South Korea ferry: President condemns crew actions

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has condemned the conduct of some of the crew of the ferry that sank last week, calling it "akin to murder".

Ms Park said that those to blame would have to take "criminal and civil" responsibility for their actions.

Divers are continuing to recover bodies from the ferry, as they gain access to more of the submerged hull.

The death toll now stands at 64, with 238 people still missing, most of them students from a school near Seoul.

Bodies are being brought two or three at a time back to Jindo, a southern island close to where the ferry sank.Police, meanwhile, have been given access to hundreds of messages sent by passengers and crew so they can construct a detailed chronology of the ferry's last hour.

Transcript released

Ms Park, whose government has faced criticism over its initial response to the disaster, told aides that the actions of the captain and some of the crew "were utterly incomprehensible, unacceptable and tantamount to murder", the presidential office said.

"The captain did not comply with passenger evacuation orders from the vessel traffic service... and escaped ahead of others while telling passengers to keep their seats. This is something that is never imaginable legally or ethically," she said.

Those who had broken the law or "abandoned their responsibilities" would be held to account regardless of rank, she said.

Teams have been bringing bodies recovered from the sunken ferry ashore to Jindo island

Bereaved relatives are desperate to have the bodies of their loved ones returned

It is not yet clear when the vessel could be raised, but specialist equipment has been brought in

Over the weekend relatives confronted police as they took part in a protest march

A total of 174 passengers were rescued from the Sewol, which capsized as it sailed from Incheon in the north-west to the southern island of Jeju.

But there were 476 people on board - including 339 children and teachers on a school trip. Many were trapped inside the ship as it listed to one side and then sank.

Investigations are focusing on whether the vessel took too sharp a turn - perhaps destabilising the vessel - before it started listing and whether an earlier evacuation order could have saved lives.

Details of the panic and indecision on the bridge emerged on Sunday, when the coastguard released a transcript of the last communications between the crew and controllers.

In the transcript, a crew member repeatedly asks if vessels are on hand to rescue passengers if evacuation is ordered.

The captain, Lee Joon-seok, has said he delayed the move for fear people would drift away.

Mr Lee, 69, was not on the bridge when the ferry began listing. It was steered by a third mate who had never navigated the waters where the accident occurred, prosecutors said on Saturday.

The captain and two other crew members have been charged with negligence of duty and violation of maritime law.

Four more crew members were reported to have been detained on Monday over allegations they failed to protect passengers.

Investigators had also banned the head of ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine and its largest shareholder from leaving the country, Yonhap said.

It has since emerged that Mr Lee appeared in a promotional video for the journey four years ago, describing the ferry journey as safe as long as the passengers followed the crew's instructions.

In a 2010 promotional video, Captain Lee Joon-seok says he believes ferries are the safest form of transport "as long as passengers follow the instructions of our crew"

A coastguard spokesman said divers on Monday were focusing on the third and fourth decks where cabins were located in their search for the missing.

"We have also opened a route leading to a dining hall, and will try to enter that area," AFP news agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

Over the weekend, there were angry confrontations between relatives of those on board and police, after a group began a protest march.

The relatives say they want more information both about what happened and about how soon the remains of their loved ones can be recovered.

Russia says Kiev 'breaking Geneva accord' on Ukraine

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the Kiev authorities of breaking last week's Geneva accord on resolving the Ukraine crisis.

He said the Kiev government - not recognised by Moscow - had not moved to disarm illegal groups, especially the ultra-nationalist Right Sector.

"Extremists are calling the tune," he alleged, condemning a fatal shooting near Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine.

He also condemned the continuing Maidan street protests in Kiev.

He said it was "absolutely unacceptable" that the Ukrainian authorities had failed to end what he called the illegal protests in the capital.

Meanwhile, US Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Kiev for two days of meetings with the country's leaders, in a show of support for the Ukrainian government.

'Crude violation'

Early on Sunday at least three people were killed in a shooting at a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian separatists near Sloviansk.

The circumstances remain unclear. The local separatists said the attack was carried out by Right Sector militants. Kiev called it a "provocation" staged by Russian special forces.

Mr Lavrov said the incident proved Kiev did not want to control "extremists".

There are conflicting reports about a fatal shooting near Sloviansk

Government buildings in eastern Ukraine, such as this one in Sloviansk, have been taken over by pro-Russian activists

He said that the most important demand of the Geneva deal was to "prevent any violence", and it was not being implemented.

"Steps are being taken - above all by those who seized power in Kiev - which crudely violate the accords reached in Geneva," Mr Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.

The 17 April Geneva accord was agreed at talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US. It demanded an immediate end to violence in eastern Ukraine and called on illegal armed groups to surrender their weapons and leave official buildings.

'Hardened attitude'

Pro-Russian militants are still holding official buildings in at least nine towns and cities in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The interim authorities in Kiev said they had suspended operations against pro-Russian militants over Easter, and appealed for national unity.

They promised to meet some of the demands of pro-Russian protesters, which include the decentralisation of power and guarantees for the status of the Russian language.

The job for Western diplomats trying to bridge the divide is getting harder, says the BBC's Tom Esslemont in Moscow.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has deployed around 100 monitors across 10 cities in Ukraine to explain the details of the Geneva accord to each side.

Spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said they were having a "mixed experience dealing with checkpoints and so forth and there is a varying reaction to teams".

He said they were facing a "hardened attitude" in places such as Donetsk and Slaviansk, but other, smaller, areas are "more accommodating".

Meanwhile, US has warned the next few days will be pivotal and has threatened more sanctions against Russia if it fails to abide by the Geneva accord.

Vice-President Biden will announce technical support to the Kiev government, including economic and energy-related assistance.

Mr Lavrov stressed any attempt to isolate Russia from the rest of the world was doomed to fail.

"We are a big and independent power that knows what it wants," he said, adding that "the overwhelming majority of states in the world do not want Russia's isolation."

Ukraine has been in crisis since last November, when Kiev was gripped by protests against President Viktor Yanukovych over his rejection of an economic pact with the EU. He was toppled in February and fled to Russia.

Russia then annexed Crimea following a regional referendum that approved joining the Russian federation. The annexation provoked international outrage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday submitted a bill to parliament to establish a gambling zone in Crimea.

He also signed a decree to rehabilitate Crimea's Muslim Tatars and other ethnic minorities who suffered during the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The 300,000-strong Tatar community - which makes up 15% of Crimea's population - opposed the peninsula's incorporation into Russia last month.

Fast and Furious for 'significant changes', says star

Kurt Russell, who features in the next Fast and Furious film, has spoken about the future of the project after the death of his co-star Paul Walker.

Russell has been cast as a "father figure" to Vin Diesel's character.

"They're having to rewrite, they're having to do whatever they're having to do to deal with the situation.

"It's catastrophic. It's the worst thing that could happen to a movie but it's not as bad as what happened to Paul," he said.

"So everything is in perspective. He was a terrific guy. And life is full of curveballs.

"It's just a situation that they'll work out and, at that time, I'll go back to work."

Paul Walker had a starring role in the blockbuster Fast and Furious film series

The latest film in the car-focused franchise, directed by James Wan, is now set for release in April next year.

Russell says he expects to return to set sometime this year.

"At the time [of Paul's death] I had one day left [on set]," he said, "I don't know what is going to happen with that. It's obviously a difficult situation.

"Whether or not this guy dies off in the movie, we don't know. That may have changed now significantly too."

The 62-year-old, who has been in a relationship with Kate Hudson's mother, Goldie, for more than 30 years has been speaking at the Sundance Film Festival.

He is there to promote a documentary about his father's minor league baseball team, The Battered Bastards of Baseball.

Paul Walker died on 20 November in California after the car he was in hit a pole and caught fire.

A coroner's report stated that the Porsche was travelling at an "unsafe speed".

Neither Walker nor the driver of the car were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their deaths, a post-mortem examination found.

Both deaths have since been ruled accidents.

History of Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz traces its origins to Karl Benz's creation of the first petrol-powered car, the Benz Patent Motorwagen, financed by Bertha Benz and patented in January 1886, and Gottlieb Daimler  and engineer Wilhem Maybach's  conversion of a stagecoach by the addition of a petrol engine later that year. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benz's and Gottlieb Daimler's companies into the Daimler-Benz company.Throughout the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770 model, a car that was popular during Germany's Nazi period. Adolf Hitler was known to have driven these cars during his time in power, with bulletproof windshields. Most of the surviving models have been sold at auctions to private buyers. One of them is currently on display at the War Museum in Ottawa , Ontario. Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations  that later became common in other vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is one of the best known and established automotive brands in the world, and is also one of the world's oldest automotive brand still in existence today, having produced the first petrol-powered car.

For information relating to the famous three-pointed star, see under the title Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaf  including the merger into Daimler-Benz.

Tanzanian doctor saving children!!!

The masked man had already cut her chest open when the lights went off, plunging the entire room into darkness.

This was not good. In fact, it was downright dangerous. A power outage is probably the last thing anyone would want to happen midway through surgery, let alone while performing the delicate task of closing a hole inside the heart of a six-year-old girl.

But Dr Godwin Godfrey and his team had come prepared.

"We knew that we always have power cuts in the hospital -- they can happen at any time, even at night -- so we had prepared a back-up manual handle that we could use to run the pump by hand," says Godfrey, who works at the Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza, north Tanzania.

A reliable and constant electricity supply is crucial when performing open heart surgery -- the procedure is done under general anesthesia and requires the use of an electrically powered machine that acts as the patient's heart and lung.Godfrey and his team also knew that it usually takes several seconds for the hospital's back-up generator to kick in after a power failure. Therefore, they'd previously connected the heart-lung and anesthesia machines to an uninterruptible power supply in case of an emergency.

"Even though all the lights in the operating room went off, the machines themselves were still working," recalls the young doctor. "So this was what actually saved us that day."

'Africa is not a country': Students' photo campaign breaks down stereotypes

They say there are no stupid questions -- or are there?

How about, "Do you speak African?" Or, "What is Africa's flag?"

Yes, these are quite ludicrous. Tired of regularly having to answer questions like these, a group of U.S.-based African students has launched a photo campaign in a bid to dispel misconceptions about their continent.

Called "The Real Africa: Fight the Stereotype," the social media initiative aims to educate and raise awareness about the common stereotypes surrounding Africa and its people -- misunderstandings like Africa being a homogenous entity rather than a diverse continent of more than 50 countries.

The campaign features striking images of the members of the African Students Association of New York's Ithaca College wrapped in different African flags or holding them proudly.

"What we wanted to do was embrace the individual flags of the countries of Africa," says Rita Bunatal, head of PR for the organization. "We wanted to show the beauty and the power of the flag. We also wanted to break one of the biggest misconceptions about the continent, which is that Africa is a country," she adds.

For each photograph, the posing students, aged 18 to 21, were also asked to come up with simple but powerful quotes that would disprove the ignorant and offensive remarks they would often hear.

As a result, the images boast statements like "Africans do not all look alike," "Africans don't need to be saved," "Africa is not a country" and "Africa is not a land filled with diseases." In addition, the campaign is saturated with educational facts that are designed to strengthen the students' quotes -- "I don't speak 'African' because 'African' is not a language" says one student, his declaration accompanied by the fact that "there are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa."

"We wanted to give facts, to correct, to give knowledge," says Bunatal, "trying to educate and stop people from saying these other things."

The African Students Association of Ithaca College first posted their photo campaign on CNN's iReport platformon January 20. Since then, some 5,000 people have viewed the photos and more than 2,000 have shared them on Facebook.

"The simplest actions can create awareness and we are hoping to do this not only campus-wide, but also world-wide," says Bunatal.

Sochi 2014: Winter Olympics opens with glittering ceremony

22ND WINTER OLYMPICS

• Venue: Sochi, Russia
 
• Date: 7-23 February

Coverage: Live on BBC TV, Red Button, BBC Sport website, Connected TVs, mobiles, BBC Sport app and Radio 5 live

The 22nd Winter Olympics opened with a spectacular ceremony in the Russian resort city of Sochi.

Athletes from 87 nations paraded before 40,000 people in the Fisht Stadium before president Vladimir Putin declared the Games open.

The Olympic flame was lit by Russian former triple gold medallists Vladislav Tretiak and Irina Rodnina as fireworks illuminated the night sky.

At a cost of £30bn, the Sochi Games is the most expensive Olympics in history.