Turkey appeals to US on Kurds +++ Tsunami warnings in North America +++ US shutdown ends

23. Februar 2018, 02:00

Turkey appeals to US on Kurds

Turkey is calling on the United States to drop its support of the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria. Today is Day 4 of a Turkish campaign against the YPG. Turkey considers the militia an extension of Kurdish PKK rebels operating in Turkey. Turkish government spokesman Ibrahim Kalin says Washington should end aid, including arms shipments, now that Islamic States rebels have now been all but wiped out in Syria: “We cannot PKK again establishing some kind of a state structure along our border. Our call on the US administration is to stop supporting the YD-YPG.” Thousands of people are fleeing Turkish shelling in the Afrin region of northwestern Syria. That’s according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Tsunami warnings in North America

An earthquake off the coast of Alaska has prompted tsunami warnings for coastal Alaska, Canada’s British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Residents on Alaska’s Kodiak Island have been told to go to higher ground.

US shutdown ends

US federal workers return to work today after Congressional Republicans and Democrats last night reached an agreement to fund the government through the first week of next month. The deal ends a three-day shutdown of the federal government and came after Republicans accepted a Democratic demand of a debate next week in Congress on immigration policy. The Republican speaker of the House is Paul Ryan: “I know there’s great relief that this episode is coming to an end. This shutdown did not need to happen. However brief, it inflicted needless costs on the country.”

New UN report on peacekeeping

A new United Nations report says UN peacekeepers should be allowed to use force in high-risk situations. 56 UN troops were killed during operations last year, the highest number since 1994.

Hugh Masekela dead at 78

Legendary South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela has died in Johannesburg after a long fight against cancer. He was 78 years old. A trumpeter, singer and composer, in the 1960s he went into exile in the UK and the United States where he became an anti-apartheid activist using his music to raise awareness about the oppressive system of white-minority rule in his home country. Hugh Masekela once said he could not return to South Africa during the apartheid era: “Our passports were taken away and then the government was so crazy by then that I could have gone to jail and who knows what else.”

Lauda buys Niki

Niki Lauda has bought back Niki, the budget airline he founded in 2003. Niki had most recently been a subsidiary of Air Berlin which went bankrupt last month. No price tag on the deal has been announced.

The weather

The afternoon will see the rain and snowfall taper off, bringing sunny skies to the south and west. Highs today are ranging from 1 to 10 degrees.

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