Sunday,  March 2, 2014 • Vol. 16--No. 229 • 28 of 34

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• Russian President Vladimir Putin has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.
• There has been no sign of ethnic Russians facing attacks in Crimea, where they make up about 60 percent of the population, or elsewhere in Ukraine. Russia maintains an important naval base on Crimea.
• President Barack Obama spoke with Putin by telephone for 90 minutes on Saturday and expressed his "deep concern" about "Russia's clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity," the White House said. Obama warned that Russia's "continued violation of international law will lead to greater political and economic isolation."
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China blames Uighur separatists for knife attack at train station that leaves 33 people dead

• KUNMING, China (AP) -- More than 10 assailants slashed scores of people with knives at a train station in southern China in what officials said Sunday was a terrorist assault by ethnic separatists from the far west. Twenty-nine slash victims and four attackers were killed and 143 people wounded.
• Police fatally shot four of the assailants, captured one and were searching for the others following the attack late Saturday at the Kunming train station in Yunnan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. State broadcaster CCTV said at least two of the attackers were women -- one of the slain and the one who was captured and later brought to a hospital for treatment.
• Witnesses described assailants dressed in black storming the train station and slashing people indiscriminately with large knives and machetes.
• Student Qiao Yunao, 16, was waiting to catch a train at the station when people started crying out and running, and then saw a man cut another man's neck, drawing blood.
• "I was freaking out, and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge," she told The Associated Press via Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog. "I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could."
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