Riot Police Breakup Protest Camps in Kiev

Riot police stormed opposition party offices, in Kiev, on Monday.

The heavily armed police forced entry into the offices of the Fatherland Party, and then left taking computers with them.

Led by former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, the party is the largest and most vocal in it's opposition to President Viktor Yanukovych.

Other groups of police cleared out small protest camps, while more yet lined up near the bigger camps.

Protests have been going for most of a month and Sunday saw the biggest yet, with over one hundred thousand in the capital city.

The people are demanding that Yanukovych resign.

He angered the public when backed out of signing a trade agreement with the European Union, and instead announced that he would seek closer ties with Russia.

Many Ukrainians worry that Yanukovych is taking their country back under Russian influence and fear a loss of their independence from their former Soviet masters.

The protests have gained steam since three former presidents backed them, last week.

Putin Dissolves Russia's State News Agency

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin dissolved the state news agency, RIA Novosti.

In it's place he has created Rossiya Segodnya, or Russia Today.

Officially, the move was made to "save money" and "improve news service".

However, it was very clear that the new service will be a propaganda machine, similar to the Soviet Era APN.

In an outgoing statement, RIA's website said that, "The move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape which appear to point towards a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector."
  
RIA had more often been allowing statements and editorials critical of Putin and his government.

It now seems that doing so made them a target of the regime.

Putin now controls every single major Russian media outlet.

US Air Force Joins The Fight in Central African Republic

C17s from the United States will be joining efforts to stabilize the Central African Republic.

On Monday, it was announced that the US Air Force will be ferrying African Union troops in to CAR.

The AU troops will be joining French and CAR forces who are trying to bring peace to the country.

France came to the aid of it's former colony and has now twice increased troop levels.

The African Union pledged troops, but does not have the capabilities to bring them in, themselves.

US planes will help things proceed much more swiftly, and their involvement comes after the UN authorized international military aid, in CAR.

Train Crash and Explosion Kills 5 in Indonesia

Five people were killed and over one hundred were injured when a train struck a truck, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Monday.

The truck had been carrying gasoline and the crash produced a large explosion.

Two train cars were derailed, in the accident.

Witnesses said that backed up traffic had left the truck stranded on the tracks, and the train was unable to stop in time.