US Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Likely to Impact Other Countries
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Eurozone consumer confidence was unchanged and manufacturers lost some of their optimism in June, but a monthly survey carried out by the European Commission found little sign of alarm among businesses about the threat of a Greek exit from the currency area
The European Union was preparing for the repercussions of a Greek decision to shut down its banking system for at least a week, hoping to avoid panic from spreading to other parts of the 19-country eurozone.
Burundians voted in parliamentary elections after a night of heavy gunfire and grenade explosions in the capital, Bujumbura—the sound of a protest movement refusing to die down.
Egypt’s top prosecutor died after sustaining injuries in an attack on his convoy, a day after an Islamic State affiliate based in the country vowed to target top judicial officials, Egyptian state TV said.
A spokesman for Vladimir Putin says the Russian president and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have spent the weekend together in Siberia.
Also, a financial crisis in Greece could bring turmoil to global markets, including here in the U.S. - your world in 90 seconds
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The crime figure and one-time FBI informant sent a surprising message to students from behind bars
Convicted murderer on the lam was shot twice in the torso during pursuit, and officials await his recovery before filing additional charges
MOSCOW — In a surprise meeting with Syria's foreign minister, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged his support Monday for Syrian President Bashar Assad and called on all Middle East nations to join forces to fight Islamic State militants.
The war in Syria, which began with protests in March 2011, has killed more than 220,000 people. Russia, which has traditionally strong ties to Syria, has been seen as a key to a peaceful solution and has previously rebuffed suggestions that Assad's resignation could help end the war.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday then was whisked to the Kremlin to meet with Putin.
Russian news agencies quoted Putin as telling the Syrian envoy that Russia's "policy to support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged."
Putin also urged other Middle East countries to help Syria fight the armed Islamic factions that now control parts of the Syrian capital and large parts of the city's suburbs.
Putin said Moscow's contacts with the countries in the region, including with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, "show that everyone wants to contribute to fight this evil," he said referring to Islamic State militants.
He exhorted all nations in the region, whatever their relations with Syria are, to "pool their efforts together" to fight Islamic militants.
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US, NATO Playing War Games on Russia's Doorstep, Threatening Russia with a ...
Center for Research on Globalization Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, concerning NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calling on Moscow to stop “supporting” pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine. US Official: Russia 'Playing with Fire' with Nuclear Weapons RhetoricBreitbart News all 12 NATO Military Buildup Close to Russia 'Has no Parallel in Cold War History'Sputnik International all 11 news articles » |
Business Insider |
Putin Meets Economic Collapse With Purges, Broken Promises
Newsweek The corrupt bargain on which Russian President Vladimir Putin built his regime—provision of wealth to loyal officials and a decent standard of living to the people—is in dire straits. As the economy shrinks and the Kremlin adjusts its expenditures ... John McCain: The Russia-Ukraine cease-fire is a fictionWashington Post Putin: Russia is going to spend $400 billion upgrading its militaryBusiness Insider Taking the long view on RussiaBBC News New York Times -The Diplomat -Los Angeles Times all 969 news articles » |
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A Russian Man Created A Tool To Counter All The Pride Profile Pics On Facebook
BuzzFeed News Graphic designer Rishat Shigapov told the RSN radio station that he came up with the idea after being inundated with requests to add Russian flags to profile pictures manually. “I'm for family values, after all,” he said. Other users have tagged ... US gay marriage ruling unleashes debate in RussiaYahoo News Russia should get less aggressive towards sex minorities - senatorRussia Beyond the Headlines Russian Orthodox Church Spokesman Lashes Out Over US Gay Marriage RulingThe Moscow Times all 22 news articles » |
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Yahoo News |
US gay marriage ruling unleashes debate in Russia
Yahoo News Moscow (AFP) - The US Supreme Court's move to legalise gay marriages triggered heated debate in Russia on Sunday, with one MP saying Facebook should be blocked while a senator urged the adoption of the US army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. A Russian Man Created A Tool To Counter All The Pride Profile Pics On FacebookBuzzFeed News Russia should get less aggressive towards sex minorities - senatorRussia Beyond the Headlines Russian Orthodox Church Spokesman Lashes Out Over US Gay Marriage RulingThe Moscow Times all 232 news articles » |
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US gay marriage ruling unleashes debate in Russia
Yahoo7 News Moscow (AFP) - The US Supreme Court's move to legalise gay marriages triggered heated debate in Russia on Sunday, with one MP saying Facebook should be blocked while a senator urged the adoption of the US army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Facebook's Pride Flag Is Driving Some Russians CrazyBuzzFeed News Russia should get less aggressive towards sex minorities - senatorRussia Beyond the Headlines all 13 news articles » |
Islamic State fighters who sneaked into the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border killed more than 150 people there and in nearby villages.
The man who killed 27 people was a Saudi Arabian citizen who arrived in the nation just hours before blowing himself up, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said.
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in today’s momentous 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision bringing marriage equality to every state in the country shows that he likes to let his pen soar: “Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations,” he writes, adding that it “demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society.”
The question, of course, is whether it is the court’s job to usher them into it. The Times Op-Ed columnist Ross Douthat and I discussed the justices’ role as problem-solvers Thursday, in relation to the court’s ruling on Obamacare. I don’t think it was an act of judicial activism to continue the national availability of the law’s subsidies for health insurance. The court didn’t strike down an act of Congress. It simply looked to Congress’s purpose — a method of statutory interpretation of fine lineage, as the Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman explains. If Congress thinks the court got it wrong, Congress can pass a provision tomorrow restricting the subsidies. That won’t happen, because subsidies for some, not all, was never the plan of the Affordable Care Act.
But doubters of Friday’s same-sex marriage ruling are on stronger ground today in accusing the court of overreach and activism. “The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone,” Kennedy writes. “They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.” True — but how does this work in practice, and what are the limits?
Kennedy has some precedent on his side: most powerfully, Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 ruling in which the court overturned state interracial-marriage bans. But he still has to explain why the court isn’t waiting for same-sex marriage to spread across the country through legislation and voter initiatives. “Indeed, it is most often through democracy that liberty is preserved and protected in our lives,” Kennedy acknowledges. The dissenting justices — all four of whom wrote opinions — hammer this point home.
The majority justifies bypassing the democratic process because “individuals who are harmed need not await legislative action before asserting a fundamental right.” Kennedy brings in Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 ruling in which the court refused to strike down state sodomy bans, and points out that “men and women suffered pain and humiliation” in the 17 years that decision remained on the books, before it was overturned in Lawrence v. Texas.
Denying the rights and benefits of marriage to gay people certainly also causes real harm. Kennedy invokes the plights of the plaintiffs before the court: “James Obergefell now asks whether Ohio can erase his marriage to John Arthur for all time. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse now ask whether Michigan may continue to deny them the certainty and stability all mothers desire to protect their children, and for them and their children the childhood years will pass all too soon.” Does this mean the court should give itself the power to declare same-sex marriage throughout the land? Friday’s ruling overturns bans in more than half the states. (The laws remain in effect in only 14 or so states, but that’s only because the Supreme Court has allowed the lower federal courts to order the granting of marriage licenses to begin.) The ruling is not humble or modest or restrained. The court has newly recognized a fundamental right, significantly expanding the Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equality. It has embraced an evolving, progressive understanding of the country’s foundational document.
The dissenters are clear and thorough about the downsides of this. Chief Justice John Roberts asks sarcastically of his colleagues, “Just who do we think we are?” He also makes this sensible pitch for judicial restraint: “When decisions are reached through democratic means, some people will inevitably be disappointed with the results. But those whose views do not prevail at least know that they have had their say, and accordingly are — in the tradition of our political culture — reconciled to the result of a fair and honest debate.”
Roberts warns that “stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept.” Justice Samuel Alito goes further, predicting that today’s ruling “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy” and “exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.” He ends on a note of doom: “Recalling the harsh treatment of gays and lesbians in the past, some may think that turnabout is fair play. But if that sentiment prevails, the Nation will experience bitter and lasting wounds.”
Among gay rights supporters, these doubts will be drowned out in celebration — as Roberts, for one, acknowledges. Perhaps some activists would quietly agree that state-by-state lawmaking would be better. But the evidence to date suggests that Alito’s dire warning is overblown; the backlash to same-sex marriage has so far been contained to minor skirmishes. There are no victims when gay couples marry. The gain, in love, commitment and stability, is easy to see. These are among the reasons public opinion has moved swiftly in favor of marriage equality.
As we go forward, the debate between the two sides of the court over how to make social change comes down to trust. Do we trust the justices and their successors to use the key the majority took out today to unlock other doors, carefully and sparingly? Not even the justices themselves would claim that the court’s judgment has been infallible, or even close to it. In his dissent, Roberts brings up the court’s worst constitutional errors: decisions that entrenched slavery and set back workers’ rights. In my view, he could have added his own court’s Citizens United ruling to the list.
But on a day that is glorious for so many people, let’s hope for a better future. The justices aren’t entirely removed from the democratic process, after all. The composition of the courts depends on the president and Senate we choose to elect. Over time, voters have a say in the kind of justice the court dispenses. The odds are good that most of them will think the court got this one right.
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Puerto Rico’s governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a “death spiral,” has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions.
The governor, Alejandro García Padilla, and senior members of his staff said in an interview last week that they would probably seek significant concessions from as many as all of the island’s creditors, which could include deferring some debt payments for as long as five years or extending the timetable for repayment.
“The debt is not payable,” Mr. García Padilla said. “There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math.”
It is a startling admission from the governor of an island of 3.6 million people, which has piled on more municipal bond debt per capita than any American state.
A broad restructuring by Puerto Rico sets the stage for an unprecedented test of the United Statesmunicipal bond market, which cities and states rely on to pay for their most basic needs, like road construction and public hospitals.
That market has already been shaken by municipal bankruptcies in Detroit; Stockton, Calif.; and elsewhere, which undercut assumptions that local governments in the United States would always pay back their debt.
Puerto Rico’s bonds have a face value roughly eight times that of Detroit’s bonds. Its call for debt relief on such a vast scale could raise borrowing costs for other local governments as investors become more wary of lending.
Perhaps more important, much of Puerto Rico’s debt is widely held by individual investors on the United States mainland, in mutual funds or other investment accounts, and they may not be aware of it.
Puerto Rico, as a commonwealth, does not have the option of bankruptcy. A default on its debts would most likely leave the island, its creditors and its residents in a legal and financial limbo that, like the debt crisis in Greece, could take years to sort out.
Still, Mr. García Padilla said that his government could not continue to borrow money to address budget deficits while asking its residents, already struggling with high rates of poverty and crime, to shoulder most of the burden through tax increases and pension cuts.
He said creditors must now “share the sacrifices” that he has imposed on the island’s residents.
“If they don’t come to the table, it will be bad for them,” said Mr. García Padilla, who plans to speak about the fiscal crisis in a televised address to Puerto Rico residents on Monday evening. “What will happen is that our economy will get into a worse situation and we’ll have less money to pay them. They will be shooting themselves in the foot.”
With some creditors, the restructuring process is already underway. Late last week, Puerto Rico officials and creditors of the island’s electric power authority were close to a deal that would avoid a default on a $416 million payment due on Wednesday.
With other payment deadlines looming, Mr. García Padilla and his staff said they would begin looking for possible concessions on all forms of government debt.
The central government must set aside about $93 million each month to pay its general obligation bonds — a crucial action in Puerto Rico because its constitution requires such bonds to be paid before any other expense. No American state has restructured its general obligation debt in living memory.
The government’s Public Finance Corporation, which has issued bonds to finance budget deficits in the past, owes $94 million on July 15. The Government Development Bank — the commonwealth’s fiscal agent — must repay $140 million of bond principal by Aug. 1.
“My administration is doing everything not to default,” Mr. García Padilla said. “But we have to make the economy grow,” he added. “If not, we will be in a death spiral.”
A proposed debt exchange, where creditors would replace their current debt with new bonds with terms more favorable to Puerto Rico, signals a significant shift for Mr. García Padilla, a member of the Popular Democratic Party, who was elected in 2012. His party is aligned with the Democrats on the mainland and favors maintaining the island’s legal status as a commonwealth.
He said that when he took office, he tried to balance the fiscal situation through austerity measures and fresh borrowing. But he saw that the island was caught in a vicious circle where it borrowed to balance the budget, raised the debt and had an even bigger budget deficit the next year.
Residents began leaving for the mainland in droves, and Puerto Rico’s credit was downgraded to junk, making borrowing extremely expensive.
Only a few months ago, the administration was considering borrowing as much as an additional $2.9 billion, which would be paid for by a fuel tax.
But recently, Mr. García Padilla’s team has been laying the groundwork for more drastic action. The governor commissioned a study of the financial situation by former officials at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Concluding that the debt load is unsustainable, the report suggests a bond exchange, with the new bonds carrying “a longer/lower debt service profile,” according to a confidential copy reviewed by The New York Times. The García Padilla administration plans to make the report public on Monday.
“There is no U.S. precedent for anything of this scale or scope,” according to the report, one of whose writers was Anne O. Krueger, a former chief economist at the World Bank and currently a research professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
The “Krueger Report,” as it is being called, also seems aimed at the Obama administration and Congress, both of which have taken a largely hands-off approach to Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems. United States Treasury officials, however, have been advising the island’s government in recent months amid the worsening fiscal situation.
In June, Puerto Rico hired Steven W. Rhodes, the retired federal judge who oversaw Detroit’s bankruptcy case, as an adviser. The government is also consulting with a group of bankers from Citigroup who advised Detroit on a $1.5 billion debt exchange with certain creditors.
In Washington, the García Padilla administration has been pushing for a bill that would allow the island’s public corporations, like its electrical power authority and water agency, to declare bankruptcy. Of Puerto Rico’s $72 billion in bonds, roughly $25 billion were issued by the public corporations.
Some officials and advisers say Congress needs to go further and permit Puerto Rico’s central government to file for bankruptcy — or risk chaos.
“There are way too many creditors and way too many kinds of debt,” Mr. Rhodes said in an interview. “They need Chapter 9 for the whole commonwealth.”
Hedge funds holding billions of dollars of the island’s bonds at steep discounts are frustrated that the government has not seemed willing to reach a deal to borrow more money from them.
“We want to be a part of the solution to the commonwealth’s fiscal challenges,” a group of investment firms, including Centerbridge Partners and Monarch Alternative Capital, wrote in a letter last week.
An aide to the governor said the hedge funds’ debt proposal was too onerous. And the deal would only postpone Puerto Rico’s inevitable reckoning.
“It will kick the can,” Mr. García Padilla said. “I am not kicking the can.”
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CONSTABLE, N.Y. — David Sweat, the remaining prison escapee on the run in northern New York, was shot by a state trooper and taken into custody on Sunday after a 23-day manhunt that began with an improbable escape from two maximum-security cells and ended in the rain-drenched woods just south of the Canadian border.
Mr. Sweat, 35, a murderer who had been serving a sentence of life without parole, was in critical condition at Albany Medical Center late Sunday night, according to Dennis P. McKenna, the hospital’s medical director.
The shooting occurred here around 3:20 p.m. after a State Police sergeant spotted a man jogging down a road, stopped to question him and recognized him as Mr. Sweat, said Superintendent Joseph A. D’Amico of the New York State Police. The sergeant, Jay Cook, told Mr. Sweat to come over to him, but instead Mr. Sweat turned and fled across a field toward the tree line, Mr. D’Amico said. Sergeant Cook, a firearms instructor who was patrolling by himself, gave chase and finally opened fire, striking Mr. Sweat twice in the torso, because he realized the fugitive was going to make it to the woods and possibly disappear, Mr. D’Amico said.
More than 1,300 officers in rain-slicked gear had helped to tighten a cordon around Mr. Sweat on Sunday as the search, which had at times appeared to lurch between small New York towns as officials chased shreds of reported sightings, focused in on 22 square miles of rugged terrain. The confrontation with Mr. Sweat took place two days after his partner in flight from the authorities,Richard W. Matt, was shot and killed by a federal agent in the woods of Malone, N.Y.
“The nightmare is finally over,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said, speaking with Mr. D’Amico on Sunday evening surrounded by law enforcement officers at a news conference in Malone, marked by cheers and applause. “These were really dangerous, dangerous men.”
Mr. Sweat, who was spotted and captured within a few miles of the Canadian border, was unarmed and wearing camouflage clothes. He was taken to Alice Hyde Medical Center, and then moved to Albany Medical Center for further treatment, Mr. D’Amico said.
Mr. McKenna, the medical director at Albany Medical Center, said it was “premature” to say whether Mr. Sweat would undergo surgery. He said Mr. Sweat would need to remain at the hospital “for at least a series of days.”
Word of the manhunt’s end brought relief across the state’s bucolic north, which had been in a near-constant state of alert as residents locked doors once left unsecured and cast a wary eye on every pair of men.
Denise Yando, who lives on a 30-acre property on Coveytown Road in Constable, said state troopers came to her home to say that Mr. Sweat had been shot in a nearby field. “I suspected they would come toward Canada,” Ms. Yando said. “Every time I walk the dog, I’m always looking down the tracks. But I didn’t think it would happen in the field.”
The manhunt for two escaped killers ended on its 23rd day with the shooting and capture of the second fugitive two days after the first was killed.
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The final days of the search hewed closely to what had been, from the start, a Hollywood-style drama of ingenuity, flight and violence. The escape by Mr. Matt and Mr. Sweat from the Clinton Correctional Facility, discovered on June 6, involved long-term planning, subterfuge and trickery as the mencajoled favors and privileges from prison employees using flattery and, in Mr. Matt’s case, a talent for painting. Their flight lasted longer than some law enforcement observers had expected, but the two fugitives appeared to have never made it more than a few dozen miles from their starting point: a manhole on a street in Dannemora, N.Y., mere steps from the high prison walls meant to contain them.
After a civilian prison employee, Joyce E. Mitchell, failed to meet them in her car, the two men, who displayed cunning inside the prison walls, were forced to run on foot over tough terrain. They found shelter in empty hunting cabins, but left telltale clues of their presence that helped a vast array of agencies — from the State Police to the United States Marshals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to state Forest Rangers — home in on them over the last week.
It was not clear whether the men remained together the whole time, but they appeared to have been together recently enough that a discarded pepper shaker bearing Mr. Sweat’s DNA was found by investigators over the weekend near the spot where Mr. Matt was killed on Friday.
Mr. D’Amico, of the State Police, said the men possibly used the pepper to throw off the scent of the search dogs, a ruse employed in the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke.”
“We did have difficulty tracking, so it was fairly effective in that respect,” he said.
“If you were writing a movie plot, they would say that this was overdone,” Mr. Cuomo said, speaking at a ski resort in Malone that has doubled as a command center.
Earlier Sunday, the State Police said the search had been continuing “around the clock” and despite a pelting rain that prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flood watch for the area. The swell of law enforcement officers in the region, bolstered by the additional 100 officers announced on Sunday, allowed the authorities to have a regular rotation, swapping out fatigued searchers. That continued pressure may have helped wear down the two men. An autopsy of Mr. Matt showed blisters on his feet, according to a statement from the State Police, as well as “minor abrasions consistent with living in the woods for three weeks.”
With dense vegetation and rolling terrain, the woods here had been made even more difficult to navigate, as searchers had to make their way through fog, heavy downpours of rains and the boot-soaking slush left behind.
The two men were both convicted murderers, with Mr. Matt serving a sentence of 25 years to life after being convicted in 2008 of murdering and dismembering a former boss. (Before his trial, he served nine years in a Mexican prison for fatally stabbing an American engineer in a bar bathroom in Matamoros in 1998.)
Mr. Sweat had been serving a sentence of life without parole for the July 4, 2002, killing of a Broome County sheriff’s deputy, Kevin J. Tarsia, after he came upon Mr. Sweat and two friends dividing up the spoils after robbing a fireworks and firearms store in Pennsylvania. Mr. Sweat shot him multiple times. While Mr. Tarsia was still alive, Mr. Sweat ran over him in his car.
His escape from Clinton Correctional Facility was not the first hint of Mr. Sweat’s penchant for steeping himself in plans requiring knowledge of architecture and engineering to help him commit a crime. In 1996, Mr. Sweat, then 16, and another teenager tried to steal a computer and cash from a group home in Binghamton where he was staying. Their plan depended in part on obtaining blueprints and a layout of the home.
After later being convicted of second-degree burglary in a separate incident, Mr. Sweat was found to be keeping a list of his future crimes in his prison cell.
The confrontation on Sunday with Mr. Sweat came two days after and roughly 15 miles north of the spot near Lake Titus where an agent from a tactical unit of the United States Border and Customs Protection agency shot Mr. Matt three times in the head, according to the autopsy. The agent, who was not named, opened fire after Mr. Matt, armed with a 20-gauge shotgun, did not put up his hands when ordered to do so.
On Sunday afternoon, Mike Doyle, 41, who lives on Coveytown Road, said he heard two shots and then saw “troopers running down the road with their weapons out.” Dozens of cars, lights flashing, raced by his home, then units from Customs and Border Protection and the United States Marshals Service.
He saw an ambulance drive onto a hayfield across the street from his home and then take off, apparently carrying Mr. Sweat. “It was very, very overwhelming when it all started,” he said. “And now it’s just a sigh of relief, just to know he was this close to the home and they got him.”
With the capture of Mr. Sweat alive, officials hoped to learn more about how exactly he and Mr. Matt managed their escape and their route once on the outside. In addition to Ms. Mitchell, the authorities also arrested a corrections officer, Gene Palmer, who is accused of giving the men pliers and a screwdriver in exchange for paintings by Mr. Matt.
When they fled the prison, the two inmates carried a black fabric guitar case, with Mr. Matt’s Fender Squier guitar left behind in his cell.
For residents of Dannemora and other towns of northern New York, the capture of Mr. Sweat brought a chance to finally relax after weeks of worrying about what lurked in the untrammeled woods. Stores offered free coffee to searchers and exclamations of joy at the capture.
“I haven’t opened my window in three weeks!” said Amber Hammond, 27, who has lived in Constable her entire life.
Leslie Lewis, 29, who encountered the two escapees in his backyard just after they escaped three weeks ago, said the first thing he was going to do now that they had been taken care of was go for a hike and build a fire in the woods, a favorite pastime. “We haven’t been able to do that in a while,” he said.
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Russia’s assault on Ukraine over the past year has made it clear that President Vladimir Putin is out to reassemble as much of the former Soviet Union as he can, having once called its collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” It should be of great concern in the West that Bulgaria, a member of NATO and the European Union, is one of his targets.
In a September address in Sofia to members of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev compared Moscow’s stealthy undermining aggression toward Bulgaria to a “Trojan horse” attempt by Russia to penetrate NATO. Our foundation, perhaps Eastern Europe’s biggest, seeks to help Bulgarians preserve their hard-won independence.
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Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev Photo: European Pressphoto Agency
In the decades since Eastern Europe gained its freedom, Bulgaria has moved fitfully forward in a democratic, free-market direction, depending on the outcome of elections. At the moment, Moscow-leaning coalitions are working hard to take over the country, enabling them to make appointments to international bodies such as NATO and strengthen Mr. Putin’s influence over such organizations. This is the real fear enunciated by President Plevneliev and echoed by other Bulgarian leaders who want to continue the progress toward free markets originally signified by Bulgaria’s admission to NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007.
Polls and ethnographic information show Bulgarians divided when asked whether they lean toward Moscow or the West. Yet President Putin has many reasons to eye Bulgaria for a takeover that can be accomplished without Ukrainian-style bloodshed. Most older Bulgarians speak Russian, and the Bulgarian language also uses a Cyrillic script. Bulgaria was Moscow’s most loyal ally in the Warsaw Pact, and many Bulgarians have long had positive feelings about their former fellow members of the Soviet Union.
Bulgaria is dependent on Russian gas, and Moscow’s ability to turn the energy valve off in winter commands the hearts and minds of Bulgarians. Observers in Bulgaria and abroad saw the hand of Mr. Putin (and Russian money) behind the successful efforts of environmentalists to secure legislation that bans oil and gas fracking. The ban, enacted in 2012, sent fracking investor ChevronCVX 0.26 % packing, along with Bulgaria’s chances for energy independence.
The America for Bulgaria Foundation has a particular interest in these developments as it works to help the country seek a free and independent future. With $425 million in assets, the foundation spends more than $25 million a year on programs to help the Bulgarian people stem corruption, strengthen education and stimulate private economic development. Aid also goes to fighting poverty, especially among the Roma (gypsies).
This foundation grew out of the Bulgarian American Enterprise Fund, an initiative of President George H.W. Bush, funded with $55 million in 1991 as part of an effort to help market economies take root in formerly Communist countries. Run by volunteer American business leaders and staffed with smart young Bulgarians, the fund invested in a broad array of entrepreneurial ventures, and created the Bulgarian American Credit Bank.
The bank was sold at a large profit in 2008, when half of the fund’s original investment was returned to the U.S. government and the remainder, plus more than $400 million earned since 1991, was used to establish the present American for Bulgaria Foundation, which is overseen by an independent board of directors.
Bulgaria has more than its share of Russia-connected oligarchs who seek to operate with impunity. The need for much stronger legal and institutional oversight by regulators and the judiciary was underscored when there was a run in 2014 on a large oligarch-controlled bank that resulted in the bank’s collapse and the disappearance of funds estimated to be $2.6 billion—equivalent to at least 5% of the country’s gross domestic product. Exactly where the money went hasn’t been determined, nor have wrongdoers been prosecuted.
Mr. Putin’s allies also are waging an information war in the oligarch-dominated media, attempting to discredit Western-leaning leaders in Bulgaria and “Western” ideas. The America for Bulgaria Foundation has focused on ensuring that independent media don’t disappear and has funded Economedia, one of the few remaining independent news sources in Bulgaria. Pro-Russian or Russian-dominated media have tried to discredit this independent voice by claiming the America for Bulgaria Foundation is funded by the CIA and is part of a U.S. plan to take over Bulgaria.
A senior NATO leader has told me that he is worried about Bulgaria coming under Kremlin control, joining President Plevneliev in his concern. They know that the aggressive Russian president doesn’t always have to send troops when he wants to call the shots.
Mr. MacDougal, who was the founding chairman of the Bulgarian American Enterprise Fund, is co-chairman of the America for Bulgaria Foundation.
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Barrier part of effort to boost border security
US Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Likely to Impact Other Countriesby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
The landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriages has no legal force outside the United States, but gay rights activists in many parts of the world believe the court ruling will help their cause. In the Philippines, in India, in Australia and elsewhere, gay rights advocates think the U.S. ruling may help change attitudes, just as American activists - and judges, educators and legislators - had earlier been influenced by the easy acceptance of same-sex marriage in some...
Turkish Police Disperse Gay Pride Marchersby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered for gay pride parades, parties and celebrations around the world Sunday. Most events were peaceful, but in Istanbul, Turkish police fired water cannon and rubber pellets to disperse a crowd. It was not immediately clear why Turkish police stopped marchers in Istanbul, where gay pride parades have been held in previous years. Turkish media reported that police said people would not to be allowed to march this year. In New York, massive crowds...
Iran nuclear negotiators have indicated they are unlikely to make their June 30th deadline because the components for a final agreement are not in place. VOA State Department correspondent Pam Dockins has the story from Vienna.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/iran-deal-negotiators-seek-progress-on-sticking-points/2840731.html
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Istanbul police break up gay-pride parade
USA TODAY Istanbul police fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the Turkish capital's gay-pride march Sunday. Organizers said the Istanbul governor had "suddenly banned" the 13th annual parade "using the month of Ramadan as the reason ... Turkish police fire pepper spray at gay pride paradeCNN Istanbul police use water cannon to break up Pride ParadeIrish Examiner Turkish Police Use Tear Gas, Water Cannons to Disperse Pride ParadeTheBlaze.com Ynetnews -Haaretz -Bangkok Post all 33 news articles » |
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