Heads of state of 15 Caribbean nations will gather in St Vincent on Monday to unveil a plan demanding reparations from Europe for the enduring suffering inflicted by the Atlantic slave trade. In an interview with the Guardian, Sir Hilary Beckles, who chairs the reparations task force charged with framing the 10 demands, said the plan would set out areas of dialogue with former slave-trading nations including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark

A narrow majority of voters in Switzerland approved proposals on Sunday that would reintroduce restrictions on the number of foreigners who are allowed to live and work in the country, a move that could have far-reaching implications for Switzerland’s relations with the European Union.

If stepped-up US military activity with NATO partners such as Poland and Lithuania seems like a paltry response to Russia’s military occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea province, there’s a reason for that. The modest US show of force – a handful of jet fighters in Eastern European skies and a single warship to the Black Sea – is intended more to calm the nerves of former Soviet republics and satellites nervous about Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, regional experts say, than it is designed to send Russia into retreat with its tail between its legs.

A U.N. special envoy was forced to abandon a mission to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea region on Wednesday after being detained and besieged inside a cafe by a hostile crowd shouting "Russia! Russia!" Dutch diplomat Robert Serry flew to Istanbul after the incident and, according to the United Nations, would head from there back to Kiev.

President Obama's diplomatic effort to head off a violent breakup of Ukraine ran aground Saturday as a top U.N. envoy was blocked from a peace mission to the disputed region of Crimea and Russia's parliament, or Duma, approved a request by Russian President Vladimir Putin to send military forces to Ukraine in support of pro-Russian Ukrainians.

Canada’s rush to support democracy in Ukraine has echoes of an earlier time. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine, following a national referendum in which more than 90 per cent of the country voted for independence. 

The United States, hoping to avert economic chaos in Ukraine, is prepared to send financial support to supplement aid from the International Monetary Fund, the White House said on Monday. "The United States, working with partners around the world, stands ready to provide support for Ukraine as it takes the reforms it needs to, to get back to economic stability," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a news briefing.

Eager internet users shun Google in favour of other search engines in China, Russia and South Korea (among others). In countries using the Latin alphabet, however, there is only one place where Google comes second: the Czech Republic.