Senate Passes Defense Bill Over White House Objections
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
The U.S. Senate has passed, over White House objections, a $612 billion defense policy bill that calls for arming Ukraine, prevents another round of military base closures, and makes it harder for President Barack Obama to close the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Stop Googling your symptoms." It's pretty futile advice in age of the internet, when the vast majority of people with a health concern start by typing it into their computer. It's also potentially fatal advice, as the case of teenager Bronte Doyne revealed this week. The teenager, who was suffering from a rare form of liver cancer, begged doctors to take her seriously after she found worrying details about her condition online. But they ignored her and in March 2013, the cancer did just what the internet said it would – it killed her.
Greece is dangling the prospect of an Athens-Moscow alliance in an audacious attempt to pressure its eurozone creditors into watering down austerity demands as the country teeters on the edge of default and bankruptcy.
Israeli apologies were in order after the former envoy, Michael B. Oren, wrote about President Obama’s dealings with Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mexico deports more Central Americans than the United Statesby By MARK STEVENSON and ALBERTO ARCE
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico now deports more Central American migrants than the United States, a dramatic shift since the U.S. asked Mexico for help a year ago with a spike in illegal migration, especially among unaccompanied minors....
New Jersey man charged with conspiring with 3 others to support Islamic State terror group
Next Page of Stories
Loading...
Page 2
Islamic State Defeat in Tal Abyad Raises Local Spiritsby webdesk@voanews.com (Zana Omer)
Kurdish and Syrian rebel forces are now in control of Tal Abyad, pushing Islamic State fighters out and cutting off a key IS supply line from Turkey to the de facto IS capital, Raqqa. With Roger Wilkison narrating, the VOA Kurdish Service's Zana Omer reports.
The Islamic State is preventing fuel from reaching rebel-held parts of northern Syria, as the Assad government targets medical facilities, activists and aid workers say.
Analysts see several missteps leading to Colt's bankruptcy filing; iconic gun maker owes $500M
Liberals falter but anti-immigration People’s party set to supply parliamentary majority
Measuring War’s Impact on Women by Mark Thompson
American women have been marching off to war in increasing numbers over the last generation. Soon, the Pentagon expects to lift its ban on their service in ground combat, its most demanding, dirtiest and bloodiest form. Is this a good thing?
In Women at War, Army veterans Elspeth Cameron Ritchie and Anne L. Naclerio have produced the first book detailing what war does to the physical and mental health of the growing number of women waging it. Featuring contributions from many military and academic experts, the volume doesn’t advocate putting women in the trenches. “Women are already in combat,” says Ritchie, a psychiatrist who earned three combat patches before retiring from the Army as a colonel in 2010. The book also doesn’t wade into the controversy over whether women have the physical strength to accomplish the mission. Instead, it collects widely-scattered data about what combat does to women and puts it in one place to serve as guidance as the number of female soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines slowly rises.
Bottom line: women can do it, but it may not be easy.
Some 2.5 million women have served in uniform since the Revolutionary War, Lieut. General Patricia Horoho, the Army surgeon general, notes in the book’s forward. “Given recent policy changes, by January 2016 it is expected that all military occupations, positions, and units will be open to women,” she adds, “thus ensuring that they will play even larger roles in future military operations.”
The number of women engaged in major U.S. combat operations is steadily growing. They climbed from 770 in 1989’s Panama invasion, to 41,000 in 1991’s Gulf War, to 300,000 in the post-9/11 Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. About 15% of U.S. troops today are female. They represented 10% of those deployed to Iraq between 2003 and 2011, and 8% of those sent to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2013 (they were under-represented because they are generally barred from serving in combat units. That also accounts for the fact that they represented only 2.3% of U.S. troops killed in action).
More facts from the book:
- In the post-9/11 wars, women deployed nearly as frequently as men (1.5 times per male soldier; 1.3 times for females), and for nearly as long (10.9 months per male soldier; 10.5 months per female soldier).
- Women suffered slight more psychological problems (15.1%) in the Afghanistan and Iraq war zones than men (14.9%).
- More men dispatched to the war zones were diagnosed with PTSD (3.9%) than women (3.0%).
- 15% of the soldiers who had to be medically evacuated out of the war zones for serious mental-health issues were female.
The 40 contributors (including 10 men) write about women’s health on the front lines and the challenges of being a soldier and a mother. “Mothers who deploy may be viewed as uncaring or negligent, rather than serving selflessly and patriotically,” Army psychiatrist Elizabeth C. Henderson writes. “It is more culturally acceptable for men to go to war.”
“I tried to avoid thinking of [my child] most of the time,” a mother deployed to a war zone said. “I had something to do right after every phone call so that I would not retreat to my tent and start crying.”
Women in uniform also are subject to shunning by their male colleagues. “Women who are working in primarily male career fields—or, as in the military, are breaking into previously closed combat positions currently held by males—may suddenly find themselves part of a social group that has difficulty fully accepting or integrating females,” writes Army psychologist Kate McGraw. “The negative impact of this type of behavior may intensify during periods of high stress, such as in combat or deployed locations.”
But experience can ease such trepidation. “I felt tremendous pressure to live beyond reproach, and over time, I have learned that this is an incredibly intense, stressful, and ultimately unsustainable and inhumane way to live,” then-Lieut. Paulette Cazares wrote of her first tour as a doctor aboard a U.S. Navy submarine. “Come the second year and second deployment, I was able to dance in bars at ports of call and enjoy a cigar with the CO and know I was on stable footing.”
She also writes that her time aboard gave her the confidence she needed to save a young female sailor from dying of appendicitis on what was supposed to have been a quiet Thanksgiving. “At the beginning of that deployment, I would never known or had the courage to … demand that a helo move faster,” she recalls. “But a few months at sea made this girl a little saltier than she was when she left San Diego.”
Being different can pose challenges when nature calls. “In 2011, with all our sophisticated battle systems and unarmed aircraft, women in combat were still wearing diapers because we hadn’t figured out how they could take care of basic bodily functions in the back of an armored personnel carrier or transport vehicle,” Naclerio says. There remains, after a decade of war, ignorance among both military women and their medical advisers about minimizing such issues, she adds. (Only 4.5% of women in Iraq in 2005-2006, for example, were using commercially available female urination devices, which allow women to relieve themselves like men.) Both Naclerio and Ritchie express surprise at how little research has been done to smooth the integration of women into the military.
Sexual assault is a “major issue” in the U.S. military, the book notes, and has received extensive professional and press coverage. But there has been scant attention paid to consensual sex in the ranks downrange. “A taboo area seems to be the sexual desires of women who deploy,” the authors write. “But young women—and most women who deploy are young—do have sexual desires, perhaps heightened by the daily exposure to death and close bonding in the combat zone.” This taboo has led to a dearth of information. “We have very little knowledge of the actual amount of consensual sexual activity that is occurring during deployments between military members because very little research is done on that topic,” writes Navy psychiatrist Ann Canuso. (Think of it as a new version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”) “Studies indicate that as many as 12% of deployed women had an unplanned pregnancy during deployment in 2008.
The dearth of women on the front lines makes them a rarity. But that’s slowly expected to change. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said last month that he wants 25% of Marine recruits eventually to be women, more than triple their current 7% of the corps.
But until that happens (and Marines, both male and female, believe it’s a tall order), women on the front lines will continue to feel like they live in a fishbowl. “My presence there seemed to make everyone stop and stare,” one forward-deployed woman told Canuso of her visits to the gym. Some of their male counterparts acknowledged their role. One told Canuso about the time he was instructing other young men when a female colleague walked by in her workout gear. “We all just stopped and stared at her for almost a full 30 seconds,” he said. “Then I just went back to teaching the men. I never would have done that stateside.”
Read the whole story
· · · · · · ·
 USA TODAY |
In US, hate crimes have decreased steadily
Boston Globe If proven to be a hate crime, the killing of nine people in a black church in Charleston, S.C., Wednesday night would be unusual for its violence, both in the state and in the nation, and it would stand in stark contrast to recent decreases in hate-related crime. The ugly truth about hate crimes — in 5 charts and mapsWashington Post (blog) Police and Prosecutors Still Foot Drag on Hate CrimesHuffington Post Hate crimes in the United StatesDaily Mail Al Jazeera America -Hickory Daily Record all 44 news articles » |
Next Page of Stories
Loading...
Page 3
Ex-priest in Puerto Rico gets 11 years for taking boy on cruise with intent of sexual conduct
Scaffolding surrounding part of the Houses of Parliament in London. A new report says that repairs could take as long as 30 years and cost more than $11 billion.
NATO: Maneuvers Aimed at Showing Readiness to Russiaby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
More than 2,000 troops from nine NATO nations are on the march in Poland, participating in the first exercise of NATO's new rapid response force. Alliance leaders say the exercises are intended to reassure eastern European member-countries rattled by Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg joined reporters Thursday in western Poland, where they witnessed an hour-long display of live firepower from Polish, Czech and Lithuanian special forces. U.S. and...
 Wall Street Journal |
Federal Probe in Charleston Shooting Won't Mean Automatic Hate-Crime Case
Wall Street Journal The Justice Department leapt into the Charleston church shooting by initiating a hate-crime investigation. That doesn't mean a federal case is likely to follow. Opening a file allows the federal government to bring resources and put investigators on the ground ... FACTBOX-Hate crimes in the United StatesReuters Hate crimes are down in the US, but the data is shakyBoston.com In US, hate crimes have decreased steadilyBoston Globe Washington Post (blog) all 45 news articles » |
US news anchor Brian Williams will not return to NBC Nightly News but will join cable news network MSNBC in an undisclosed role.
Move is part of attempt to enforce $50bn damages award to shareholders of bankrupt oil group
Next Page of Stories
Loading...
Page 4
Russia Demands Probe into U.S. Moon Landing
Vladimir Markin has called for the investigation in response FBI-led FIFA probe.Ukraine's Poroshenko Offers Ex-British PM Tony Blair a Job
The Ukrainian leader hailed Blair "a true friend of Ukraine" in Kiev.
Stakes High as Greek Bailout Negotiations Go to the Brink
Meanwhile the Greek prime minister has landed in Russia.Chad Bans Burqas After 'Boko Haram' Suicide Bombings
34 people were killed in twin suicide bombings on police targets on Monday
This post has been generated by Page2RSS
Read the whole story
· · · ·
Newsweek |
Republican Candidates React (or Don't) to Charleston Shooting
Newsweek Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) addresses a legislative luncheon held as part of the "Road to Majority" conference in Washington June 18, 2015. At a forum on faith, 2016 candidates shied away from racially-charged attack on ... GOP presidential candidates offer somber words for Charleston murders — but ...New York Daily News Ted Cruz Wins the Faith & Freedom ConferenceU.S. News & World Report (blog) Cruz: Religious liberty will be big issue in 2016USA TODAY Metro Weekly -Washington Times -Washington Blade all 22 news articles » |
2 indicted in alleged conspiracy to help IS group with Boston man killed by investigators
 NBCNews.com |
Man Who Shot at George Zimmerman Charged With Attempted Murder
NBCNews.com The man accused of shooting at George Zimmerman during a confrontation along a Florida road last month has been charged with attempted murder, the state attorney's office said Thursday. Matthew Apperson, 36, who is accused of shooting at Zimmerman ... Charge upgraded for accused George Zimmerman shooterCBS News all 124 news articles » |
Russia - NATO Tensions Threaten a Wider Regional Standoff by webdesk@voanews.com (Charles Maynes)
Amid growing tensions with NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin is promising to beef up Russia's nuclear arsenal with 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2015. Putin made the announcement this week at the unveiling of Russia’s new Patriot Park, a new arms sales expo that fans and critics alike have compared to a “military Disneyland.” Its theme park trappings of guns and ammo are intended to promote both arm sales and a sense of patriotism among Russians. Speaking to...
The 21-year-old allegedly killed nine people inside a black church; he was captured Thursday morning in N.C.
Next Page of Stories
Loading...
Page 5
JEDDAH: Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second deputy premier and minister of defense, will begin an official visit to Russia on Wednesday and hold talks with President Vladimir Putin, a Royal Court statement said.
Prince Mohammed’s landmark visit to Moscow comes on the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, the statement said, adding that the minister would meet with a number of Russian officials to explore prospects of expanding cooperation between the two countries.
The royal visit will witness the signing of a number of agreements in various fields and will contribute to further bolstering relations between the two countries, an official statement said. The visit is in response to an invitation from the Russian government.
Prince Mohammed had held talks with Russian Ambassador to the Kingdom Oleg Ozerov on regional developments during the past two months.
Saudi-Russian relations began in 1926 when the Soviet Union recognized Saudi Arabia, thus becoming the first foreign country to recognize the Kingdom. In 1930 the Soviet Consulate was upgraded to an embassy.
High-level exchanges of visits played a big role in strengthening relations. King Faisal, the a prince representing the king, visited Soviet Union in 1932. King Abdullah’s visit to Russia in 2003 — when he was crown prince — took the Saudi-Russian ties to new heights as he met with President Putin.Prince Mohammed’s landmark visit to Moscow comes on the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, the statement said, adding that the minister would meet with a number of Russian officials to explore prospects of expanding cooperation between the two countries.
The royal visit will witness the signing of a number of agreements in various fields and will contribute to further bolstering relations between the two countries, an official statement said. The visit is in response to an invitation from the Russian government.
Prince Mohammed had held talks with Russian Ambassador to the Kingdom Oleg Ozerov on regional developments during the past two months.
Saudi-Russian relations began in 1926 when the Soviet Union recognized Saudi Arabia, thus becoming the first foreign country to recognize the Kingdom. In 1930 the Soviet Consulate was upgraded to an embassy.
During that visit the two countries signed agreements for expanding cooperation in energy, science and technology. King Abdullah also opened an exhibition of Saudi products in Moscow, organized by the Council of Saudi Chambers.
King Salman visited Russia in 2006 — when he was the governor of Riyadh — and the visit contributed to further strengthening ties. Prince Sultan visited the country in 2007 when he was the crown prince and defense minister. Prince Sultan received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of International Relations in Moscow. That visit also expanded trade and economic ties.
Denis Grishkin / VedomostiAn international arbitration court ruled last July that Russia must pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos.
The Russian government has seen a number of its assets abroad apparently frozen following the Kremlin's refusal to abide by a multibillion-dollar court settlement compensating shareholders in the now-defunct oil company Yukos.
On Thursday, French police froze the accounts of Russian state-owned foreign news agency Rossia Segodnya, news agency Interfax reported, citing head editor Margarita Simonyan. The arrest is tied to the Yukos case, according to Interfax, and may be a prelude to more freezes across Europe.
“As concerns other countries, after the situation in France, the company is seeing about taking measures to prevent a halt in work on radio and online transmissions,” Simonyan said, Interfax reported.
The Kremlin also said on Thursday that it was carefully examining a reported Belgian move to seize Russian state property in Belgium.
Interfax said Wednesday that a Belgian arbitration court had ruled in favor of a group of former shareholders about seizing Russian state property worth 1.65 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in Belgium. Belgian bailiffs Sacre and De Smet declined to comment.
An international arbitration court ruled last July that Russia must pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos, which was once Russia's biggest oil producer and was run by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a billionaire businessman who fell out with the Kremlin.
The GML group of former shareholders who made the claim said then it would be hard to get Moscow to pay, so it started "recognition proceedings" in Britain, the United States, Belgium and France to enforce the decision in their capitals.
In Belgium and France that means that GML "can attach assets of the Russian government to safeguard the ultimate award," said Tim Osborne, director of the GML group, in a move which forces local courts to freeze Russian state assets, possibly for years.
"Russia has made no effort to contact us to try and discuss [the $50 billion award] and has made it very clear that they are not going to pay it, so we are left with no choice but to enforce it," he told Reuters.
"It will take a number of years, we always knew it would … but we've got the stamina and budget to do it,” Osborne said.
Several dozen companies in Belgium had been told to provide information on whether they own any Russian state assets, Interfax and other local media said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government and its lawyers would look into the matter.
"We are now in the most careful manner examining all circumstances of the claim," he said.
The Kremlin has said previously that it considers the judgment purely political. There is no provision in the federal budget this year for payment to the Yukos investors. The budget is already under pressure from an expected 3 percent economic contraction this year amid low oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
A Kremlin aide, Andrei Belousov, said the court's decision contained a number of violations.
"We are concerned. We expect a number of countries to take similar measures," he told reporters at an economic forum in St. Petersburg.
Alexei Ulyukayev, Russia's economic development minister, said he considered the move to be unlawful.
The head of a subsidiary of Russian bank VTB, Mikhail Zadornov, told the Rossia-24 television station that the accounts of Russian companies and its diplomatic mission had been frozen at the bank's French subsidiary on Wednesday. He added that the diplomatic accounts were unblocked.
Reuters is checking the reports.
Yukos' former shareholders had celebrated the award made by the court in The Hague last year, which ruled that the Russian authorities had subjected Yukos to politically motivated attacks when it was broken up and nationalized, with most assets handed to Russian oil producer Rosneft.
Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and convicted of theft and tax evasion in 2005, seen by many critics as punishment for opposing Putin though the Kremlin denies this.
On Twitter, Khodorkovsky, who now lives in exile and is critical of the government, welcomed the move.
"I expect that the money will be spent on projects that will benefit Russian society," he said.
Material from The Moscow Times was included in this report.
Read the whole story
· · ·
BRUSSELS — The European Union is set to extend by six months economic sanctions againstRussia, calming fears that Greece’s acrimonious negotiations over its debt crisis might allow Russiato break the unity of the 28-nation bloc in its response to the conflict in Ukraine.
A decision to prolong the sanctions, which expire at the end of July, was made by European ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday and is expected to be ratified at a meeting of foreign ministers early next week in Luxembourg, diplomats in Brussels said.
Moscow lobbied hard against a renewal of the sanctions, imposed last year in tandem with similar measures by the United States after Russia annexed Crimea in March and then provided support to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Decisions on sanctions require unanimity, so Russia needed to win over only one European Union country to block an extension. But it failed in efforts to secure a blocking vote from any of the countries that have shown little enthusiasm for sanctions. These include Greece, Cyprus and Hungary, all of which Moscow has actively courted.
How Russia aims to achieve its goal of keeping Ukraine isolated from the West.
OPEN Graphic
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a Polish member of the European Parliament and vice chairman for foreign affairs of the assembly’s largest political grouping, said he had worried that Greece’s left-wing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, might use his country’s veto power to try to secure bailout money from Russia if deadlocked talks with Western creditors yielded no new funds.
“My fear was that he intended to auction his veto in both Brussels and Moscow,” Mr. Saryusz-Wolski said. In the end, he added, “Moscow was not able to put a sufficiently big envelope on the table.”
Mr. Tsipras, who visited Moscow in April for talks with President Vladimir V. Putin, is scheduled to make another trip to Russia on Thursday, as finance ministers from the 19 countries that use the euro meet in Luxembourg to discuss Greece’s debt crisis. Unless Greece gets money from somewhere in the next two weeks, it is expected to default on loans from the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Saryusz-Wolski cautioned that the decision to extend sanctions was preliminary and could still be reversed or delayed when European Union foreign ministers meet next week. Diplomats in Brussels, however, said they were confident the agreement struck by ambassadors on Wednesday would hold.
The United States lobbied against any letup in sanctions, securing agreement from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other leaders at a Group of 7 summit meeting last week that they should remain in place until Russia helps to fully put in place a shaky peace plan for eastern Ukraine agreed in Minsk, Belarus, in February.
The Minsk deal committed both pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces to a cease-fire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons. Fighting has continued nonetheless, with recent weeks seeing a particularly serious flare-up in hostilities.
“If the European Union had not managed to maintain sanctions after all this, it would have seriously damaged its credibility,” said Amanda Paul of the European Policy Center, a Brussels research institute. She predicted that Russia would keep up pressure in eastern Ukraine and on the European Union by trying to woo countries like Greece into blocking sanctions in the future.
While working to reverse Western sanctions amid a slump in its economic growth, Russia has all along insisted that the measures would have little impact on an economy also hit by a fall in world oil and gas prices, and that they would not sway Kremlin policy. On Wednesday, Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, was quoted by Russian news media as saying that Moscow had already taken an extension of the measures into account in its economic planning, Reuters reported.
Some European nations, notably the Baltic States and Poland, pushed for tougher sanctions against Russia but settled for a simple extension of existing restrictions on access to capital by Russian banks and selected companies involved in energy and defense.
Correction: June 17, 2015
An earlier version of this article overstated the area that Russia annexed last year. It annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea, not all of Ukraine.
An earlier version of this article overstated the area that Russia annexed last year. It annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea, not all of Ukraine.
Read the whole story
· · · ·
Лидеры России и Саудовской Аравии обменяются визитами
Владимир Путин встретился с преемником Наследного принца, министром обороны Саудовской Аравии Мухаммедом Бен Сальман
Владимир Путин принял предложение приехать в Саудовскую Аравию. Король этой страны также собирается совершить визит в Россию.
"Вы знаете, что я в телефонном разговоре пригласил короля Саудовской Аравии посетить Российскую Федерацию с визитом. Хотел бы подтвердить это приглашение и передать королю самые наилучшие пожелания", - сказал Путин на встрече с преемником наследного принца, министром обороны Саудовской Аравии Мухаммедом бен Сальманом. Беседа состоялась на полях Петербургского международного экономического форума.
"Хранитель двух святынь подтверждает, что он принимает приглашение посетить Россию", - сообщил бен Сальман. "Также имею честь передать приглашение посетить королевство Саудовская Аравия, потому что мы рассматриваем Россию как одно из важных государств в современном мире, и наши отношения уходят в историю", - добавил он.
Путин заявил, что с удовольствием воспользуется приглашением и вспомнил теплый прием, оказанный ему в Саудовской Аравии в прошлый раз. "У нас добрые отношения складываются на протяжении многих лет, мы дорожим характером этих отношений", - оценил он, отметив рост товарооборота. "Он пока скромный по абсолютным величинам, но в целом имеет хорошую динамику", - констатировал президент.
В прошлом году взаимная торговля выросла на 8 процентов, до 1,2 млрд долларов. За январь-март этого года - уже на 60 процентов. Перспективное направление сотрудничества - сельское хозяйство.
Поскольку саудовские власти решили со следующего года отказаться от производства пшеницы, Минсельхоз прорабатывает возможность увеличения поставок зерна в королевство и привлечения саудовских инвестиций в российский АПК. Укрепляются связи по линии силовых ведомств по взаимодействию в борьбе с терроризмом, оргпреступностью и наркотрафиком.
"Россия была первым иностранным государством, которое признало Саудовскую Аравию в 1926 году, и поэтому мы будем стремиться к развитию двухсторонних отношений во всех областях", - заверил Мухаммед бен Сальман.
Read the whole story
· ·
Здание МИД России
Фото: Екатерина Кузьмина/РБК
МИД России расценил арест российских госактивов как «откровенно недружественный акт, грубое нарушение общепризнанных норм международного права» и в связи с этим вызвал посла Бельгии Алекса Ван Меувена для дачи объяснений.
Как говорится в сообщении МИД, ведомство потребовало от бельгийской стороны незамедлительно принять меры «по восстановлению нарушенных в Бельгии суверенных прав Российской Федерации и обеспечению нормального функционирования российских учреждений и юридических лиц». «В противном случае российская сторона будет вынуждена рассмотреть вопрос о принятии адекватных ответных мер в отношении находящегося в Российской Федерации имущества Королевства Бельгия, в том числе имущества посольства Бельгии в Москве, а также его юридических лиц», — говорится в сообщении.
В заявлении МИД отдельно отмечается, что Ван Меувен заверил, что передаст ноту протеста властям своей страны.
Как стало известно накануне, Бельгия наложила арест на госактивы России в этой стране. Решение было принято на основании приговора Гаагского арбитража по иску «ЮКОС Юниверсал Лимитед» от 18 июля 2014 года. По нему Россия обязана выплатить бывшим владельцам ЮКОСа $50 млрд, из которых €1,6 млрд — исковые требования «ЮКОС Юниверсал Лимитед». Срок, по которому Россия должна была предоставить Совету Европы план выплат по делу ЮКОСа, истек в понедельник, 15 июня.
В четверг стало известно, что французские приставы также приступили к исполнению судебных решений об аресте имущества России. В частности, был арестован счет представительства международного информационного агентства «Россия сегодня». Местные офисы ТАСС и ВГТРК получили предписания, суть которых госкомпании пока не раскрывают.
Решение бельгийских и французских властей вызвали острую реакцию российских чиновников и топ-менеджеров. В частности, глава РЖД Владимир Якинун назвал принявших такое решение «идиотами»: «Я против идиотов ничего сказать не могу, кроме пожелания обращаться к психиатру».
Вице-президент «Роснефти» Михаил Леонтьев заявил, что если представители Бельгии «перепили пива бельгийского», то это не проблема России. По его словам, решение напоминает «детские незрелые половые игры с публичным раздражением интересующих органов». Леонтьев также пояснил, что все имущество, принадлежащее предприятиям, контролируемым государством «на сколько угодно процентов», считается частным, поэтому арестовать его нельзя.
Действия Франции, которая последовала за Бельгией, он назвал произволом и предложил российским властям арестовать все французские активы на территории РФ.
Read the whole story
· · ·
June 17, 2015 10:01 AM EDT - Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia will add more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its arsenal, prompting NATO to accuse Moscow of "saber-rattling." (Reuters)
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
Comments
Post a Comment