Texas to execute man for triple murder in San Antonio home

Texas to execute man for triple murder in San Antonio home

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas plans to execute on Wednesday a man who was convicted of stabbing three people to death with a screwdriver, including his great-uncle and great-aunt, in a San Antonio home robbery in 1993.

Russia has 9,000 troops on Ukrainian soil, Poroshenko tells Davos forum

Russia has 9,000 troops on Ukrainian soil, Poroshenko tells Davos forum

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that Russia had 9,000 troops on Ukrainian soil and he called on Moscow to withdraw them.

In a speech to the forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said the Russian troops were backed by a range of heavy weapons including tanks and artillery systems.

"If this is not aggression, what is aggression?" Poroshenko asked. He called on Moscow to comply with a peace plan and cooperate in closing the long joint border with Ukraine and withdrawing Russian forces. 

Source: news.yahoo.com

Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address

Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will challenge the Republican-led Congress with tax-raising ideas for helping middle-class Americans in a State of the Union speech on Tuesday that will set up a tough debate and may impact the 2016 campaign to replace him.

Obama will push a plan in his speech to increase middle class benefits by hiking taxes by $320 billion over 10 years for the wealthy and financial firms.

Obama and Republicans had signaled after the November midterm election that they saw tax reform as a potential area for compromise. But Republicans who control of both houses of Congress are in no mood to raise taxes on anyone and were quick to pan Obama's proposal.

"This plan that we'll hear about tonight appears to be more about redistribution, with added complexity, and class warfare, directed at job-creating small businesses, than about tax reform," said Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the Senate's top tax law writer, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

IS THERE NO ONE WHO WILL STAND UP FOR UKRAINE?

Seems the West will do anything these days to avoid a confrontation with Vladimir Putin.

IS THERE NO ONE WHO WILL STAND UP FOR UKRAINE?

Oleksander Turchynov, the secretary of Ukraine's national defense council, told the country's parliament something startling last week. He said that there were 8,500 Russian regular troops now deployed in eastern Ukraine and that another 52,000 were poised just on the other side of its eastern border.

The figures are dramatic-and so much larger than what has been reported during the months of Russian attempts to destabilize Ukraine, while Vladimir Putin 's denials of his troops' presence continue with stubborn ridiculousness. I asked a Western security expert if the numbers sounded plausible.

He responded: "It would be difficult to believe that the Ukrainians could have such hard numbers on Russian troop presence without that also being visible to Western intelligence." A day later, Alexander Vershbow, NATO's deputy secretary-general, described the situation in Ukraine as deteriorating.

Europe needs to better integrate Muslim communities: Obama

Europe needs to better integrate Muslim communities: Obama

Washington (AFP) - Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not "simply respond with a hammer," US President Barack Obama said Friday in the wake of last week's terror attacks in France.

"Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations -- they feel themselves to be Americans," Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"There are parts of Europe in which that's not the case. And that's probably the greatest danger that Europe faces... it's important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems."
Taken from: news.yahoo.com