Feb. 5 Daily Brief: Sapporo Snow Festival, high seas in Europe, olympians gear up for Sochi, Kiev protests continue

Newhaven Lighthouse is battered by waves during stormy weather in Newhaven on the southern coast of England. More than 8,000 homes were without power in southwest England after fresh storms battered the region, sending huge waves crashing onto the coastline and damaging sea defences. (Glyn Kirk/Getty Images)

Canada’s Sarah Reid speeds down the track during an unofficial women skeleton progressive training at the Sanki sliding center in Rosa Khutor, a venue for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics near Sochi. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

A woman poses beside the large snow sculpture entitled “Winter O-Mo-Te-Na-Shi” or winter hospitality, which came from Japan’s Tokyo Olympic bid committee ambassador Christel Takigawa’s final presentation in Argentine during the 65th annual Sapporo Snow Festival. The week-long festival started with a total of 198 snow statues on display. (Toshifumi Kitamura/Getty Images)

Visitors pose for photos in front of a snow sculpture made in the theme of the Sochi Winter Olympics at Sapporo Snow Festival in Sapporo, on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. The snow festival is one of the biggest winter events in Japan, which runs from February 5 to February 11. (Kyodo/Reuters)

Children play on a snow slide during the 65th annual Sapporo Snow Festival. The week-long festival started with a total of 198 snow statues on display. (Toshifumi Kitamura/Getty Images)

Computer graphic images, using projection-mapping technology, are beamed onto a snow sculpture a day before the Sapporo Snow Festival starts in Sapporo, on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, in this photo taken by Kyodo. The snow festival is one of the biggest winter events in Japan, which runs from February 5 to February 11. (Kyodo/Reuters)

South Korea’s Choi Jae-Woo trains during Freestyle Slopestyle practice at the Extreme Park in Rosa Khutor ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. (Franck Fife/Getty Images)

A biathlete skis under a sunset during a training session at the Laura Cross Country Skiing and Biathlon Centre in Rosa Khutor, near Sochi. The Sochi Olympic Winter Games 2014 will run from February 7 to 23. (Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images)

A member of Japan’s short track speed skating team skates during a training session in preparation for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics at the Iceberg Skating Palace. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

A French police officer makes a phone call next to a Spanish cargo ship which slammed into a dyke and split in two, injuring at least one sailor and raising concerns of a fuel leak, in Anglet, near the French port of Bayonne. The prefecture for the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region said efforts were underway to recover the sailors by helicopter but the rescue operation was being hampered by winds of up to 110 kilometres per hour (70 miles per hour). Officials said a fuel leak had been detected and an emergency plan known as Polmar had been activated to deal with maritime pollution. (Gaizka Iroz/Getty Images)

A helicopter flies over a Spanish cargo ship ”Luno” which slammed into a dyke and split in two, injuring at least one sailor and raising concerns of a fuel leak, in Anglet, near the French port of Bayonne. The prefecture for the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region said efforts were underway to recover the sailors by helicopter but the rescue operation was being hampered by winds of up to 110 kilometres per hour (70 miles per hour). Officials said a fuel leak had been detected and an emergency plan known as Polmar had been activated to deal with maritime pollution. (Gaizka Iroz/Getty Images)

People look at the waves on Somo beach during heavy seas, in Ribamontan del Mar, near Santander. Fierce waves were pounding seafronts and fishing boats off northern Spain, where authorities issued alerts for storm tides and strong winds for Wednesday, with snow forecast in some places. (Pedro Armestre/Getty Images)

Dan Hazelwood goes for a run in the Public Garden during a winter storm in Boston, Massachusetts. Cities and towns in the Northeast declared a snow emergency in expectation of accumulations of a foot or more. (Dominick Reuter/Reuters)

People make their way across a street after an overnight snow storm followed by freezing rain in New York. (Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images)

Repsol Honda Team’s Spanish rider Marc Marquez steers his bike during the first MotoGP pre-season testing session on the second day at the Sepang circuit outside Kuala Lumpur. (Mohd Rasfan/Getty Images)

Cars are displayed at the Grand Palais in Paris on the eve of an auction of luxury vintage cars. vintage motor cars, collection motorbikes will be auctionned by British auction house Bonhams on February 6. (Francois Guillot/Getty Images)

Two natives collect bananas from a flooded plantation in Puerto Yumani, 15 km from Rurrenabaque, northeast Bolivia. The Bolivian government has declared national emergency due to floodings caused by heavy rains which, up to now, have left more than 40 dead and about 37,000 families affected. (Aizar Raldes/Getty Images)

Riot police stand in a cordon facing a barricade of anti-government protesters in Kiev.The confrontation between opposition-led protesters and the government of President Viktor Yanukovich, and a refusal to agree a compromise, is weighing on the Ukrainian economy, acting prime minister Serhiy Arbuzov said on Wednesday. (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)

Anti-government protesters, one of them wearing a Guy Fawks mask, guard a barricade in Kiev. Ukraine’s parliament will try again on February 5 to agree on curbing the presidency’s powers, while the EU’s foreign policy chief meets embattled President Viktor Yanukovych to press for a resolution of the political crisis. The crisis has sparked tensions between the West, which is considering sanctions against Ukrainian officials, and Russia, which has accused the EU and US of interference in the former Soviet republic. (Sergei Supinsky/Getty Images)

African migrants, who are taking part in a protest, sleep at Levinsky Park in Tel Aviv. The migrants have been camping at the park for several days as part of their protest against Israel’s detention policy toward them. Israel sees some 60,000 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Sudan, who have entered the country without authorization across a once-porous border with Egypt since 2006, as illegal job-seekers. The migrants say they cannot return home without risking their lives and hope for asylum. Israel passed a law some two months ago allowing for indefinite detention of migrants without valid visas while it pursues efforts to persuade them to leave or enlist other countries to take them in. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A patient being treated for multiple gunshot wounds to the face, chest and throat sits in a wheelchair in the Malakal teaching hospital. Recent fighting in the country has seen waves of brutal revenge attacks, as fighters and ethnic militia use the violence to loot and settle old scores, with the United Nations and rights workers reporting that horrific atrocities have been committed by both sides. Many fear the conflict has slid out of the control of political leaders, with ethnic violence and revenge attacks between the Dinka people of Kiir and the Nuer of Machar, the country’s two largest groups. (Carl De Souza/Getty Images)

Feb. 5 Daily Brief: Sapporo Snow Festival, high seas in Europe, olympians gear up for Sochi, Kiev protests continue

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