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From Washington, this is VOA news. Ukraine's government says it won't meet with rebels whom it accuses of violating a new truce, and the WHO says dozens are dead in a previously hidden Ebola outbreak in West Africa. I'm Michael Lipin.
The Ukrainian government has ruled out holding peace talks with Russian-backed separatists this week after accusing them of new attacks just one day after both sides observed a "Day of Silence" in their months-long conflict. The Ukrainian military said Wednesday the separatists had launched 12 attacks in the previous 24 hours. Ukrainian government truce representative Leonid Kuchma said he does not consider a new meeting with the rebels to be "advisable" because in his view a cease-fire cannot be kept by one side alone. Kuchma said the pro-Russia separatists need to show that they "actually want peace, not war," and have "full control over their armed units." Talks on a wider resolution to the Ukrainian conflict had been expected to be held on Friday in Belarus. The World Health Organization says dozens of people have died from a previously unknown Ebola outbreak in an eastern region of Sierra Leone. The WHO says investigators sent to the remote Kono district found a "grim scene" last week, with Ebola patients dying in a hospital unequipped to deal with the virus. It says medical teams buried 87 bodies there in 11 days. The dead included a nurse, an ambulance driver and a janitor who had removed bodies from the hospital as they piled up. Just before the WHO statement was issued late Wednesday, the U.N. health agency said Sierra Leone accounts for the bulk of newly reported Ebola cases and deaths in West Africa. As of Tuesday, Sierra Leone's Kono district officially had 123 confirmed cases of Ebola. You are listening to VOA news. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski says Poland allowed the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to run a secret prison on its territory after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But in a Wednesday interview with a Warsaw radio station, Mr. Kwasniewski said he did not authorize harsh treatment or torture of suspected terrorists at the site when he was in office up to 2005. He also said that he urged then U.S. President George W. Bush to end all U.S. intelligence efforts at the secret prison more than 10 years ago, and that those activities eventually stopped. Mr. Kwasniewski made his remarks a day after a U.S. Senate report revealed that the CIA used extreme methods that it said amounted to torture to interrogate suspected terrorists in the years after the 2001 attacks on the United States. Two champions of children's rights have received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway: Malala Yousafzai of Pakistani and India's Kailash Satyarthi. VOA's Al Pessin has more. It was part solemn ceremony and part celebration as the two winners received their medals and diplomas. They will also share the million-dollar prize which they say they will use in their work. At 17, the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai told how her life changed seven years ago when the Taliban moved into northern Pakistan. As her campaign to keep girls in school began to get attention, a Taliban gunman went to her school and shot her in the head. Speaking to VOA's Urdu service, Malala said the Nobel Peace Prize increases her responsibility to work on behalf of children's education everywhere. "This Peace Prize conveys the very important message that Pakistanis want peace and support education." Malala's co-winner Kailash Satyarthi has been working for decades to free children from bonded labor mostly in India but also in many other countries. Al Pessin, VOA news, London. Russian President Vladimir Putin is in New Delhi for talks with Indian leaders aimed at expanding energy and defense ties between the long-time strategic partners. Mr. Putin is set to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday, as well as opposition leader Sonia Gandhi. Russia is facing Western economic sanctions for its role in Ukraine's crisis and analysts say the Putin mission is aimed at developing new energy markets to help offset the impact of those sanctions. Russian news reports say the talks in India will also focus on military cooperation, space exploration and the construction of new nuclear plants. I'm Michael Lipin in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |