Written By Unknown on Senin, 26 Januari 2015 | 20.49
Almost 500 miners are trapped underground after a shell hit an electric substation near the site in war-torn east Ukraine.
Emergency services were alerted when Donetsk's Zasyadko coal mine, one of eastern Europe's largest, lost all power in the blast.
It comes just over a fortnight since a similar incident briefly trapped 300 miners on January 11.
A Donetsk region emergencies ministry official said: "When the power went out, there were 496 miners underground. Right now, we are making preparations to bring them to safety."
Another ministry official was quoted by a pro-rebel website as saying the lives of the miners are not in danger and that the first evacuation had already begun.
Fighting has recently intensified around Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine
An unnamed separatist "defence ministry" official in Donetsk said 110 miners had been brought back to the ground in the first minutes after the power outage.
It comes as it emerged seven Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in clashes with pro-Russian rebels in the eastern conflict zone over the past 24 hours.
The war between pro-Russian militants and government forces in eastern Ukraine has claimed nearly 5,100 lives since it began nine months ago.
Rebel stronghold Donetsk has seen fighting intensify in recent weeks after a brief lull and the daily casualty figure is again returning to levels last seen at the height of the war in August.
Leaders of the pro-Russian rebels withdrew from peace talks with the Western-backed government in Kiev last week and pledged to seize new territory that could expand their reach over most of Ukraine's industrial east.
By Alex Crawford in Minova, Democratic Republic of Congo
The room is crowded with women, all of whom have been raped. If that's not horrifying enough, many of the women have been raped multiple times and are pregnant as a result.
Their terrifying stores of torture and terror are not even unusual. If the Democratic Republic of Congo is the rape capital of the world, then Minova is its nerve centre - and the raping is still going on.
The town is most notorious for the mass rape of hundreds of women by Congolese soldiers in November 2012.
An investigation by the United Nations found the soldiers raped at least 97 women and 33 girls (some as young as six).
The locals insist the true figure is far higher - and more alarmingly, that the rapes are still continuing.
Video:Dec 2014: The Violent Past Of DRC
The assaults are not confined to Congolese soldiers but also the rebel militias as well as the vigilante groups set up to 'protect' the population.
The Sky camera crew is at a shelter set up for rape victims by a woman called Rebecca Masika (known as Ma Masika).
She has two children as a result of rape and knows the trauma and isolation of being a victim.
"If you look at my face, you can see the scar, it's a mark of rape and I have them all over my body," she says. "I had to help these women because I've been raped too.
"They made me watch them cut my husband's body into pieces, then they raped me on his dead body."
One of the young girls in the room looks heavily pregnant and has a visible weeping sore on her right ankle.
Anuarite is 16 years old - barely out of childhood herself. The rebel militia who raped her did so several times during the four months she was held captive.
She has terrible internal injuries too - and cries as she recounts her horrific story to us. Her birth won't be easy.
Video:Sept 2014: Militia Scared To Disarm
She says: "They took us into the bush and those who refused to sleep with them, they forced, by stabbing us with knives. They killed many girls.
"Some of them were shot with bullets in the vagina."
All these stories are uncomfortable hearing. We hear how the rapists - again in uniform - have even attacked the very house where Ma Masika has built the refuge.
All these women have been left homeless after being cast out by their families and their communities.
And the refuge is crowded out with children - all the result of rape.
It is heartbreakingly tragic. There's a whole generation of rape babies - and little interest from the outside world coupled with mass inertia as to how to make it all stop.
Congo's civil war may be two decades old but the violence is creating fresh victims every day.
Greece's left-wing Syriza party has formed an anti-austerity coalition government, just hours after sweeping to victory in Sunday's national election.
Party leader Alexis Tsipras struck a coalition deal with the right-wing Nationalist Independent Greeks party which, like Syriza, opposes Greece's tough international bailout deal.
"From this moment there is a government in the country," Nationalist Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos said after talks with Mr Tsipras at Syriza's headquarters in Athens.
Alexis Tsipras (R) with the leader of the Independent Greeks party
"The Independent Greeks give a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. There is an agreement in principle."
Syriza won 149 seats in the 300-seat parliament, just two seats short of an overall majority.
Video:Greece On EU Collision Course
It had a 8.5-point lead over the ruling conservative New Democracy party of outgoing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
Mr Tsipras will be sworn in later this afternoon.
The unusual pairing of parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but with a shared drive to reverse painful austerity measures, raises the prospect of a stand-off with European creditors and economic powerhouse, Germany.
In his victory speech Mr Tsipras vowed Greece would abandon the "catastrophic austerity" measures imposed under the EU-IMF deal.
He has also promised to renegotiate the repayment terms of Greece's €240bn (£176bn) international bailout.
"Greece leaves behinds catastrophic austerity, it leaves behind fear and authoritarianism, it leaves behind five years of humiliation and anguish," Mr Tsipras told thousands of supporters in Athens.
But a spokesman for the German Chancellor said Angela Merkel still expects Greece to stand by its commitments to international creditors.
The head of the Eurogroup, made up of eurozone's 19 finance ministers, Jereon Dijsselbloem, also fired a warning shot at the new government, saying Greece's eurozone membership depended on it complying with its agreements.
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Gallery: Tsipras' Surprising First Post-Election Tweet
Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras' first tweet after sweeping to victory in Greece's general election was somewhat unexpected
His first victory tweet was to British actor and comedian Hugh Laurie for this message of congratulations
Greek singer Demis Roussos, who became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, has died in an Athens hospital at the age of 68.
The Egyptian-born singer had been in the private hospital with an undisclosed illness for some time.
Roussos sold around 60 million records worldwide and saw success when he joined the progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child in 1967.
Roussos with his gold discs in 1976
He had solo hits with Forever And Ever, Mr Reason and Goodbye My Love, Goodbye.
Artemios "Demis" Ventouris Roussos was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt before his parents moved to Greece during the Suez Crisis.
He began his music career aged 17 with a band called The Idols where he met his future Aphrodite's Child bandmates.
Roussos is the subject of an argument between two characters in Mike Leigh's TV play Abigail's Party.
He made one of his earliest appearances on English-language TV on the Basil Brush Show.
The star struggled with his weight for a long time and co-wrote a book about obesity.
He recorded and toured until 2009, when his last album came out.
One of his last public appearances was in the Athens in 2013, when he received a French Legion of Honour medal for his life's work.
But it was his glowering face on 1970s and 1980s album covers that provided the most enduring image of the singer: a theatrical figure with unusual outfits, a flowing dark beard and long hair thinning on top.
Written By Unknown on Minggu, 25 Januari 2015 | 20.48
By Samantha Simmonds, Sky News Presenter
Seventy-five years ago in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland, Renee Salt was just 10 years old. Now 85, she is able to look back and reflect on how, miraculously, she survived when so many others perished.
Renee's first experience of the Nazis was when they rolled into her home town of Zdunska Vola - throwing her and her family out of their home and appropriating all of their belongings. They were left with nothing and nowhere to go.
All of the Jewish people in town were forced into a ghetto - no one was allowed in or out and they weren't allowed to communicate with the outside world. They struggled to survive on starvation rations, with no sanitation and little access to any medicine.
The Nazis chose who would live and who would die, child or adult
The Nazis put up gallows in the communal outside space and regularly chose Jewish men at random to hang - leaving their bodies there for days - for all to see.
During the summer of 1942 everyone in the ghetto was rounded up for what Renee soon realised was a "selection". It was a process she was to go through numerous times.
Video:Archive: Cameron Visits Auschwitz
The Nazis were choosing who would live and who would die - separating out the old, infirm and the young. She says the screams and cries were like nothing she had heard before as people begged for their children to be saved.
Renee's mother hid her two daughters underneath her coat but an SS officer grabbed Renee's eight-year-old sister and marched her away - this is the last memory Renee has of her sibling.
The selection process lasted for days and although Renee was a child, somehow she was spared. But out of 30,000 Jewish people in the ghetto only 1,200 were allowed to live.
They were sent in cattle transports to the Lodz Ghetto. They were forced to stand for the overnight journey, crammed in so tightly more than 100 people suffocated.
Every day, more and more Polish Jews arrived in the ghetto from across the country. They were regularly beaten by SS officers and many died from the cold, starvation or illness. Within two weeks of arriving at the ghetto, Renee's grandmother was taken away and killed.
Video:Oldest Holocaust Survivor Dies
In 1944, the Nazis told everyone in the ghetto they were being offered the opportunity to be relocated to somewhere they could work and be well-fed and looked after. Even though they didn't believe the Nazis, Renee's family had little choice
They were sent to Auschwitz Birkenau, the largest of the concentration camps. As soon as the train pulled up Renee says her father jumped down and with that he was gone.
No goodbye, no kiss, he simply vanished into thin air - an event she clearly still struggles to recall without breaking down.
Renee and her mother went through another selection process. They were sent to the left. Everyone who was sent to the right went straight to the gas chambers. She said the screaming from the gas chambers lasted for more than 15 minutes. In total more than a million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz.
Renee and her mother spent several weeks at the camp. They were then moved to Hamburg and eventually to another camp - Bergen Belsen. She describes the long walk of many miles from the train station to that camp - every step of the way she says was littered with dead bodies along the side of the road - prisoners who had collapsed and died en route.
Video:Holocaust Survivor Meets Saviour
As she walked through the gates of Bergen Belsen she told me of seeing a scene from hell; walking skeletons and bodies piled so high she couldn't see over the top. The camp was in chaos, the end of the war was clearly coming but Renee didn't think she would live to see it.
As she watched an allied tank approaching the gates she passed out. Several days later after coming round she found herself lying in a clean bed being washed and fed by German doctors and nurses who were ordered to look after their former prisoners.
Tragically, her mother died 12 days after the camp was liberated.
Renee says every day of those six years were spent living in fear. She never knew when there would be a selection or when a random act of evil would be inflicted upon her and her loved ones.
She says she has tried to make sense of what happened to her but simply cannot. These, she told me, were educated people who derived so much pleasure out of what they did.
Video:Israel: Obama Pays His Respects
After the liberation with nothing more than the clothes on her back, Renee made her way back to her home town in Poland. There she found an aunt who was one of the only members of her large extended family to survive.
They eventually moved to Paris where Renee met her husband - a British soldier who had in fact been one of those who had liberated Bergen Belsen. They were both so traumatised by their experiences they never talked about them, not with each other or to their children.
Twenty years ago when Renee was 65 she was persuaded she should do so, so that others could hear a first-hand account of the horrors of the Holocaust.
Although now old and frail and with memories still so terribly vivid, she continues to tell her story to schoolchildren. She says it is her duty and will carry on doing so as long as she can.
Islamic State militants have said they will release the remaining Japanese hostage Kenji Goto if a prisoner called Sajida al Rishawi is released from jail in Jordan.
But who is she and why does IS want her free?
On the evening of 9 November 2005, explosions ripped through three hotels in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Police at the scene of a bombing at the Radisson Hotel, Jordan, in 2005
At the Day's Inn hotel, a bomber detonated an explosive belt killing three people. Down the road at the Grand Hyatt, a second bomber detonated his belt. Nine people died.
At the Radisson SAS Hotel, the final two suicide bombers prepared their devices. The couple, a husband and wife team, walked into the hotel ballroom where newlyweds were celebrating their marriage with 900 guests.
Al Rishawi allegedly confessed on TV to the attempted suicide bombing
Ali Hussein Ali al Shamari detonated his device. It killed him and 37 others. His wife tried to detonate her belt, but it failed to go off. She escaped but was later arrested. Her name is Sajida al Rishawi.
She has spent the past 10 years, forgotten, in a Jordanian prison cell. Suddenly she is a focus again.
Al Rishawi pictured in a Jordanian military court
In his audio statement, Japanese hostage Mr Goto read out the demand from his IS captors:
"I would like to stress how easy it is to save my life, you bring them their sister from the Jordanian regime and I will be released immediately. Me for her."
IS say they will release Kenji Goto if al Rishawi is freed
Al Rishawi, an Iraqi national in her 40s, is more than just a symbolic 'sister' of the Islamic State. There is a thread linking her to the terrorist group and it goes back over a decade.
The thread begins in Ramadi, a town in a region west of Baghdad where the group known as Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was formed.
The leader of AQI was Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a man personally responsible for a series of bombings and beheadings at the height of the Iraqi insurgency in the mid-2000s.
Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed by US forces
Al Zarqawi's 'right-hand man', according to the Jordanian deputy prime minister, was a man called Mubarak Atrous al Rishawi. He was the brother of Sajida al Rishawi.
Al Zarqawi and Mubarak Atrous al Rishawi were both killed by US forces in Iraq, but their group lived on.
It adapted and amalgamated with other groups.
By 2006 it had morphed into the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) and eventually, after expanding into Syria as well as Iraq, it became the self-styled 'Islamic State' under the leadership of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, a graduate of al Zarqawi's brutality.
Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is the leader of Islamic State
King Abdullah of Jordan, who proudly announced the capture of Sajida al Rishawi after her failed bombing attempt in 2005, has spoken in the last 24 hours to the Japanese Prime Minister.
The two men will be discussing al Rishawi: can she be traded? Will she be released?
Following her arrest, she made a TV confession of her attempted bombing.
She explained how she and her husband spread out in the ballroom in order to kill as many people as possible: "There were women, men and children" she said.
The father of the Japanese hostage apparently killed by Islamic State has said he is overwhelmed by grief.
Shoichi Yukawa said he still had hope "deep in my heart that this is not true" and added that if he were reunited with his son he would give him a "big hug".
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slammed "an outrageous and unforgivable act" after a video reportedly showing an image of captive Kenji Goto holding a picture of a beheaded Haruna Yukawa was posted online.
The clip also purportedly contained the voice of journalist Mr Goto, 47, claiming the 42-year-old private military company operator had been killed.
Mr Abe said the video, which also includes a demand for a prisoner exchange for Mr Goto, appears to be authentic.
Kenji Goto purportedly claimed his fellow hostage has been killed
The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) had threatened to kill the captives unless a $200m (£133m) ransom was paid to secure their release.
The 72-hour deadline set by the Islamist militants expired on Friday.
However, in the new video they have called for the release of Sajida al Rishawi, an Iraqi woman sentenced to death in Jordan for her part in the Amman bombings in 2005 that killed 60 people.
Mr Abe insisted Tokyo would not bow to terrorism and said his government would spare no effort to secure the release of the remaining captive.
Islamic State have demanded the release of Sajida al Risahwi from Jordan
But he reiterated that Japan would not give in to terrorism.
Barack Obama condemned the "brutal murder" and said the United states would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Japan.
He called Mr Abe to offer his condolences and called for the immediate release of Mr Goto.
In the video, Mr Goto spoke in English, blaming Mr Abe for Mr Yukawa's death, and told his wife and family not to give up on him.
A Japanese news agency reported the video of Mr Goto had also been emailed to the wife of one of the hostages.
The hostages had appeared in videos wearing the same orange jumpsuits as those worn by captives in previous IS videos.
The mother of Mr Goto has pleaded with militants to spare her son's life.
Junko Ishido said he is a friend of Islam who devoted his life to helping children in war zones.
Mr Yukawa was seized by militants in August, after he went to Syria in what he described as a plan to launch a security company.
Mr Goto, a veteran war correspondent, went into Syria in late October seeking to secure Mr Yukawa's release, according to friends and business associates.
The Conservative Party chairman has dismissed Nigel Farage's claims against a UKIP defector as "absolute desperate stuff".
Amjad Bashir announced on Saturday he had defected to the Conservative Party, with David Cameron saying he was "absolutely delighted" with the decision
But Mr Farage told Sky News the "Establishment" had been threatened by UKIP's success and that he was expecting "102 days of endless negativity" ahead of the General Election.
Amjad Bahir has defected to the Conservatives from UKIP
He has claimed UKIP's MEPs had been "begging" him to get rid of Mr Bashir because of a number of serious irregularities against him - which he denies - and said the party was was about to suspend him.
Speaking on the BBC Andrew Marr Show, he said he was "surprised" the Tories had accepted the MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber given UKIP were about to suspend him because of the allegations of a "grave nature".
Video:Grant Shapps on UKIP defection
The UKIP leader claimed there were questions over money in Brussels, the apparent employment of illegal immigrants at his restaurant, alleged interference with candidate selection process and apparent links to political extremists from Pakistan.
However, Grant Shapps told Sky's Dermot Murnaghan the Conservatives had done "due diligence" on Mr Bashir's background and had been in talks with him for some time.
And he dismissed the comments made by Mr Farage as "absolute desperate stuff from UKIP".
It comes as one of Mr Farage's most senior aides sparked controversy by claiming Britain has "hundreds of thousands of bigots" and saying UKIP was proud to stand up for them.
Matthew Richardson, the party's secretary, has dismissed his comments as "lighthearted harmless banter in the pub".
Mr Farage told Andrew Marr it was an attempt by the political establishment and their "friends in the media" to damage UKIP and echoed Mr Richardson's comments that it had been just pub talk.
Video:UKIP MEP Suspended Before Defection
As he attempted to limit the damage from the weekend's stories, Mr Farage promised to fund the NHS with the money Britain would save from leaving the European Union, pledging £3bn extra a year - more than Labour's pledge.
Explaining his reasons for quitting UKIP, Mr Bashir told The Sunday Telegraph that the party had become one of "ruthless self-interest" and was "pretty amateur".
He added: "The issues raised in my notice of suspension are historic and well known to the party. Indeed, on one of them, Nigel Farage has publicly defended me over it."
The defection is a boost for the Prime Minister, who saw two of his own MPs defect to UKIP last year and comes as a ICM Wisdom Index poll showed a significant drop off in UKIP support in the last month and a Tory boost.
He said: "I'm absolutely delighted that Amjad has decided to leave UKIP and join the Conservative Party."
Mr Farage claimed UKIP could win around three or four seats in May and said the party was not just taking seats from the Tories.
Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 24 Januari 2015 | 20.49
Prime Minister David Cameron and The Prince of Wales, representing the Queen, are flying to Saudi Arabia following the death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.
They will join a host of international dignitaries in Riyadh to pay their respects to the Saudi royal family.
President Obama is to cut short his visit to India in order to fly to Saudi Arabia, a long-standing ally of the US.
Mr Obama will travel to Riyadh on Tuesday to meet King Salman, the White House confirmed.
King Abdullah, 90, died on Thursday evening after almost two decades leading the world's biggest oil exporter.
Video:Saudi King's Legacy
Both Mr Cameron and the Queen said they were "saddened" by his death.
The PM's decision to fly to Saudi comes amid sharp criticism over a decision to lower flags at Whitehall and across England as a mark of respect for the late monarch.
Downing Street and Whitehall buildings, including Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, were instructed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday to lower the Union Flag for 12 hours in tribute.
Some politicians and human rights campaigners have criticised the tributes to Abdullah who presided over a country where a woman was recently beheaded in public, a blogger was sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes for 'insulting Islam' and where women have been banned from driving.
Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, dismissed the flag tribute as "a steaming pile of nonsense", adding that it was "a stupid act on its own and a stupid precedent to set".
Former Conservative MP for Corby, Louise Mensch, took to twitter to vent her anger: "It is so unacceptable to offer deep condolences for a man who flogged women, didn't let them drive, saw guardian laws passed and starves them."
Video:King Abdullah Laid To Rest
She even tweeted "F*** YOU" in reply to a tweet from the British Embassy in Riyadh which quoted the Prime Minister's sorrow at the king's death.
The head of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, said: "The Saudi regime seems insensitive to human rights and human dignity and unfortunately they are also protected by many Western countries because they have oil and because they are seen as allies in the fight against terrorism."
But Westminster Abbey argued refusing to lower its flag would not have helped the "desperately oppressed Christian communities of the Middle East".
"For us not to fly at half-mast would be to make a noticeably aggressive comment on the death of the king of a country to which the UK is allied in the fight against Islamic terrorism," a spokesman said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev Justin Welby, told Sky News: 'Freedom of religion is essential and freedom to express Christian faith in Saudi Arabia is something that should happen.
"A few weeks ago there was a group of migrant workers arrested for holding a private service in a flat. That's not right.
Video:Welby On Saudi Religious Expression
"But I know that King Abdullah himself - it's a complicated place Saudi Arabia, like all countries - King Abdullah himself is someone who has worked very very hard on these issues and has contributed much and I think it's right that the prime minister should send condolences and should recognise what he's done over the years."
King Abdullah had run the country as de facto leader since the mid-1990s after his predecessor King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke.
He was admitted to hospital on 31 December suffering pneumonia and the royal court announced that he was breathing with the aid of a tube.
He has been succeeded by his 79-year-old half-brother, Salman.
The number of senior Army officers could be axed under plans to streamline the military's top brass.
Up to one third of the Army's 500 colonels and 200 brigadiers and generals are set to be axed, The Times newspaper reports.
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed an Army Command Review will be carried out as part of the Army 2020 reforms.
The plans by the Army's head General Sir Nick Carter are set to be implemented from April.
"The Army Command Review is the next step in the development of Army 2020," an Army spokeswoman said.
"It builds on the delegated model that Defence has implemented as a result of Lord Levene's report on defence reforms.
"It will ensure that the Army's command structure and its staff are best placed to meet future challenges in an agile, imaginative and effective manner."
Reforms have already been confirmed for the number of regular soldiers to be slashed to 82,000 and the number of reservists to be boosted to 30,000.
