The Russian government has said it's willing towork with the West on averting a crisis in Ukrainebut it has warned Nato against taking decisions onbehalf of the Ukrainian people. The Russian foreignministry said any resolution must take into account the interests of the country's largeRussian-speaking minority. In Ukraine, the Parliament of the Republic of Crimea called areferendum on even greater self-rule. Duncan Crawford has more from Kiev.
Earlier on today, dramatic developments in Crimea when the Crimean parliament was seized byarmed men. We know that there are pro-Russian supporters, and the police cordoned off thestreets around the parliament building. Pro-Russian supporters in the crowds, they wereshouting out Crimea is part of Russia. They are deeply suspicious about this new governmentwhich is voted in in Kiev today by the parliament, they view events here over the last few weeksas a coup as part of a Western conspiracy. And they are calling for Russia to intervene andto protect Russian citizens in Crimea.
Ukraine's new interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has accused the ousted PresidentViktor Yanukovych and his government of stripping the state coffers bare.
The British electronic intelligence-gathering agency GCHQ is reported to have collected webcamimages from millions of Internet users. The Guardian newspaper in London says GCHQ with thehelp of the American National Security Agency, intercepted and stored still images of Yahoowebcam chat. Gordon Corera reports.
According to the Guardian in one six-month period, 1.8m images were collected between 3%and 11% of the image captured were said to contain what's described as undesirable nudity,leading to guidance to GCHQ staff on how to protect themselves. The image was taken frompeople with webcam accounts with the company Yahoo. It responded angrily to the revelations,saying it'd known nothing of the program and it represented a whole new level of violation ofits users' privacy.
Tensions in Lebanon between supporters and opponents of Hezbollah have been tightened bythe mysterious death of a man rumored to have written a popular anti-Hezbollah song.Sebastian Usher on *.
For the title of the song is “Dig Your Grave in Yabroud”,a Syrian town near the Lebaneseborder where Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian government forces to oust rebels. It's notquite clear why but Marwan Dimashqieh, a car mechanic, was seen as having written the fiercelyanti-Hezbollah song. He was found dead in his car on Tuesday, a gun in his lap. Lebaneseinvestigators have suggested it was suicide. But hundreds of mourners who attended hisfuneral held him as a martyr. They said he'd been kidnapped and killed for his outspokenattack on Hezbollah.
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Britain and Germany have spoken of the need to reform the European Union to make it moreflexible and to encourage growth. The British Prime Minister David Cameron said after talks inDowning Street with Chancellor Merkel that he believed there was enough common ground todeliver the change's long-been wants before her planned referendum on EU membership. Mrs.Merkel indicated there're worth areas in which the countries agreed, but she didn't go intospecifics.
The English Football Association has banned the French striker Nicolas Anelka for five matchesfor a gesture he made celebrating a goal last December which was widely seen as anti-Semitic.The FA also fined Anelka who plays for the Premier League team West Bromwich Albion morethan 130,000 dollars. Richard Colven has this report.
The three-man independent panel upheld the FA's charge that in using the controversialquenelle gesture, Nicolas Anelka acted in an abusive, indecent, insulting or improper way, andfurther more which had a reference to ethnicity, religious belief or racial origin. But the panelsay Nicolas Anelka is not an anti-Semite, none did he not intend to promote anti-Semitism. Hisclub West Bromwich Albion have now suspended the French striker and will launch their owninternal inquiry. Nicolas Anelka meanwhile must now decide if he intends to appeal, havingmaintained all along, he believes he's done nothing wrong.
Parliament in Cyprus has narrowly rejected a privatization plan that was a condition for thecountry getting its next installment of international bailout loans in effect forcing arenegotiation. Hundreds of workers at corporations facing privatization have staged an angryprotest outside the Chamber. As part of its commitments to paying down a level of debt whichhas brought Cyprus to the brink of Bankruptcy, the government has to sell off three of the bigutilities, telecoms, electricity, and the port authority.
That's the latest from BBC World News.