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Fighting between Ukrainian armed forces and separatists continued in eastern Ukraine in October, despite a cease-fire agreed upon on Sept. 5. The heaviest fighting occurred in and around the rebel-held city of Donetsk. At least 13 Ukrainian soldiers were wounded. Rebel casualties were not reported.
In Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, on Sept. 27, students from a teaching college who were protesting unfair hiring practices were fired on by police as they boarded buses they had hired to transport them. Six people were killed. Witnesses say 43 students then surrendered to police, were forced into police vehicles and have been missing ever since.
Searches for the missing students have uncovered more than a dozen mass graves around Iguala. DNA tests have, so far, excluded the missing students from being among any of the uncovered bodies.
In eastern Yemen and in the capital, Sana’a, a series of suicide bombings in October targeted ethnic Houthis.
The Houthis, a Shia Muslim group, have been in conflict with both the ruling Sunni government and Ansar al-Sharia (in the West, commonly known as “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”). After deadly clashes in Sana’a in September, Houthi rebels captured government buildings and demanded a change in government.
Violent protests in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, on Oct. 30 resulted in protesters capturing and setting ablaze the parliament building, the city hall and the ruling party’s headquarters. Witnesses reported that homes of members of parliament also were set on fire as protesters moved toward the presidential palace. At least three protesters were killed when the military fired on crowds.
At least 55 people were killed and more than a hundred were injured by a suicide bomber on the Pakistani side of the Wagah border crossing with India after the evening border-closing ceremony on Nov. 2. The blast occurred outside a nearby restaurant. Three Pakistani terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, have each claimed responsibility for the attack.
Located in the town of Wagah, situated between Lahore, Pakistan, and Amritsar, India, the Wagah crossing is the only road crossing between the two nations.
A landslide at a tea plantation near the town of Haldummulla in southeastern Sri Lanka on Oct. 29 engulfed 140 houses over an area of one square mile. Some houses were under 30 feet of mud. As of press time, 10 people were known to have died, with at least 100 still missing.
Concern about the spread of the ebola virus has prompted some nations to begin screening passengers arriving from affected countries.
I love fairs. Whether it’s a street fair in Paris, the Hong Kong Book Fair, the Seville Feria, the Bergen Food Festival in Norway or the Frampton Country Fair in Gloucester, I enjoy them all. But, by far, the best are the world’s fairs and expositions (expos) that are sanctioned by the Bureau of International Exhibitions and which take place every two to five years.
My husband, Ray, and I arrived at New York’s JFK Airport on Delta Air Lines flight 185 from Paris, Sept. 21, 2014. Our flight was on schedule.
When we entered the terminal, officials were barking orders for US passport holders to get into a line that looked a mile long. (I really wanted to take a photo to post in ITN, but signs prohibiting photography were posted everywhere.)
When my wife, Paula, and I visit Europe, we typically travel by train. But while arranging intercity transportation for our visit to the Baltic States in September 2014, our research indicated that buses were a better transit option in those countries.
A few minutes of Internet searching revealed that several bus companies served the region. Lux Express (www.luxexpress.eu), with its English (one of six languages available) website providing comprehensive information, quickly became my favorite.