Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has threatened to expel the US news network CNN from the country over its reporting of recent protests there. Mr Maduro said he would take action if CNN did not "rectify its coverage". Earlier, Mr Maduro said he was sending troops to the western state of Tachira, where there has been continuing unrest.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu did something extraordinary when they emerged from a January 12 bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Friends of Syria conference in Paris. Such occasions are usually marked by predictable boilerplate rhetoric about how productive the talk was and how closely both countries are working to solve pressing global issues, and Davutoğlu’s comments followed the standard script. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu did something extraordinary when they emerged from a January 12 bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Friends of Syria conference in Paris. Such occasions are usually marked by predictable boilerplate rhetoric about how productive the talk was and how closely both countries are working to solve pressing global issues, and Davutoğlu’s comments followed the standard script. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu did something extraordinary when they emerged from a January 12 bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Friends of Syria conference in Paris. Such occasions are usually marked by predictable boilerplate rhetoric about how productive the talk was and how closely both countries are working to solve pressing global issues, and Davutoğlu’s comments followed the standard script. 

Civil strife often follows a grimly predictable pattern. What at first seems a soluble dispute hardens into conflict, as goals become more radical, bitterness accumulates and the chance to broker a compromise is lost. Such has been the awful trajectory of Ukraine, where protests that began peacefully in November have combusted in grotesque violence.

Expressing alarm at the lethal escalation of political violence in Ukraine, the European Union and the United States scrambled for a quick response Wednesday, threatening punitive sanctions against senior figures in the Ukrainian government. The Obama administration later said it had placed 20 top Ukrainian officials on a visa blacklist.

Venezuelan street demonstrations entered their second week after National Guard troops arrested opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez following protests that have left five people dead, including one today. Crowds gathered today in downtown Caracas in front of the Palace of Justice after the Voluntad Popular party called on supporters to rally behind Lopez.

Yesterday, Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López, whom the government has blamed for the recent protests, promised to turn himself in under one condition: that the protests continue in Caracas today. This morning, tens of thousands of people obliged. Twitter has been flooded with aerial pictures of the mass protests—many of which Venezuela’s government seems to prefer no one see, as it blocked some of them from appearing for a time, according to the company.