Obama warns Russia against Ukraine intervention, says 'there will be costs'

from cnn

By Chelsea J. Carter, Ingrid Formanek and Diana Magnay, CNN

March 1, 2014 -- Updated 0011 GMT (0811 HKT)

Armed men patrol outside the Simferopol International Airport in Ukraine's Crimea region on Friday, February 28. The gunmen, whom Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov called part of an "armed invasion" by Russian forces, appeared around the airport without identifying themselves. Crimea is an autonomous republic of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority. It's the last large bastion of opposition to Ukraine's new political leadership after President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster.

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Ukraine in transition

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: "There will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine," President Barack Obama says
• "It would be a clear violation of Russia's commitment," Obama says of any intervention
• "We are strong enough to defend ourselves," Ukrainian ambassador says
• Russian President Vladimir Putin to EU leaders: Ukraine must avoid an escalation of violence

Have you witnessed the crisis in Ukraine, particularly in Crimea? Share your experiences, but please stay safe.

Simferopol, Ukraine (CNN) -- Tension dramatically mounted in Ukraine's Crimea region Friday as its ambassador to the United Nations warned Russia against any further violation of its territorial borders, a warning that came as the United States urged Russia to pull back from the region or face possible consequences.

"We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside Ukraine," U.S. President Barack Obama said in televised comments from the White House.

"...It would be a clear violation of Russia's commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine and of international laws."

Obama said any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be "deeply destabilizing, and he warned "the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."

Read Obama's full statement

Obama: We stand for Ukraine sovereignty

Ukraine ambassador appeals to U.N.

Ukraine: Russian soldiers invaded airport

Tensions rise over Crimean peninsula

The remarks were the latest in a series of fast-moving developments that saw Ukrainian officials grappling with rising secessionist passions in the Russian-majority region, where the airspace has been closed and communications have been disrupted.

Ukraine accused Russian Black Sea forces of trying to seize two airports in Crimea but said Ukrainian security forces prevented them from taking control.

Ukraine Interior Minister Arsen Avakov earlier characterized the presence at the airport of unidentified armed men, who wore uniforms without insignia, as an "armed invasion."

The crisis echoed throughout the world, with the U.N. Security Council president holding a private meeting about the crisis enveloping Ukraine and world leaders calling armed groups not to attempt to challenge Ukrainian sovereignty.

'This group is making a serious mistake'

At a press conference outside the U.N. Security Council, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.N., Yuriy Sergeyev said the country was prepared to defend itself and urged the U.N.'s moral and political support for the Kiev government, particularly in Crimea.

Since last week's ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine has faced a deepening schism, with those in the west generally supporting the interim government and its European Union tilt, while many in the east preferring a Ukraine where Russia casts a long shadow.

Nowhere is that feeling more intense than in Crimea, the last big bastion of opposition to the new political leadership. And Ukraine suspects Russia of fomenting tension in the autonomous region that might escalate into a bid for separation by its Russian majority.

"We still have a chance to stop the negative developments and separatism," Sergeyev said.

Sergeyev accused Russia of violating its military agreement by blocking Ukrainian security forces, including its border guards and police, in the region.

"This group is making a serious mistake challenging our territorial integrity," he said.

But Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaliy Churkin, compared the reports of Russian troops taking charge of positions on the ground to rumors that "are always not true."

"We are acting within the framework of our agreement," he said.

Even so, U.S. military commanders and intelligence agencies were scrambling Friday to determine what was needed to get a better picture of Russian movements.

That included an assessment of intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance needs, a senior U.S. official told CNN.

Meanwhile, Obama is considering not attending the G8 Summit in Sochi, Russia, in June, if Russian troops remain in the Ukraine, a senior administration official familiar with the discussions told CNN.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kerry talks to Russian foreign minister

The Russian Foreign Ministry said maneuvers of armored vehicles from the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea were needed for security and were in line with bilateral agreements.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday morning about the airport and military activities, and Lavrov told Kerry that the Russians "are not engaging in any violation of the sovereignty" of Ukraine. Russia has a military base agreement with the country.

Lavrov told him the military exercises were prescheduled and unrelated to the events in Ukraine, Kerry said.

Ukraine faces threats of secession

Gunmen seize Crimean parliament

"I nevertheless made it clear that that could be misinterpreted at the moment,'' Kerry said, "and there are enough tensions that it is important for everybody to be extremely careful not to inflame the situation and send the wrong messages."

Yanukovych's news conference was under way in Russia, Kerry said, as he spoke with Lavrov.

Kerry said Lavrov had reaffirmed to him a commitment that Russia would "respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

"We would overwhelmingly stress today that we urge all parties -- all parties; that includes the new interim technical government, rightists, oppositionists and others, anybody in the street who is armed -- we urge all parties to avoid any steps that could be misinterpreted or lead to miscalculation or do anything other than to work to bring that peace and stability and peaceful transition within the governing process within Ukraine," Kerry said.

Russian response

In a telephone call with European leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of avoiding a further escalation of violence in Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a prepared statement Friday.

Putin also called for a normalization of the situation, speaking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, according to the Kremlin.

Crimea was handed to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954. Just over half its population is ethnic Russian, while about a quarter are Ukrainians and a little more than 10% are Crimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslim group oppressed under former Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers introduced two bills Friday to simplify annexing new territories into the Russian Federation and simplify access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainians, the state news agency Itar Tass said.

One bill also stipulates that the accession of a part of a foreign state to Russia should be taken through a referendum, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Ukraine's President in Russia

Making his first public appearance since his ouster Saturday, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said the newly appointed interim government was not legitimate and did not represent the majority of Ukraine's 45 million citizens.

"I intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine against those who, with fear and with terror, are attempting to replace the power," Yanukovych said in Russian, not Ukrainian.

"Nobody has overthrown me. I was compelled to leave Ukraine due to a direct threat to my life and my nearest and dearest."

In his hourlong news conference, Yanukovych accused the interim authorities in Ukraine of propagating violence. He spoke against a backdrop of Ukraine's blue-and-yellow flags before reporters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don about 700 miles south of Moscow.

"I never gave any orders to shoot," he said, adding that he sought peace and that the security forces took up arms only when their lives were at risk.

Yanukovych is wanted in Ukraine on charges connected to the deaths of demonstrators, who were protesting his decision to scrap a European Union trade deal in favor of one with Russia.

Armed men at airports

Back in Kiev, Andrii Parubii, chief of national security and defense, said Ukrainian military and police forces had stopped Russian military forces from seizing two airports in the Crimean region.

The Russian military is on the outside of both airports, Parubii said in a televised news conference from the Ukrainian parliament.

Weapons were not used during the operation, according to Avakov, the interior minister.

Russian armored vehicles were moving toward Simferopol, the regional capital, on Friday, the Ukrainian news outlet TSN reported.

Men in military uniforms had been seen patrolling the airport in Simferopol, as well as a military and civilian airbase in nearby Sevastopol since early Friday.

Avakov said the armed men at the Sevastopol air base were troops from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, stationed in the port city. They were in camouflage uniforms without military insignia, he said.

The presence of the armed men has not affected the Simferopol airport, civil aviation authorities said.

"We are checking to make sure that no radicals come to Crimea from Kiev, from the Ukraine," said one man outside the airport, who didn't give his name. "We don't want radicals, we don't want fascism, we don't want problems."

Other men outside the airport, dressed in black rather than military fatigues, said they belonged to the pro-Russia Unity Party and had come on the orders of the new Crimean administration -- voted in Thursday after armed men seized regional government buildings.

Concerned about the latest developments, Ukraine's parliament passed a resolution Friday that demanded Russia halt any activity that can be interpreted as an attack on its sovereignty.

Moscow alarmed some observers by announcing the surprise military exercises Wednesday in its western and central areas, near the Ukraine border.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's largest telecom firm was unable to provide data and voice connectivity between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine because unknown people had seized telecommunications nodes and destroyed cables, it said Friday. There is almost no phone connectivity or Internet service across Crimea, said Ukrtelecom, which is the only landline provider.

5 things to know about Crimea

Will Crimea spark Europe's next conflict?

CNN's Victoria Eastwood, Diana Magnay and Nadjie Femi reported from Simferopol, Ukraine, Ingrid Formanek from Kiev and Frederik Pleitgen from Moscow. Chelsea J. Carter wrote from Atlanta. Journalist Azad Safarov and CNN's Barbara Starr, Alla Eshch

British spy agency collected images of Yahoo webcam chats - Guardian

from reuters

BY JULIA FIORETTI

LONDON Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:28pm EST

The Yahoo logo is shown at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California April 16, 2013.

CREDIT: REUTERS/ROBERT GALBRAITH

(Reuters) - Britain's spy agency GCHQ intercepted millions of people's webcam chats and stored still images of them, including sexually explicit ones, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday.

GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 provided to the newspaper by the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, revealed that the surveillance program, codenamed Optic Nerve, saved one image every five minutes from randomly selected Yahoo webcam chats and stored them on agency databases.

Optic Nerve, which began as a prototype in 2008 and was still active in 2012, was intended to test automated facial recognition, monitor GCHQ's targets and uncover new ones, the Guardian said.

Under British law, there are no restrictions preventing images of U.S. citizens being accessed by British intelligence, it added.

GCHQ collected images from the webcam chats of over 1.8 million users globally in a six-month period in 2008 alone.

"It is a long-standing policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters," a GCHQ spokesperson said on Thursday.

In another sign of the widespread information-sharing between U.S. and UK spy agencies which has riled public and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, the webcam information was fed into the NSA's search tool and all of the policy documents were available to NSA analysts, the paper said.

However it was not clear whether the NSA had access to the actual database of Yahoo webcam images, it added.

Snowden, now in Russia after fleeing the United States, made world headlines last summer when he provided details of NSA surveillance programs to the Guardian and the Washington Post.

For decades, the NSA and GCHQ have worked as close partners, sharing intelligence under an arrangement known as the UKUSA agreement. They also collaborate with eavesdropping agencies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand under an arrangement known as the "Five Eyes" alliance.

Under Optic Nerve, GCHQ tried to limit its staff's ability to see the webcam images, but they could still see the images of people with similar usernames to intelligence targets, the Guardian said.

GCHQ also implemented restrictions on the collection of sexually explicit images, but its software was not always able to distinguish between these and other images.

"Discussing efforts to make the interface "safer to use", it (GCHQ) noted that current "naïve" pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people's faces as pornography," the newspaper said.

The spy agency eventually excluded images in which the software had not detected any faces from search results to prevent staff from accessing explicit images, it added.

(Reporting by Julia Fioretti; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Bree Walker talks about her sobriety, her arrest, and that mugshot

from latimes

Former local TV news anchor Bree Walker, at home in Venice with her pit bull Petey. Walker was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Anaheim on Wednesday. (Robin Abcarian/L.A. Times / February 24, 2014)

Related photos »

By Robin Abcarian

February 24, 2014, 5:26 p.m.

On Monday morning, Bree Walker opened the door of her home in Venice and ushered me in. Her very blond, slightly messy hair was tumbling out of a bun on top of her head. Her face was bare, as were her feet. She wore a loose-fitting pair of polka dot drawstring pajama bottoms and a purple sweatshirt over a blue satin shirt. Very Westside hot mom.

She seemed to have a tattoo on her extremely taut lower abdomen, which was peeking from her shirt. Her gait was slightly unsteady.

“I am nervous about coverage these days,” said Walker, a high-profile television news anchor in Los Angeles from 1988 to 1994 who was arrested last week on suspicion of driving under the influence. “I didn’t expect this story would have traction. I feel like I have been in shock and don’t trust the decisions that I am making even though I am trying to be lucid.”

Over the course of a two-hour conversation, she seemed entirely lucid, particularly in light of the unfortunate personal situation that had suddenly thrust her into the headlines.

Last Tuesday, Walker said, she had been in San Diego, where her son, Aaron, lives. While driving home on Interstate 5 with her 5-year-old pit bull, Petey, she missed the turnoff for the 405 Freeway. Trying to make her way to the 405, she ended up on surface streets in Anaheim.

It was just after midnight on Wednesday when police there pulled her over for a red-light violation. They said she seemed disheveled and noticed an empty vodka bottle in her car. She failed a field sobriety test, but would not submit to a Breathalyzer, said police, who handcuffed her and took her into custody.

She spent the night in jail; Petey went to the animal shelter. Her Fiat 500c -- the “Peteymobile”-- was impounded.

Walker had no idea that her arrest, and her mugshot, were about to blow up. Nor did it occur to her to try to spin the news.

“When they offered me a phone call, I couldn’t even make one. There was no one I wanted to see me in my shame,” she said, sitting at a desk in her living room. Her desk was covered in circulars – pitches from pizza joints and DUI attorneys.

“I’m embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed of myself,” she said, holding up a flier from a well-known DUI attorney proclaiming, “Friends don’t let friends plead guilty.”

She said she had been afraid to look at her mugshot.

“Is it that bad?” she asked. An ex-boyfriend, she said, had called her to inform her that “in the world of mugshots, you are up there with Gary Busey.”

Her response: “That’s why you’re an ex-boyfriend.”

(Not that it matters, but I think he probably meant Nick Nolte, whose infamous arrest photo is the gold standard for bad mugshots.)

She screwed up the courage to look at the photo, which shows a very taut face, and full lips that many have speculated are surgically enhanced, which she denies. (“So look at my baby pictures,” she said. “They’re online. My lips are full. I think they look fuller because I am thin.”)

She stared at the photo.

“That looks like me, unhappy,” she said. And then, not entirely incorrectly, she added, “I look like Steven Tyler.”

Walker, who says she is an alcoholic, got sober in 2007. At the time, she announced she was voluntarily entering rehab. She told me she spent 30 days at a Promises facility in Venice. Last week’s apparent relapse, combined with the unflattering mugshot, made her personal lapse into a national news story. Walker said she was stunned by the attention, which she called “an aberrant explosion.” She has also been heartened by the number of old friends who have called to offer support.

Until last week, Walker’s biggest brush with scandal came in 1990 after she fell in love with her co-anchor, Jim Lampley, while both were married to others. They anchored the news for several years as a married couple.

“I thought I’d done a good job being anonymous,” said Walker, who turns 61 on Wednesday, and has been largely out of the public eye for years. “You can choose to be invisible … though apparently I can’t.”

As we talked in her living room and on her sunny front porch, where Petey was sunning, she seemed alternately horrified, philosophical and bemused about her predicament. It seemed clear to me that having walked away from a remarkable career, Walker is struggling to find her place in the world.

“I’m very much an emblem of how women have to redefine themselves without the luxury of a job or a career anymore,” she said. “No one teaches women how to retire from being a mother. When women approach this stage of life and they’re not exactly in tune with the male world, life is a conundrum.”

In the late 1990s, she and Lampley, now best known as HBO’s boxing commentator, owned a production company together and opened a couple of restaurants in Park City, Utah. She stepped away from the news business, she said, because he wanted her to stay at home with the children, who are now adults. Their marriage fell apart in 2000.

Since then, she has hosted a weekend talk radio show, appeared on the HBO series “Carnivale,” about a traveling Depression-era freak show, and made a bit of news when she purchased a Texas property near the Crawford home of former President George W. Bush from antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, who had named it “Camp Casey” for her son who died in the Iraq war.

“What do I do every day?” she said. “I push paper. I try not to screw up. Like a lot of women who have raised kids and finished their careers, you’ve completed a life, but we have so much more to offer.

“Everything about your life accumulates. The minute you think you’ve got it all handled is exactly when something jumps up and bites you in the ass. It’s easy to forget that. That’s the hubris of being human.”

Walker spent Monday investigating rehab programs. “This makes me feel like I’m starting over again with a first step,” she said, sighing. “I’m not embarrassed to say that.”

Walker will always be remembered as a newswoman who not only presided over a popular newscast in the golden age of local television, but as a ground-breaking, high-profile role model and activist for the disabled. Working in a milieu that demanded physical perfection, particularly of women, her TV success seemed unimpeded by the congenital physical condition that left her with malformed hands and feet. Called ectodactyly, it is the reason she seems a bit unsteady on her feet.

As for that mugshot, it's pretty ironic that someone who has not felt the need to hide her malformed hands and feet is now being judged because she has a face that would not be out of place among the pillowy lips and cosmetic enhancements on display at lunchtime in any Beverly Hills bistro.

Not that you'd find Walker in Beverly Hills.

“I’m a die-hard Venice person now,” she said. “It’s the whole freaky factor that goes with me because of my hands and feet. In Venice, I don’t feel that freaky.”

More from Robin Abcarian

Twitter: @robinabcarian

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-bree-walker-arrest-mugshot-20140224,0,6928428.story#ixzz2uLyiCFCz

Harold Ramis brought intelligent comedy to Hollywood

from usatoday.com

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY2:45 p.m. EST February 24, 2014

As an actor, writer and director, his body of work included some of the all-time great comedies.

His signature acting roles straddled the brainy and the hilarious, but even behind the camera Harold Ramis built a career in Hollywood on making people laugh and think at the same time.

The body of work left by the Chicago-born filmmaker, who died early Monday at the age of 69 from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, is full of some of the greatest cult and mainstream comedies ever.

"Harold was a force of good in the universe — so funny, sweet and thoughtful," said Jack Black, who starred in Ramis' final feature as a director, 2009's biblical send-up, Year One. "He will be deeply missed."

A one-time joke editor for Playboy magazine, Ramis joined Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe in 1969 before moving to New York City for The National Lampoon Show, where he worked with fellow Second City alums and future Saturday Night Live stars John Belushi, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner. In 1976, he was a performer and head writer for the Canadian comedy show SCTVbefore switching to the big screen.

PHOTOS: Actor, director and writer Harold Ramis dies at 69

MORE: Five signature Harold Ramis films

He wrote Animal House (1978), which made a movie star out of Belushi and influenced decades of college-set films, before kicking off a winning streak of screenplays starring his longtime collaborator — and fellow Windy City icon — Murray, including the 1979 camp comedy Meatballs, 1980's golf-centric Caddyshack(which acted as Ramis' directorial debut), the 1981 military spoof Stripes and 1984'sGhostbusters.

Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel cast Ramis, Murray and Dan Aykroyd as paranormal investigators and gave Ramis his signature role as Dr. Egon Spengler, a scientist who wasn't afraid of no ghosts but was really into spores, molds and fungus.

Harold Ramis (center) had a signature role in "Ghostbusters" alongside frequent collaborator Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.(Photo: Columbia/The Kobal Collection)

In addition to Caddyshack, Ramis' directorial efforts included the original National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Multiplicity (1996), Analyze This(1999) and its sequel Analyze That (2002), and The Ice Harvest (2005). Ramis won a BAFTA for best original screenplay for Groundhog Day, which starred Murray as a self-centered meteorologist who has to live the same day over and over again until he gets it right.

Ramis had a small role as a neurologist in Groundhog Day, and usually his parts, major or minor, veered toward intelligence in the face of comedic high jinks. He was the likable voice of reason to Murray's anti-authoritarian Army recruit in Stripes, a doctor in As Good As It Gets and a wise father to a soon-to-be dad (Seth Rogen) inKnocked Up (2007).

"Life doesn't care about your vision," Ramis says to Rogen in one key scene. "You just gotta roll with it."

In a statement, Aykroyd said he was "deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my brilliant, gifted, funny friend, co-writer/performer and teacher Harold Ramis. May he now get the answers he was always seeking."

Contributing: Bryan Alexander