Ukraine 'on brink of disaster,' PM says

Kiev, Ukraine - As Ukraine's new leaders accused Russia of declaring war, Russia's Prime Minister warned Sunday that blood could be spilled amid growing instability in the neighboring nation.

Kiev mobilized troops and called up military reservists in a rapidly escalating crisis that has raised fears of a conflict. And world leaders pushed for a diplomatic solution.

In a post on his official Facebook page, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the recent ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych a "seizure of power."

"Such a state of order will be extremely unstable," Medvedev said. "It will end with the new revolution. With new blood."

Officials said signs of Russian military intervention in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula were clear.

Russian generals led their troops to three bases in the region Sunday, demanding Ukrainian forces surrender and hand over their weapons, Vladislav Seleznyov, spokesman for the Crimean Media Center of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told CNN.

By late Sunday, Russian forces had "complete operational control of the Crimean Peninsula," a senior U.S. administration official said. The United States estimates there are 6,000 Russian ground and naval forces in the region, the official said.

"There is no question that they are in an occupation position -- flying in reinforcements and settling in," another senior administration official said.

Speaking by phone, Seleznyov said Russian troops had blocked access to bases but added, "There is no open confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian military forces in Crimea" and said Ukrainian troops continue to protect and serve Ukraine.

"This is a red alert. This is not a threat. This is actually a declaration of war to my country," Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.
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Nigeria bloodshed: Who are Boko Haram?

At least 29 students died in a February 25 attack on a college in Buni Yadi, northeastern Nigeria, during which several buildings were torched.

The attackers escaped the scene, but Nigeria's military suspects that the militant group Boko Haram, which has wreaked havoc in the region for several years, are the perpetrators.

The Nigerian government is struggling to control the bloodshed between the mainly Muslim north and Christian south that has claimed more than 3,000 lives since Boko Haram came to prominence in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch.

Who are Boko Haram?

Boko Haram means "Western education is a sin." The group's ambitions range from the stricter enforcement of Sharia law -- which is derived from the Koran as the "world of God" -- across the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, to the total destruction of the Nigerian state and its government.

What's causing the unrest?

Armed militant groups in Nigeria's northeastern region are nothing new, but Boko Haram has taken the violence to unprecedented levels since 2009, murdering and kidnapping Westerners and bombing schools and churches.

In late 2013, Human Rights Watch said Boko Haram had abducted scores of women and girls and used children as young as 13 in their campaign of violence.

The country's immense oil wealth is concentrated in the south, while the predominantly Muslim north remains extremely poor. There were riots and accusations of vote-rigging when former military ruler Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, much of the north's favored candidate for president, lost to Goodluck Jonathan, who hails from the south, in the 2011 national election.

What's the Nigerian government doing about it?
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Islamists blamed for Nigerian college attack

Jos, Nigeria - At least 29 students at a college in Nigeria are dead Tuesday after an attack authorities suspect was carried out by Boko Haram Islamists, according to the Nigerian military.

The attackers also torched several buildings, the military said.

"There were burnt bodies of students who cannot be easily identified," State Police Commissioner Sanusi Rafai said.

The attack happened at a federal college in Buni Yadi, near the the capital of Yobe state. It came three days after President Goodluck Jonathan sent his top military chiefs to the northeastern part of the country to try to put down the violence there.

The attackers escaped from the scene, military spokesman Capt. Eli Lazarus said.

No group, including Boko Haram, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
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Hollywood reimagined: Ghana's movie posters

CNN's On the Road series brings you a greater insight into the history, customs and culture of Ghana. CNN explores the places, the people and the passions unique to this African nation.

(CNN) - How would you design a movie poster for a Hollywood blockbuster you'd never seen, filled with characters you knew nothing about and actors you'd never heard of?


Would Jean-Claude Van Damme look like a surgical glove stuffed full of walnuts? Would Cujo the killer dog look like a guilty spaniel that'd devoured the cake at a child's birthday party? Would James Bond have the stunned expression of a man who had just received a large electricity bill?

If your only brief was to pack a crowd into a mobile African cinema hall, you might also want to add some incidental aliens shooting laser beams from their eyes.

In Ghana -- where the Golden Age of movie posters during the 1980s and 1990s produced these lurid, vibrant and outlandish originals -- the movie poster may be a dying art form but it has since become big business.

Western collectors now pay thousands for prime examples of the genre and the artists who once churned out the posters to fill Ghana's dilapidated cinema clubs are finding a new lease of life reproducing them for art aficionados.

Jeaurs Oka Afutu, 39, began painting the posters when he was 14 years old but now works from his home in Accra, Ghana, to produce them for art dealers, selling them for between $75 and $100 apiece.

Currently putting the finishing touches on a canvas cut from a flour sack, he's producing a distinctively Ghanaian take on the biopic "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom."

"Action and war works a lot ... and women too: both actually," Afutu told CNN, showing that Hollywood's time-honored recipe of sex and violence is an international language.

"It all depends on what the audience prefers."
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A year of attacks linked to Boko Haram

Boko Haram is an Islamist militant group waging a campaign of violence in northeastern Nigeria, particularly in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

The group's ambitions range from the stricter enforcement of Sharia law -- which is derived from the Koran as the "world of God" -- across the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, to the total destruction of the Nigerian state and its government.

The Nigerian government is struggling to control the bloodshed between the mainly Muslim north and Christian south that has claimed more than 3,000 lives since Boko Haram came to prominence in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also accused Nigeria's military of committing atrocities against civilians.

After raising concerns with Nigeria's foreign minister last May, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: "The government has acknowledged that there have been some problems ... they're working to try to control it."

Days after a deadly attack on a college in northeastern Nigeria, which the military suspects may have been committed by Boko Haram, we look back at the past year of attacks blamed on -- or claimed by -- the group.

February 26, 2014: At least 29 students die in an attack on a federal college in Buni Yadi, near the the capital of Yobe state, Nigeria's military says.

Authorities suspect Boko Haram carried out the assault in which several buildings were also torched.

February 15, 2014: Dozens of residents in northeastern Nigeria are killed in two separate attacks launched by Boko Haram, according to officials and residents.

They say scores of militants dressed in military uniforms storm the Christian farming village of Izghe, in Borno state, and open sporadic fire on residents, killing at least 106 people in an attack specifically targeting male residents.
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SAUDI UNIVERSITY ALLEGEDLY LEFT STUDENT AMNA BAWAZEER TO DIE BECAUSE SHE’S FEMALE

THE DEBRIEF: AMNA BAWAZEER DIED BECAUSE OF DRACONIAN LAWS.

Laws in Saudi Arabia are mind-bogglingly anti-woman. Women will only get the vote in 2015 (a good 97 years after the UK allowed women to vote), they're not allowed to drive and they're not allowed to go out in public with a man who is not a relative or their husband. You'd sort of think that these restrictions on their existence would keep them safe from harm – when you've got hardly any choices, how on earth can you take a risk? But, when it comes to the law that women aren't allowed to be seen by male doctors*, there's potentially a lot of risk.

Amna Bawazeer, a 24-year-old student with an alleged history of heart problems, suffered a heart attack while at King Saud University in Riyadh at about 11am on Wednesday. However, according to people on campus, she wasn't seen by paramedics until 12.45pm. The result? She died. But why? Well, the male paramedics were not allowed onto the all-female campus to attend to Amna, according to Okaz, a local newspaper. Her death has since become part of a national conversation about gender segregation, and professors are calling for an investigation into what happened: 'We need management who can make quick decisions without thinking of what the family will say or what culture will say,' said Professor Aziza Youssef.

The university's rector has rushed to say that there was no medical stand-offishness: 'They called the ambulance at 12:35pm and ambulance staff was there by 12:45pm and entered immediately.' Which of course you'd hope emerges to be the truth. But in the meantime it feels right to talk about a law that's very wrong.  

*Lawmakers see no irony in other laws restricting women's access to education to become doctors, though. At present, if a woman's husband or male relatives don't want her to study, they can stop her from studying. Bleak.
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Ugandan President said gay people are disgusting

How Yoweri Museveni played to his audience

Ugandan President: Being gay not a right

Editor's Note: Zain Verjee presents the Europe morning show for CNN International from London. She is from Kenya.

Entebbe, Uganda (CNN) - State House Entebbe ebbed and flowed with dramatic contrasts: laughter at sexual jokes versus the pain of impending persecution and prosecution; Western freedoms clashing with African culture; an unwinnable battle between science and learned behavior; nature and nurture. Who decides?

President Yoweri Museveni did, in this moment, inking into law harsh penalties for gay people, supported overwhelmingly by Ugandans. I was floored at the barrage of criticism belted out to The West. "Arrogant western groups are to blame." Applause. "Leave us alone." Applause. "We don't need your (donor) money." Huge applause.

The press conference was attended by MPs, scientists, Ugandan officials and other journalists. I stepped out for a moment to do a report by telephone, which we call a beeper at CNN, and returned to a room that was pretty jovial. It felt uncomfortable to laugh about something that had such serious implications.

"What did I miss?" I asked my producer Antonia.

"Something about the mouth being for kissing and eating only, and not for going south, only north," comments delivered by the president to more laughter, she said.

I approached the mic and asked two questions that were significantly less amusing -- there was palpable tension in the room as a blanket of silence descended. I was in the minority, raising subjects like human rights and freedom of speech, and asking if he wasn't taking Uganda a step backwards in time? The response tore into Western values and ripped to shreds any willingness to tolerate Western ideas around sexuality or "social imperialism," as the president put it.

Now it's easy to roll your eyes but I know this region, and many Africans think the imposition of social norms by the U.S. or Western and former colonial powers is offensive and unwanted, though they love Western music, movies and cutting-edge technologies. Overall, East Africans are not generally anti-Western. I was shocked when Museveni declared, to even more clapping, that Uganda doesn't need aid money from the West. I turned to Antonia: "Did he really just say that?"

She nodded and folded up the note we wrote to an aide requesting an exclusive interview with the president. Newsflash to me: I realized then that Uganda clearly didn't feel dependent on Western aid money. Perhaps China, a big Africa player, and Russia, could be stronger future allies.

We caught the president on his way out of the room and he agreed to an exclusive CNN interview on the spot. We were whisked to the elegant boardroom and offices and set up. My colleagues Fabian and Antonia set up a two-camera shoot in five minutes.

President Museveni made his argument: gay people are disgusting, and I made mine: they are not.
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