Germany: G7- Merkel and Obama and Russia sanctions
The US and German leaders say sanctions on Russia must stay until it implements a deal to end fighting in Ukraine. President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks as the G7 summit of economic powers began in southern Germany on Monday. Moscow is the target of European Union and US sanctions over its role in support of Ukrainian rebels. Russia has been excluded from what was previously known as the G8, since the annexation of Crimea last year. The West accuses Russia of sending military forces into eastern Ukraine to help the rebels. Moscow denies this, saying any Russian soldiers there are volunteers.
France: Islamists had Jewish store 'hit list' and nuclear bomb manual
Fourteen members of a banned Islamic group stood trial in Paris on Monday on terror charges after police found a ‘hit list’ of Jewish stores marked ‘targets’ in files belonging to its leader. Several of the stores belonged to the Hyper Cacher chain, like the one in which four people were killed in a hostage drama two days after the Islamist killings at Charlie Hebdo. The fourteen are charged with criminal conspiracy related to a terrorist enterprise. Some also face charges of illegal possession of weapons. All face prison terms of ten years if found guilty. One of the group's reported sympathisers, Omar Diaby, is a top recruitment sergeant of French Islamists for al-Nusra Front, the Syrian jihadist group.
Finland: Terminal care lacking
Finnish palliative care is well behind other European countries, with doctors and nurses receiving inadequate training for treating terminally ill patients. Finnish patients who are living out the final months, weeks or even days of their lives do not receive adequate care or attention, according to experts in the still embryonic field. Many terminally ill people suffer from fears and pains that healthcare workers aren't able to help them face. Although interest in developing palliative care is slowly rising the biggest obstacle seems to be the healthcare professional's ability to come face to face with the patient and their families and painkillers are also often administered too carefully. The reason for the distress has to do with the low level of training doctors and nurses receive for situations involving dying patients and many doctors may dismiss the final needs of the terminally ill.
Faroe Islands: Brutal cull of pilot whales
On Saturday a large pod of pilot whales was slaughtered in the first grindadráp (grind) of the year, on the island of Vágar in the northwest of the Faroe Islands archipelago. The slaughter occurred just two weeks before Sea Shepherd crews are due to arrive in the islands for the commencement of the organisation’s 2015 Faroe Islands Pilot Whale Defence Campaign, Operation Sleppid Grindini. It is estimated 150 individual pilot whales were in the slaughtered pod, making this one of the bloodiest grinds in at least two years. The ordeal commenced at approximately 0400 local time when the Faroese Fisheries Patrol vessel, Brimil, located the pod and over the next four to five hours twenty-five hunting boats herded them on to the beach where the grind eventually took place. For more than four long, grueling hours, these animals fought for their lives. They were harassed, tortured, and then killed in the presence of their family members.
