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Live video feed from Kiev. As fears grew over a possible showdown between Ukraine’s fledgling government and the Kremlin, armed men in military uniforms took up positions at two Crimean airports, Andrew Higgins and Patrick Reevell reported. Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, warned of “a direct provocation,†and a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council was convened to discuss the tensions in Crimea.
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Live video feed from Kiev. As fears grew over a possible showdown between Ukraine’s fledgling government and the Kremlin, armed men in military uniforms took up positions at two Crimean airports, Andrew Higgins and Patrick Reevell reported. Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, warned of “a direct provocation,†and a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council was convened to discuss the tensions in Crimea.
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Video posted to YouTube showed Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abdul Atti announcing the Egyptian military’s alleged discovery of a cure for hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists have reacted skeptically.
As my colleagues Kareem Fahim and Mayy El Sheikh reported, the Egyptian military made the unlikely announcement last week that after 22 years of secret research it had found a cure to not just one global public health scourge, but two: hepatitis C and H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
The claim was made by an army doctor, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abdul Atti, at a news conference attended by the country’s military-appointed interim president, Adly Mansour, as well as the defense minister, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a popular figure who led the country’s July 2013 removal of the Islamist president. General Sisi is widely seen as a leading presidential contender.
General Abdul Atti said that he discovered the cures for HIV and hepatitis C after 22 years of research he conducted with the assistance of Egyptian military intelligence and that his methods were able to cure 100 percent of AIDS cases and more than 95 percent of hepatitis C cases.
“You will never find another patient suffering from the Hepatitis C virus after today, God willing,†said General Abdul Atti, according to subtitled video of the announcement that was uploaded on Tuesday to a YouTube account focused on Egyptian politics and current events. It has been viewed more than 30,000 times in two days.
General Abdul Atti’s claims to have found a cure coincided with a separate announcement that the military helped develop a device that can detect hepatitis C infection from across a room, without a blood test. According to video posted to YouTube of a segment about the device was shown on Egyptian state television, the machine resembled a staple gun with a radio antenna attached.
A segment on Egyptian state television about the military’s hand-held hepatitis C detector.
The announcement came in the midst of a monthslong crackdown on government critics, which began with followers of the deposed president Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement but soon spread to non-Islamists critical of the military and security forces.
Last month, prosecutors that announced they were investigating a popular television puppet for its ties to terrorism, and more than one animal in recent years has been accused of links to Israeli intelligence.
A cure for hepatitis C would be a cause for celebration in Egypt, which reportedly has the world’s highest prevalence of the virus. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 20 percent of Egyptian blood donors test positive for hepatitis C. The country’s H.I.V. infection rate is less than 1 percent, according to the Joint United Nations Program on H.I.V. and AIDS.
The global scientific community has unsuccessfully sought a cure for both diseases for decades, and independent experts were deeply skeptical that the Egyptian military â€" working in secret, and without having published any findings in a peer-reviewed scientific journal â€" could have simultaneously unlocked the cure to two deadly epidemics.
That skepticism was shared by Essam Heggy, a science adviser to President Mansour, who called the military’s claims “unrealistic,†“lacking clear scientific basis†and “an insult to Egypt†in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper, al-Watan, that was translated into English by the website Mada Masr. Mr. Heggy also sought to distance President Mansour and General Sisi, the military chief, from the announcement, saying: “They were both surprised with what was said without them being consulted. Their presence at the conference doesn’t mean their approval of it.â€
Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, appealed to Russia on Thursday to protect his personal safety, while news agencies reported that he may already be in Russia. Earlier on Thursday, activists believed to be pro-Russian seized government buildings in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
Auto-Refresh: ON Turn ON Refresh Now Feed Twitter 7:48 A.M. Ukraine Lawmakers Form Majority CoalitionAhead of the vote to approve an interim government, lawmakers in the Ukrainian Parliament have formed a new majority coalition that they are calling “European Choice.†In his speech, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who has been selected to serve as acting prime minister, said that Ukraine must immediately resume negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and meet any conditions needed to receive assistance dealing with a severe economic crisis. Mr. Yatsenyuk also said that he would revive the sweeping political and free trade deals with the European Union that Mr. Yanukovych scuttled in November, setting off the civil unrest.
Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine, appealed to Russia on Thursday to protect his personal safety, while news agencies reported that he may already be in Russia. Earlier on Thursday, activists believed to be pro-Russian seized government buildings in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
Auto-Refresh: ON Turn ON Refresh Now Feed Twitter 7:48 A.M. Ukraine Lawmakers Form Majority CoalitionAhead of the vote to approve an interim government, lawmakers in the Ukrainian Parliament have formed a new majority coalition that they are calling “European Choice.†In his speech, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who has been selected to serve as acting prime minister, said that Ukraine must immediately resume negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and meet any conditions needed to receive assistance dealing with a severe economic crisis. Mr. Yatsenyuk also said that he would revive the sweeping political and free trade deals with the European Union that Mr. Yanukovych scuttled in November, setting off the civil unrest.
Mike Theiler/Reuters Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington last week. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is facing mounting pressure from fellow Republicans, civic leaders and business groups to veto a bill that would grant business owners the right to invoke religion to refuse service to gays and others, as my colleague, Fernanda Santos has reported.
On Twitter, the former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined Arizona’s United States Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, both also Republicans, in urging Governor Brewer to veto the bill.
On Wednesday morning, Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary for the former President George W. Bush, posted on Twitter:
Using a hashtag to refer to the bill, SB 1062, which was sent to her desk on Monday by the Arizona Legislature, Ms. Brewer posted on Twitter early Thursday: “I assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the State of Arizona.â€
The governor, who returned to Phoenix from Washington on Tuesday, has until Saturday to make up her mind on vetoing or signing the bill into law.
On the other side of the debate, supporters of the legislation are asking her to sign it because they said it protects religious freedom.
It is unknown what specific economic impact enacting the bill might have on Arizona. But as Ms. Santos has reported, executives from Apple Inc. and American Airlines have urged Ms. Brewer to reject the law.
Others, including Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat, have called on the National Football League to consider finding a new location for the Super Bowl, scheduled to be played in Arizona next February, if the bill is signed into law.
A spokesman for the N.F.L. told USA Today that league officials were closely watching developments.
The controversy has spurred rallies at the State Capitol and brought unwanted national attention to Arizona.
Some Arizona businesses have used the debate as an opportunity to communicate their position toward their customers, as my colleague, Ms. Santos posted on Twitter.
Security-camera footage broadcast on Ukrainian television on Saturday, said to show the entourage of the country’s deposed president fleeing his residence.
Viktor Yanukovych may have vanished early Saturday from Ukraine’s presidential palace outside Kiev, but not without a trace. His entourage left behind security-camera images of a hasty flight from the lavish compound, and something else â€" tens of thousands of apparently incriminating documents that were still floating near a dock at the waterfront residence when journalists and curious spectators arrived.
Since then, reporters from a dozen media organizations have been combing through the sodden papers at the Mezhyhirya compound along the Dnieper River, and on Tuesday they published high-quality images of hundreds of documents on a new website they call YanukovychLeaks. It quickly drew more than a million hits, according to Natalie Sedletska, a journalist for Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian service.
In a report for Mashable, the Kiev-based journalist Christopher Miller explained that “nearly 200 folders filled with thousands of invoices, contracts, insurance policies, cash payment orders and other documents were recovered from the murky depths. The edges of some had been scorched, suggesting that before fleeing Yanukovych had first ordered them to be burned before they were tossed into the sea.â€
As volunteer divers searched below the surface for more documents, and the president’s boathouse served as a drying room, one of the journalists, Katya Gorchinskaya of the English-language Kyiv Post, has been filing regular updates on the search through the contracts, receipts and invoices on her Twitter feed.
Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.
Joshua Lott for The New York Times A hashtag for “Being Black at the University of Michigan†was displayed as students and faculty members waited to attend a demonstration hosted by the United Coalition for Racial Justice at the University of Michigan in February.For my article today on racism on college campuses, I spoke with students from around the country about how race is still very much an issue for young Americans despite openness to interracial dating, marriage and friendships. I also read dozens of posts on Twitter and other social media platforms and used Facebook to help find people to interview.
We would like to include your story here. Tell us about your experience with race at your college or university. You can share your comments below or on Twitter, using the hashtag #TellNYT.
In the article, some young people rejected the notion of a post-racial society, saying they had no interest in stripping away their identity. Others said they did not see a colorblind society, particularly as racial incidents on college campuses continued to mount.
Within the past few months, a noose was hung around the neck of a bronze statue of James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. Flyers filled with racist and sexist language against Asian-American women were posted on the campus at the University of California, Los Angeles. At Arizona State University, a fraternity held a party on Martin Luther King’s Birthday and posted photos of their members, who were mostly white, drinking out of watermelon cups and flashing gang signs.
And at the University of Michigan, a group of black students were initially offended by a party thrown by a fraternity whose members are mostly white and Asian, which invited students “back to da hood again.†The black students then began a social media campaign called “Being Black at the University if Michigan†with the hashtag #BBUM. They urged students of color to share how they experience race on campus.
In 140 characters or less, hundreds of students did, and it has become a national campaign and re-ignited student activism on campus.
In many of their posts, as we reported on The Lede, it was often what some might consider small gestures that left the biggest effect, or caused the most pain.
A few examples:
Please tell us your experience with race on your campus on Twitter, in 140 characters or less, with the hashtag #TellNYT. Or share your story in the comments below. Thank you.
Follow @tanzinavega on Twitter.
In October 2010, a tabloid newspaper in Uganda called Rolling Stone published a front-page headline: “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak. Hang Them.â€
About three months later, Uganda’s most outspoken gay rights activist, David Kato, whose name was published, was beaten to death in his neighborhood, as my colleague Jeffrey Gettlemen reported at the time.
Now, gay activists, rights groups and others are once again remembering Mr. Kato as they fear the response to a new report, this time by a Ugandan tabloid called Red Pepper, published Tuesday, just a day after President Yoweri Museveni signed a sweeping antigay bill into law.
“Exposed!†the headline said. “Uganda’s 200 Top Homos Named.â€
Jacqueline Kasha, a Ugandan activist, and others shared an image of the Red Pepper front page on Twitter, with a warning.
At the time Mr. Kato was killed, Parliament was considering the death penalty as punishment for gay sex in some cases. Under the bill Mr. Museveni signed,life in prison is the maximum penalty.
Reaction to the law has included a renewed focus on the work of American evangelicals in Uganda in support of the legislation, mostly that of Scott Lively, who visited in 2009 to speak to Parliament.
Mr. Lively said in a statement published Tuesday on his website that, in terms of “simple homosexuality,†“the focus of a government seeking to protect its people from the homosexual agenda should be on rehabilitation and prevention, not punishment.â€
He is being sued in federal court in Massachusetts by a Uganda gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, which accuses him of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.
On Tuesday, the rights group posted on its Twitter account news of a fatal attack on a gay couple that it placed in context of the new law.
Pepe Onziema, a prominent gay rights activist in Uganda, said efforts were being made to confirm the reports.
On its Facebook page, Red Pepper, described as a private, independent tabloid daily that started publishing in 2001, links to news articles about events in South Africa, South Sudan and Nigeria. The page’s “Topic of the Day†on Tuesday focused on a man complaining that his girlfriend wore skimpy clothes.
On Tuesday, another Facebook page popped up to urge a boycott of the newspaper after it published its list, and called on people to post examples of its journalism inciting hatred.
Mark Schenkel, a journalist who covers East Africa, said the newspaper had listed fewer than 200 people, and he provided a quotation from the article, which did not appear to have been posted immediately online.
Frank Mugisha, a gay rights activist in Uganda, said on his Twitter account:
The Associated Press reported from Kampala that the news editor of Red Pepper, Ben Byarabaha, said the paper had published the full names of only well-known activists and had tried to use nicknames for those who had not made their sexual orientation public.
The A.P. reported that the list included prominent Ugandan gay activists such as Mr. Onziema, who has repeatedly warned that the new law could set off violence against gay and lesbian Ugandans; a Ugandan hip-hop star; and a Catholic priest.
Others, including a retired Anglican cleric who supports gay rights, are listed as sympathizers, the news agency said.
RFI recorded an interview with Mr. Byarabaha, who said he did not say they were “gay,†but “I say they are sympathizers.â€
Asked whether he thought something would happen to those on the list, he said, “Nothing, nothing.†Asked if readers might take the law into their own hands, he responded, “No no no no.â€
The interviewer, Daniel Finnan, also asked whether Mr. Kato “was not killed†after the publishing of the list in Rolling Stone, which is no longer exists and has no relation to the American magazine.
Mr. Byarabaha replied: “No, that is not true. He had a misunderstanding with someone.â€
In October 2010, a tabloid newspaper in Uganda called Rolling Stone published a front-page headline: “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak. Hang Them.â€
About three months later, Uganda’s most outspoken gay rights activist, David Kato, whose name was published, was beaten to death in his neighborhood, as my colleague Jeffrey Gettlemen reported at the time.
Now, gay activists, rights groups and others are once again remembering Mr. Kato as they fear the response to a new report, this time by a Ugandan tabloid called Red Pepper, published Tuesday, just a day after President Yoweri Museveni signed a sweeping antigay bill into law.
“Exposed!†the headline said. “Uganda’s 200 Top Homos Named.â€
Jacqueline Kasha, a Ugandan activist, and others shared an image of the Red Pepper front page on Twitter, with a warning.
At the time Mr. Kato was killed, Parliament was considering the death penalty as punishment for gay sex in some cases. Under the bill Mr. Museveni signed,life in prison is the maximum penalty.
Reaction to the law has included a renewed focus on the work of American evangelicals in Uganda in support of the legislation, mostly that of Scott Lively, who visited in 2009 to speak to Parliament.
Mr. Lively said in a statement published Tuesday on his website that, in terms of “simple homosexuality,†“the focus of a government seeking to protect its people from the homosexual agenda should be on rehabilitation and prevention, not punishment.â€
He is being sued in federal court in Massachusetts by a Uganda gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, which accuses him of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.
On Tuesday, the rights group posted on its Twitter account news of a fatal attack on a gay couple that it placed in context of the new law.
Pepe Onziema, a prominent gay rights activist in Uganda, said efforts were being made to confirm the reports.
On its Facebook page, Red Pepper, described as a private, independent tabloid daily that started publishing in 2001, links to news articles about events in South Africa, South Sudan and Nigeria. The page’s “Topic of the Day†on Tuesday focused on a man complaining that his girlfriend wore skimpy clothes.
On Tuesday, another Facebook page popped up to urge a boycott of the newspaper after it published its list, and called on people to post examples of its journalism inciting hatred.
Mark Schenkel, a journalist who covers East Africa, said the newspaper had listed fewer than 200 people, and he provided a quotation from the article, which did not appear to have been posted immediately online.
Frank Mugisha, a gay rights activist in Uganda, said on his Twitter account:
The Associated Press reported from Kampala that the news editor of Red Pepper, Ben Byarabaha, said the paper had published the full names of only well-known activists and had tried to use nicknames for those who had not made their sexual orientation public.
The A.P. reported that the list included prominent Ugandan gay activists such as Mr. Onziema, who has repeatedly warned that the new law could set off violence against gay and lesbian Ugandans; a Ugandan hip-hop star; and a Catholic priest.
Others, including a retired Anglican cleric who supports gay rights, are listed as sympathizers, the news agency said.
RFI recorded an interview with Mr. Byarabaha, who said he did not say they were “gay,†but “I say they are sympathizers.â€
Asked whether he thought something would happen to those on the list, he said, “Nothing, nothing.†Asked if readers might take the law into their own hands, he responded, “No no no no.â€
The interviewer, Daniel Finnan, also asked whether Mr. Kato “was not killed†after the publishing of the list in Rolling Stone, which is no longer exists and has no relation to the American magazine.
Mr. Byarabaha replied: “No, that is not true. He had a misunderstanding with someone.â€
Joshua Lott for The New York Times A hashtag for “Being Black at the University of Michigan†was displayed as students and faculty members waited to attend a demonstration hosted by the United Coalition for Racial Justice at the University of Michigan in February.For my article today on racism on college campuses, I spoke with students from around the country about how race is still very much an issue for young Americans despite openness to interracial dating, marriage and friendships. I also read dozens of posts on Twitter and other social media platforms and used Facebook to help find people to interview.
We would like to include your story here. Tell us about your experience with race at your college or university. You can share your comments below or on Twitter, using the hashtag #TellNYT.
In the article, some young people rejected the notion of a post-racial society, saying they had no interest in stripping away their identity. Others said they did not see a colorblind society, particularly as racial incidents on college campuses continued to mount.
Within the past few months, a noose was hung around the neck of a bronze statue of James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. Flyers filled with racist and sexist language against Asian-American women were posted on the campus at the University of California, Los Angeles. At Arizona State University, a fraternity held a party on Martin Luther King’s Birthday and posted photos of their members, who were mostly white, drinking out of watermelon cups and flashing gang signs.
And at the University of Michigan, a group of black students were initially offended by a party thrown by a fraternity whose members are mostly white and Asian, which invited students “back to da hood again.†The black students then began a social media campaign called “Being Black at the University if Michigan†with the hashtag #BBUM. They urged students of color to share how they experience race on campus.
In 140 characters or less, hundreds of students did, and it has become a national campaign and re-ignited student activism on campus.
In many of their posts, as we reported on The Lede, it was often what some might consider small gestures that left the biggest effect, or caused the most pain.
A few examples:
Please tell us your experience with race on your campus on Twitter, in 140 characters or less, with the hashtag #TellNYT. Or share your story in the comments below. Thank you.
Follow @tanzinavega on Twitter.
Video of clashes between Venezuelan protesters and the police at barricades in San Cristóbal. The student protests that began just a few weeks ago in Venezuela have swept the country, as my colleague William Neuman reports, evolving into the biggest demonstrations seen since the death of the longtime leader Hugo Chávez last year.
While the government-controlled news media has sought to minimize the protests and portray the opposition as “fascists,†people across the country have been telling their own story, capturing images and video of the tumult. They also used Twitter and other social media platforms to urge people to build barricades across Venezuela and then share photos of them.
.
Just this month, nearly one million posts on Twitter have used the hashtag #24FGranBarricadaNacional to help organize the conversation about the unrest.
In this video, shot through a window and uploaded onto YouTube, armed members of the government can be seen assembling outside of a barricade amid gun shots fired. At one point, they encounter a female demonstrator.
On Monday, the protests shut down San Cristóbal, a city of 260,000, as my Mr. Neuman, my colleague, reports.
In Caracas, the capital, and in other cities, people created barricades with furniture and tree limbs to block roads in what Mr. Neuman describes as a “coordinated action against the government.â€
Scenes of the barricades in San Cristóbal were shared widely online.
The aggressive response by President Nicolás Maduro to the public dissent has fueled the outpouring in the streets and mounting anger over high inflation rates, chronic shortages of basic goods, and violent crime despite Venezuela’s having the world’s largest oil reserves.
Over the weekend, a video that was shot from an apartment window and posted on YouTube showed tear gas and shots fired into a crowd in Caracas.
Tear gas shot int the crowd in Caracas, the capital. While some of the protests turned into clashes with the police, many demonstrations were peaceful, including this human chain that stretched more than two miles over the weekend in the Caracas suburb of El Hatillo.
Video of the Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny being arrested in Moscow on Monday.
As my colleague Andrew Roth reports from Moscow, the dissident blogger Aleksei A. Navalny was sentenced to seven days in jail on Tuesday after a judge found him guilty of resisting arrest at a protest in Moscow the night before. The conviction of the activist lawyer, despite visual evidence posted on his blog that appeared to show him going peacefully into custody, raised concerns that Mr. Navalny could face a much longer term in jail in one of the other cases filed against him for what he insists are political reasons.
The anticorruption blogger, who finished a strong second in last year’s mayoral election in Moscow, was actually arrested on two separate occasions on Monday. He was first taken into custody, with hundreds of others, at a protest outside a courthouse in the Russian capital where activists detained during clashes in 2012 were sentenced to long prison terms.
Later, following his release, he was detained again at a second demonstration in the center of the Russian capital after dark.
Both protests, and the arrests of other leading activists, including the two best-known members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were extensively documented on social networks.
The twin protests were called to express anger at the harsh prison sentences delivered Monday to a group of protesters convicted of taking part in a demonstration that ended in violence, on the eve of President Vladimir V. Putin’s inauguration in May 2012.
Late Monday, Mr. Navalny drew the attention of his 560,000 Twitter followers to video of his second arrest, which appeared to undercut the charge that he was arrested while shouting slogans and was guilty of disobeying officers.
Video of the arrest of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny at a protest in Moscow on Monday.
As more and more video of Mr. Navalny’s arrest appeared online, shot from at least four angles, there was still no sign that he had resisted the officers.
One video blogger’s long YouTube clip documenting 106 arrests at the evening protest did show Mr. Navalny shouting, “One for All!†to a small crowd that replied, “All for One!†as he was led away.
A Russian video blogger’s YouTube documentation of 106 arrests at a protest in Moscow on Monday night.
There also appeared to be no sign of anything more than passive resistance from the blogger in photographs of his first arrest, outside the court that sentenced the protesters detained in 2012 to terms of up to four years in jail.
Likewise, the images of the Pussy Riot activists being taken into custody, along with Ms. Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, who runs the @gruppa_voina Twitter feed, seemed to contradict the police reports.
Ms. Alyokhina reported in a baffled, indignant tweet from the police station on Monday that the women had been charged with waving banners, which were not in evidence in any of the images taken before or during their arrest. “They are writing us up at the police precinct for banners,†she wrote. “What banners?â€
Earlier in the day, Ms. Alyokhina posted a view of the afternoon’s demonstration from inside a police van, and noted that she could still hear the protesters chanting “Svoboda!†the Russian word for “Freedom!â€
That word also echoes in video of the afternoon protest posted online by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Novaya Gazeta video of a protest in Moscow on Monday.
Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.
If, on Monday, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela had something pressing to say to Henrique Capriles, the country’s most prominent opposition leader, he would have to save it for later. Mr. Capriles, after initially indicating that he would attend talks on Monday with Mr. Maduro and other elected officials about the growing unrest in the streets, had a very public change of heart.
“Today, there’s NO meeting with Nicolás,†Mr. Capriles tweeted early Tuesday morning, persisting in his habit of referring to Mr. Maduro by his first name. “After so much lying and insulting, we are consulting communities about assistance.â€
Mr. Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, had been even more emphatic in a news conference shown on his personal Internet site, Capriles.tv, on Monday afternoon.
“I’m not going to be the one who goes to the White House and washes Nicolás Maduro’s face. This is what they want me to do, so that we can shake hands as if the country were in a totally normal time,†he said, according to El Universal. The presidential palace, Mr. Capriles said, “is not the place to talk about peace in the country. It’s the center from which human rights violations are ordered.â€
The night before, Mr. Maduro made about as direct an appeal to Mr. Capriles as possible in an interview with TelesurTV. “Surely, Capriles sees me,†Mr. Maduro said, and paused to wave at the camera. “He’s watching the interview, surely. Come, Capriles. Let’s take a step toward peace.â€
Video of a television interview with Venezuela’s president.
(That invitation was followed by a long list of differences that Mr. Maduro perceives he has with the opposition leader. “You’re a capitalist, I’m a socialist. You’re a privatizer, I’m not. I believe in the people, in the public, in services. You have profound relations with the United States,†he said. “I don’t. I believe in South America.â€)
The rejection of taking part in talks marked a change for Mr. Capriles, who has been conciliatory toward the government since narrowly losing to Mr. Maduro in last year’s presidential election.
“His street cred has always been a problem for the more hothead opposition,†Francisco Toro, a prominent opposition blogger, said of Mr. Capriles. “He needs to carry those folks along with him to some extent. He’s not been super successful with that.â€
Mr. Capriles initially rejected the election results, and urged his supporters into the streets in protest. But then, just days after the large demonstrations started, Mr. Capriles called them off, citing fears of violence.
“We know that your agenda in the government is to try to get the country into a situation of confrontation and violence,†Mr. Capriles said at the time. “Tomorrow we won’t mobilize.â€
In January, it was Mr. Capriles who was appealing to Mr. Maduro, writing on Twitter, “Nicolás, I propose that we put aside our profound differences and unite against insecurity, as one bloc.â€
At a meeting at the presidential palace the next day, Mr. Capriles shook hands with Mr. Maduro, prompting criticism from some in the opposition. (On Monday, Mr. Capriles said of the government’s invitation to join talks, “all they wanted was a photo.â€)
And Mr. Capriles was not quick to take ownership of this round of street protests, leaving that to Leopoldo López, the leader of the Popular Will party. But Mr. López is now in jail, facing charges of arson and conspiracy, and the protests have gotten only more violent.
Thirteen people have died in Venezuela’s protests since they began Feb. 12, Attorney General Luisa Ortega DÃaz said Monday. Mr. Capriles, citing unofficial figures, said at his news conference Monday that 242 people remained detained by the government.
“Capriles, he doesn’t want to be seen as the person who now saps strength from the protest movement,†said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. Negotiations, Mr. Smilde said, are only in the opposition’s interest if the side will actually be heard.
“I think he’s pulling back from negotiations because it was really a nonoffer,†Mr. Smilde said. Mr. Maduro invited Mr. Capriles to a meeting of the federal governing council that, as governor, he was already entitled to attend. “The way it’s structured, it’s so dominated by the executive branch that it seems unlikely that any progress would be made on opposition demands,†Mr. Smilde said.
As my colleague Tanzina Vega reported, there’s a notion in the media and popular culture that millennials are growing up in a colorblind world and “race is a relic of the past.â€
But a spate of recent incidents on college campuses challenge that idea. And interviews that Ms. Vega conducted with dozens of students, professors and administrators point out that racial tension continues to play out in both old and new ways.
Since last fall, African-American students and others at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have been turning to Twitter and other social media tools to help draw attention to their concerns that include declining enrollment of African-American students.
They documented an all-night protest last Tuesday called a “Speak Out†that drew more than 1,000 students. And they expressed their frustration at a regent’s meeting on Thursday because they did not think that Mary Sue Coleman, the departing university president, delivered an adequate response.
The Black Student Union began the social media campaign, “Being Black at the University of Michigan,†with the hashtag #BBUM last November. It was prompted by outrage on campus over a party planned by a fraternity, Theta Xi. The party was described as “World Star Hip Hop Presents: Hood Ratchet Thursday†on the Facebook invitation, which promised a twerking contest, along with “rappers, twerkers, gangsters (no Bloods allowed), thugs, basketball players.â€
After complaints were made to administration officials, the party was canceled, as the Michigan Daily reported.
In response, the Black Student Union asked students to share their “unique experiences of being black at Michigan†on Twitter. Students were encouraged to share both positive and negative experiences in 140 characters or less. It did not take long for the hashtag to trend nationally on Twitter and erase the notion that “race is a relic.â€
A sample of some of the thousands of posts on Twitter that have been shared with the #BBUM hashtag since November:
University officials responded during the initial flurry of posts on Twitter, and again last week at the regent’s meeting.
But there was concern expressed on Twitter that Ms. Coleman, the departing university president, was not proposing enough change.
An ode to the courage of Ukrainian protesters posted on YouTube this month mixed footage of the demonstrations in Kiev with words from Hollywood movies.
Looking for a way to pay tribute to the courage of protesters in Kiev, who refused to be dislodged from Independence Square over the past three months despite violent attacks from the security forces, a Ukrainian video blogger found the words he needed in dubbed versions of two Hollywood action movies.
As Kevin Rothrock reported in a post on the video for Global Voices, the result is a sort of trailer for the uprising â€" mixing footage of the demonstrators with inspirational speeches on the importance of overcoming fear first spoken by Will Smith, in “After Earth,†and Sylvester Stallone, in “Rocky Balboa.†It was shared at the height of last week’s violence by Pavel Durov, the founder of the most prominent Russian social network, VKontakte.
The blogger, Alexander Makedonskiy, first posted his ode to the protesters, “Story of a Great Nation,†on YouTube three weeks ago. As it neared 200,000 views, after the endorsement by Mr. Durov, he released a version with English subtitles.
The video also borrowed from striking footage of martyred protesters and uneasy police officers made by Ukrainian filmmakers who have been documenting the occupation of central Kiev from its first moments. Some of the footage was drawn from the YouTube channel of a group of activist filmmakers working on a project they call Babylon ’13, which is partly supported by an Indiegogo campaign.
That group’s own tribute to the protest movement, “The Testament,†was released on Sunday, after the fleeing of the country’s president and memorial services for protesters killed last week.
A tribute to Ukraine’s protest movement from a group of activist filmmakers.
Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.
As my colleague Alan Cowell reported, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, significantly strengthened Africa’s antigay movement, signing into law a bill imposing harsh sentences for homosexual acts, including life imprisonment in some cases.
Rights groups and activists condemned the law, with some pointing to the promotion of antigay sentiment by Western Christian evangelical groups.
In the face of a crackdown, gay rights activists expressed defiance. Frank Mugisha, a gay rights activist in Uganda, wrote on his Twitter account @frankmugisha:
Pepe Onziema, a gay rights activist with Sexual Minorities Uganda, wrote:
Some of the reaction to the news that the bill had been signed included a look back at the public remarks and work of an American evangelist, Scott Lively, who was the subject of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts by a gay rights group in 2012. It accused Mr. Lively of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.
Pamela Spees, a lawyer with the legal advocacy group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, also known as CCR, filed that lawsuit on behalf of the Ugandan group, called Sexual Minorities Uganda.
On Monday the CCR shared a link after the bill was signed that it is using for fund-raising to oppose Mr. Lively. It included recordings of him saying he thought homosexuality should be “criminalized†and opposition would spread like a “nuclear bomb†against the “gay movement†worldwide.
The CCR wrote on Twitter on Monday:
The CCR also released a statement saying its lawsuit in Massachusetts was in the discovery phase. But the main point of the statement was to condemn Mr. Lively’s continued work, saying, in part:
In addition to putting the lives of LGBTI Ugandans at serious risk, in signing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, President Museveni has criminalized the existence and work of our client, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), and other advocacy organizations in violation of the Ugandan constitution and international law. The Center for Constitutional Rights holds right-wing U.S. evangelical Scott Lively directly responsible: he has been working in Uganda since 2002 to outlaw the speech and assembly of LGBTI people and effectively silence and erase the community from political life.
Just last week he claimed to be launching a new international antigay organization based in Illinois, whose first statement was its express support for the repressive Russian laws banning LGBTI advocacy “and to urge other nations of the world to follow the Russian example. “Lively has played a key role in moving forward anti-speech and advocacy laws in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, as well.
On Feb. 21, Mr. Lively announced the Coalition for Family Values, and praised Russian antigay laws, at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington in which a Russian speaker and an activist translating for him were told to leave by security, according to this video.
Video of Mr. Lively’s appearance on Feb. 21 at the National Press Conference. “I would like to stop the killing that is going on in your name in Uganda and in Russia,†said the woman who had been translating, as she was forced to leave.
Mr. Lively wrote a report from Uganda in 2009 about his work there, which he referred to as a “pro-family mission.†Excerpts from Mr. Lively’s speech in Uganda in 2009 is in this video posted on YouTube by a group that monitors antigay rhetoric, and my colleague Jeffrey Gettleman wrote about that visit in this article.
Mr. Lively often writes about homosexuals on his website, where on Feb. 17 he described the Uganda bill as “overly harsh on its face, but this is typical of African criminal law across the continent.â€
On Monday, after the bill was signed into law, The Associated Press quoted Mr. Lively as saying: “I would rather the Ugandans had followed the Russian anti-propaganda model which reflects my philosophy of preventing the mainstreaming of homosexuality with the minimum limitation on personal liberties for those who choose to live discretely outside the mainstream.â€
In Uganda, the bill signed on Monday had been approved by the Ugandan Parliament in December, when supporters of the bill in Uganda were heartened by its passage.
On Monday, the Daily Monitor, a private daily newspaper in Uganda, published the speech Mr. Museveni delivered at the signing of the bill. He said the topic of homosexuals was “provoked by the arrogant and careless Western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality and lesbianism, just as they carelessly handle other issues concerning Africa.â€
In his speech, he also said he struggled with four problems, including whether someone can be born homosexual.
I thought there were such people - those who are either genetic or congenital homosexuals. The reason I thought so was because I could not understand why a man could fail to be attracted to the beauties of a woman and, instead, be attracted to a fellow man. It meant, according to me, that there was something wrong with that man - he was born a homosexual - abnormal.
I, therefore, thought that it would be wrong to punish somebody because of how he was created, disgusting though it may be to us. That is why I refused to sign the bill. In order to get to the truth, we involved Uganda scientists as well as consulting scientists from outside Uganda.
My question to them was: Are there people that are homosexual right from birth? After exhaustive studies, it has been found that homosexuality is in two categories: there are those who engage in homosexuality for mercenary reasons on account of the underdeveloped sectors of our economy that cause people to remain in poverty, the great opportunities that abound not withstanding; and then there are those that become homosexual by both nature (genetic) and nurture (up-bringing).
He concluded:
We reject the notion that somebody can be homosexual by choice; that a man can choose to love a fellow man; that sexual orientation is a matter of choice. Since my original thesis that there may be people who are born homosexual has been disproved by science, then the homosexuals have lost the argument in Uganda.
They should rehabilitate themselves and society should assist them to do so.
Bernard Tabaire, a media commentator in Uganda, spoke out against the scientists who apparently backed the studies conducted for the law.
