don’t Look Now, But There’s Another Greek Debt Crisis Brewing Posted: 20 Feb 2017 04:00 AM PST  Talks over Athens' debt burden threaten to spill into European election season.
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| On frozen fields, North Korean farmers prep for battle ahead Posted: 19 Feb 2017 05:38 PM PST  PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Plug your noses and ready your "Juche fertilizer." It's time to prep the frozen fields in North Korea.
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| Hundreds of inmates abandon gang life in El Salvador Posted: 18 Feb 2017 06:29 PM PST  Inside a Salvadaron prison Francisco Lopez teaches fellow ex-gang members how to make paper figurines, as part of a program designed to reinsert them into society once they are released. There are an estimated 70,000 gang members in El Salvador.
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| Philippines: Vietnamese ship attacked; 1 dead, 6 abducted Posted: 20 Feb 2017 04:53 AM PST ![Philippines: Vietnamese ship attacked; 1 dead, 6 abducted]( "Philippines: Vietnamese ship attacked; 1 dead, 6 abducted") MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Gunmen attacked a Vietnamese cargo ship off the Philippines' southern tip, killing a Vietnamese crewman and abducting six others including the vessel's captain, the Philippine coast guard and the ship's owner said Monday.
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| Paul Advises Against Making Bolton National Security Adviser Posted: 19 Feb 2017 08:39 AM PST  The Kentucky senator says he fears if the former U.N. ambassador becomes part of the administration, the U.S. will wind up embroiled in more foreign wars.
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| Russia's U.N. envoy Churkin dies suddenly in New York Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:54 PM PST ![Russia's U.N. envoy Churkin dies suddenly in New York]( "Russia's U.N. envoy Churkin dies suddenly in New York") By Jack Stubbs MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's combative ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died suddenly in New York on Monday after being taken ill at work, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. It declined to comment on reports that Churkin had been taken to a hospital shortly before his death. A U.S. government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case, said that Churkin had died of an apparent heart attack.
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| Police Build Kitty Condo for Stray Cat That Has Been Visiting Department For Years Posted: 19 Feb 2017 12:57 PM PST  One officer spent several nights working on the condo.
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| Women named to head Saudi bourse, major bank Posted: 20 Feb 2017 07:41 AM PST  Women have been named to head Saudi Arabia's stock exchange and a major bank, the institutions announced, despite the kingdom's social restrictions on females. Samba Financial Group on Sunday said Rania Mahmoud Nashar had begun work as chief executive officer. The announcement came three days after the Saudi stock exchange, known as Tadawul, named Sarah al-Suhaimi as chairman of its board.
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| Police: Man in photos now 'main suspect' in 2 girls' deaths Posted: 19 Feb 2017 09:58 AM PST  DELPHI, Ind. (AP) — A man photographed walking along a northern Indiana trail system around the time two teenage girls later found slain were dropped off by a relative is now considered "the main suspect" in their killings, State Police said Sunday.
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| This Week Fast Forward 02.19.2017 Posted: 19 Feb 2017 08:37 AM PST  Speed through the highlights from the latest "This Week."
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| The United Arab Emirates wants to build a city on Mars Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:00 AM PST  Elon Musk isn't the only person who wants to build a city on Mars. Now the United Arab Emirates has announced that it wants to establish a "mini-city" on the red planet by 2117. UAE prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum explained the monarchy's Mars plans in a series of tweets on Feb. 14. SEE ALSO: Dubai is bringing the world its first rotating skyscraper "The project, to be named 'Mars 2117,' integrates a vision to create a mini-city and community on Mars involving international cooperation," Sheikh Mohammed said. "Mars 2117" is a seed we are sowing today to reap the fruit of new generations led by a passion for science and advancing human knowledge. pic.twitter.com/IExtnpiO2B — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 "Mars 2117 includes a major space sciences focus in our universities. We're building a space pioneering passion among our young people." It makes sense for officials to use this project to inspire young people: They're the ones who will probably do the vast majority of the work. If the UAE wants to have a fully-functioning city on Mars in 100 years, it will have to be a multi-generational effort that will span many decades, given the incipient state of the nation's space program and current global capabilities as well. The "Mars 2117" project will develop an Emirati and international team of scientists to push the human exploration of Mars in years to come. pic.twitter.com/5ujxvyC8As — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 In the time between now and 2117, the UAE, with an international partnership of researchers, will start trying to find a faster mode of transportation to the red planet, and figure out what food and shelter should be on the cold, dry world. "'Mars 2117' is a seed we are sowing today to reap the fruit of new generations led by a passion for science and advancing human knowledge," Sheikh Mohammed said. The UAE has already put the world on notice that the oil-rich nation has aspirations beyond our home planet, having previously announced its plan to send a robotic mission to Mars in 2015. That uncrewed spacecraft, called Hope, would fly to the red planet in 2020 and make it into orbit there in 2021. The project, to be named "Mars 2117", integrates a vision to create a mini-city and community on Mars involving international cooperation. pic.twitter.com/v27jA3K3pS — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 Musk's SpaceX is also working toward creating a city on Mars, though the commercial space company's timeline isn't exactly clear. Musk claims that SpaceX is working toward sending its first people to Mars by 2024, about a decade before NASA is expected to send their first crewed mission to the vicinity of Mars. That said, the company's plans are still a bit murky when it comes to the timeline for actually creating its city, aiming for sometime in the 2060s. Musk thinks there will be plenty of people who want to leave Earth behind. We aspire in the coming century to develop science, technology and our youth's passion for knowledge. This project is driven by that vision. pic.twitter.com/4QibJjtiM2 — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 "Not everyone will want to go. In fact, I think a relatively small number of people from Earth would want to go, but enough would want to go and who could afford the trip that it would happen," Musk said during a speech in September 2016. Neither SpaceX nor the UAE can get to Mars alone, however. Both need to have international and private partners that will help make a city on Mars a reality within their timeframes. It's unclear if the monarchy and the private company will team up on their Mars ambitions, but Musk did say that he's open to public and private partnerships for the mission. BONUS: Obama plans to send humans to Mars by 2030s
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| Global arms trade highest since Cold War: study Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:11 PM PST  Worldwide arms trade has risen to its highest level since the Cold War in the last five years, driven by a demand from the Middle East and Asia, a study said Monday. Between 2012-2016, arms imports in terms of volume by countries in Asia and Oceania accounted for 43 percent of global imports, a 7.7 rise compared to the previous 2007-2011 period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). "Transfer of major weapons in 2012-16 reached their highest volume for any five-year period since the end of" the Cold War, the independent institute said in a statement.
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| Toughening penalties if pets are harmed during crimes Posted: 19 Feb 2017 02:53 PM PST  FLORIDA, N.Y. (AP) — When Denise Krohn came home to find her goldendoodle Kirby bleeding on the kitchen floor, she at first thought it was a terrible accident. But she soon realized that her home had been ransacked, and that her other dog, Quigley, was lying dead on his favorite blanket in the living room.
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| Trump Refers To Imaginary Attack In Sweden Posted: 19 Feb 2017 02:36 AM PST  During his Saturday rally in Melbourne, Florida, President Donald Trump linked the large number of refugees in Sweden to an incident "last night" that never actually occurred.
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| Syrian rebels say army attacks wrecking ceasefire efforts Posted: 19 Feb 2017 02:05 PM PST ![Syrian rebels say army attacks wrecking ceasefire efforts]( "Syrian rebels say army attacks wrecking ceasefire efforts") Syrian rebel groups who have participated in peace talks said on Sunday that an upsurge in Syrian army shelling and bombing was wrecking the prospects of maintaining a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey. The rebel groups, mostly backed by Turkey, have attended two rounds of talks in the Kazakh capital Astana. Mohammad Alloush, the head of the Astana talks delegation, said the rebel groups who signed a shaky ceasefire deal late last year that was meant to end bombing of civilians were ready to go back to "all out war".
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| Here’s how badly the Galaxy Note 7 destroyed Samsung’s reputation in the US Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:28 PM PST 
It goes without saying that the spontaneous combustion of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 was a big deal, but rarely do we get an opportunity to see the impact of tech gaffes on public sentiment quantified. A new Harris Poll ranking the "reputation quotient" of the 100 most recognizable brands in the United States provides just that, and the picture isn't good one for Samsung. In fact, it's pretty dire.
In last year's reputation ratings, Samsung landed in the seventh position out of 100 companies, beaten only by Amazon, Apple, and Google on the tech side of things. Fast forward to today, and Samsung has found itself barely squeezing into the top half of the chart with the number 49 spot on the rankings. 
As big of a drop in the charts as it has taken, it's interesting to note that Samsung's actual reputation rating only actually dropped from 80.44 to 75.17. Harris considers a rating of 80+ to be "Excellent," and groups ratings of 75 to 79 into the "Very Good" category. Additionally, both Apple and Google took hits in their ratings as well, though not nearly as drastic — Apple fell from 83.03 to 82.07 and Google dipped from 82.97 to 82.00. The study is conducted via interviews with US adults, each of which are asked to rate companies that they are familiar with. According to the methodology of the research, each company received a rating from approximately 300 respondents. The timing of the study wasn't particularly favorable to Samsung, having been conducted from late November to mid December of 2016, which was precisely when Samsung was in the midst devising a way to remotely kill off the Note 7s that were still in the hands of owners.
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| Turkey puts 47 on trial for 'coup plot to kill Erdogan' Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:02 AM PST  One of the nearly 50 suspects in an alleged plot to assassinate Turkey's president admitted involvement in the botched July 15 putsch bid as the mass trial opened Monday. Forty-four suspects, mainly soldiers, are under arrest over the alleged plot to kill Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while three others still on the run are being tried in absentia at the court in the southern city of Mugla. Onlookers heckled the accused as they stepped out of the buses that took them from prison, shouting "we want the death penalty!" and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Greatest").
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| Italy's Renzi resigns as party chief, seeks renewed mandate Posted: 19 Feb 2017 06:11 AM PST  ROME (AP) — Former Italian Premier Matteo Renzi resigned on Sunday as leader of his fractious Democratic Party in a bid to win a fresh, stronger mandate before parliamentary elections which populist political forces hope will propel them into national power for the first time.
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| AstroBot Kit Teaches Kids the Joys of Coding Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:00 PM PST  One of the most intriguing robot kits at this year's show, UBTech's AstroBot kit can be built into one of three different characters and programmed using a simple mobile app. Available this spring for $199, AstroBot can be built as either a treaded robot that looks a bit like Walle, a humanoid-style robot or a wheeled vehicle. An infrared sensor keeps AstroBot from bumping into objects as it moves around.
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| Tribes lay remains of Kennewick Man to rest Posted: 20 Feb 2017 11:32 AM PST ![Tribes lay remains of Kennewick Man to rest]( "Tribes lay remains of Kennewick Man to rest") KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) — The ancient bones of the Kennewick Man have been returned to the ground.
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| Trump baffles Sweden with crime comment, says it was based on TV report Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:44 PM PST ![Trump baffles Sweden with crime comment, says it was based on TV report]( "Trump baffles Sweden with crime comment, says it was based on TV report") By Anna Ringstrom and Jeff Mason STOCKHOLM/WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - A day after falsely suggesting there was an immigration-related security incident in Sweden, President Donald Trump said on Sunday his comment was based on a television report he had seen. Trump, who in his first weeks in office has tried to tighten U.S. borders sharply for national security reasons, told a rally on Saturday that Sweden was having serious problems with immigrants. "You look at what's happening last night in Sweden," Trump said.
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| Solar-powered Africa “never more possible and less expensive”: energy chief Posted: 20 Feb 2017 02:16 AM PST ![Solar-powered Africa]( "Solar-powered Africa") By Maina Waruru ABU DHABI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A "solar revolution" is coming to Africa, comparable in scale and importance to the rapid surge in mobile phone use on the continent two decades ago, predicts the head of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Fast-dropping costs for solar power, combined with plenty of sun and a huge need for electricity on a continent where many are still without it, means solar has huge potential in Africa, said Adnan Amin, the director general of IRENA. "Africa's solar potential is enormous," he said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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| Ukraine rebels accuse OSCE of aiding Kiev forces Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:23 AM PST  Ukraine's Russian-backed insurgents on Friday accused a top official in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of aiding Kiev's forces in the 34-month war. A separatist leader made the accusation at a joint news conference in the rebel-controlled city of Lugansk with Alexander Hug -- the principal deputy chief of the group's special monitoring mission to Ukraine --- who denied the claim. The OSCE is a Cold-war era body drawn up to ensure peace in Europe.
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