Hero passengers overpower French train gunman by itnnews Saturday August 22nd, 2015 at 11:25 AM
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Three American men and one Briton describe how they overpowered a heavily-armed gunman on a train in northern France. Report by Cara Legg.
It’s time for enlightened countries to address a human-rights chasm.
European Commission chief Jean Claude Juncker will hold talks in Brussels with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about the tattered ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, the commission said August 21.
Man's Death Sparks Clashes In Azerbaijani Cityby support@pangea-cms.com (RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service)
Police clashed with residents in the Azerbaijani city of Mingachevir on August 22, a day after a young Azerbaijani man was found dead after being questioned by local police.
Two U.S. soldiers overpowered a shooter armed with an automatic rifle on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris on August 21, in an incident that left three people wounded, French authorities said.
Iran has unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile, which features more advanced sensors and technology than earlier rockets.
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Police clashed with residents in the Azerbaijani city of Mingachevir on August 22, a day after a young Azerbaijani man was found dead after being questioned by local police. Police say the man jumped out of a window while being interrogated. (RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service)
PARIS (Reuters) - A machine gun-toting attacker wounded three people on a high-speed train in France on Friday before being overpowered by passengers who included an American soldier.
 New York Times |
Donald Trump Widens Lead Over US Republican Presidential Field: Poll
NDTV WASHINGTON: Republican Donald Trump is pulling away from the pack in the race for the party's US presidential nomination, widening his lead over his closest rivals in the past week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday. Republican voters show no signs ... Jindal joins Trump in opposing birthright citizenshipMoneycontrol.com Donald Trump hypes up Alabama rally, slamming his GOP opponents while wanting ...New York Daily News Bobby Jindal joins Donald Trump in opposing birthright citizenshipFinancial Express National Review Online -Washington Post all 1,597 news articles » |
NDTV |
NATO Says 3 Foreigners Among 10 Killed by Afghan Car Bomb
ABC News A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy traveling through a crowded neighborhood in Afghanistan's capital Saturday, killing at least 10 people, including three foreign contractors, authorities said. The attack struck near the private Shinozada ... NATO says 3 foreign contractors killed by Afghan car bomb; officials say death ...Washington Post UPDATE 2-Car bomb outside hospital in Afghan capital kills threeReuters Suicide car bombing targeting convoy kills 3 in AfghanistanUSA TODAY Times of India -Hindustan Times all 39 news articles » |
The Guardian |
Single-Seat Jet Crashes at UK Airshow,' Several Casualties'
New York Times LONDON — British police say a single-seater jet has crashed at an airshow in southern England, causing several casualties. Police say the aircraft, believed to be a Hawker Hunter fighter jet participating in the Shoreham Airshow near Brighton, came ... 'Casualties' as airshow plane crashes into cars on A27 at ShorehamBBC News Shoreham Air Show plane crash: major explosion after Hawker Hunter smashes...Telegraph.co.uk Plane crashes at Shoreham Air Show in south England, casualties reportedABC Online Sydney Morning Herald -Irish Independent -Irish Times all 83 news articles » |
Reuters |
Iran unveils new missile, says seeks peace through strength
Reuters DUBAI Iran on Saturday unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile it said could strike targets with pin-point accuracy within a range of 500 km (310 miles) and it said military might was a precondition for peace and effective diplomacy. The defense ... Iran unveils new missile, says peace requires military mightThe Times of Israel Iran planning ballistic missile war gamesWashington Times Iran unveils new ballistic missileTrend News Agency Tehran Times -Daily Press -Press TV all 25 news articles » |
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Fox News |
Judge Orders Immigrant Families Released From Detention
ABC News A federal judge in California has ordered the government to release immigrant children from family detention centers "without unnecessary delay," and with their mothers when possible, according to court papers. In a filing late Friday, California U.S ... Judge rules US government must swiftly release immigrant children in detentionReuters Judge orders prompt release of immigrant children from detentionLos Angeles Times Federal judge orders Obama administration to release detained mothers and children Kansas City Star all 94 news articles » |
When Donald Trump launched his presidential bid in June by calling Mexican migrants “rapists,” artisan Dalton Avalos made what was likely the first piñata of the white haired red-faced tycoon. From his family workshop in the border city of Reynosa, the 28-year old added thick layers of papier-mache so the piñata, a hollow figure that is traditionally hung at fiestas, could be whacked especially hard.
Photos of the Trump piñata rapidly became a media sensation, and copies were made across Mexico and in many migrant communities in the United States. They show how many here are angry at Trump for his discourse, but also see him as a joke. “We like to laugh at people like him and the nonsense that comes out of his mouth,” Avalos says.
Such a mix of indignation and mirth characterizes the reaction to Trump’s rise by many in Mexico, who take offense at his comments on immigrants but don’t believe he is a serious contender. This attitude has largely continued despite Trump’s surge at the polls, such as this week’s CNN/ORC survey finding him 6 points behind Hillary Clinton as a preference for president. Trump’s opinion have filled Mexican news shows, making him a well-known figure south of the Rio Grande. But many here think someone with views that seem to them to be offensive and unrealistic could never be the president of their powerful northern neighbor.
“Donald Trump is loco (mad),” says Angelica Cortes, a 37-year old architect coming out of an office block in a middle class Mexico City neighborhood. “The people of the United States would never put him in charge. What he says makes me indignant. He attacks people who are just trying to make a living, to feed their families.”
Even migrant activists, who represent the community most threatened by Trump’s proposed policies, refuse to believe that Trump is a credible challenge. “His ideas are so ridiculous that they could never happen,” says activist Jorge Mujica, who is originally from Mexico City but now lives in Chicago and is part of the Mexican American Coalition. In a policy paper released Sunday, Trump proposed ending birth right citizenship and seizing money sent by migrants from the United States to Mexico among other measures. He has also called for Mexico to pay for an extended wall on the southern border. “Trump doesn’t seem to realize that these things are politically impossible,” Mujica says. “Rather than making you cry, it makes you laugh.”
However, some Mexican academics are beginning to take the ascent of “The Donald” more seriously in light of the recent polls. “A month ago, I thought that Trump had absolutely no chance. But now I’m not totally sure. Americans can vote in weird ways,” says Jorge Chabat at Mexico City’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics. Nevertheless, he thinks even a Trump presidency could not alter the Mexico-U.S. relationship that drastically. “Presidents are not gods. Trump could attack Mexico verbally but that would not change the enormous amount of cross-border trade or the entrenched cooperation between the security services.”
There have been various tense moments between the United States and Mexico in recent decades. In 1969, President Richard Nixon virtually shut down the U.S. southern border for 10 days to pressure Mexico over marijuana production. In 1985, the Reagan administration expressed fury over the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico. In 2011, President Felipe Calderon lashed out at U.S. ambassador Carlos Pascual over diplomatic cables exposed by Wikileaks, leading to Pascual’s resignation. But throughout these eras, trade has steadily increased. Mexico is now the United States’ third biggest trading partner after Canada and China, with $506 billion in cross-border trade last year. About 11 million Mexicans are estimated to live in the United States, about half without papers.
Since Trump launched his campaign, various Mexican businesses have boycotted him. Most notably, telecoms magnate Carlos Slim, the second richest man on the planet, canceled some media projects with the presidential hopeful. “Working with someone so closed-minded was not going to work,” says Slim’s spokesman and son-in-law Arturo Elias. The U.S. based Spanish language network Univision had also announced it would no longer air Trump’s Miss Universe pageant because of his comments.
The Mexican government has issued various rebuttals to Trump’s discourse. On Wednesday, the Foreign Relations Department issued a statement calling his proposals racist. “We maintain our position that these comments (by Trump) reflect prejudice, racism and total ignorance.” On Thursday, the Department also condemned an attack on a Mexican man in Boston, in which the assailants reportedly told police that they were inspired by Trump. “Mexico strongly condemns these acts and makes a call that the contributions of the migrant community to the economy, society, values and culture of the United States are recognized.”
Mujica, the migrant activist, argues that the Mexican government should adopt an even tougher line on Trump, and asks why President Enrique Pena Nieto himself has not waded into the debate. “If your people are getting verbal abuse then you should defend them,” Mujica says. However, others says it is better not to rise to the bait. Gloria Trevi, a Mexican pop diva on a current U.S tour, said it is best to smile in the face of ignorance.“Latinos should react with class, not react in the same way as we are being provoked. We are greater than that. We have helped this country to be as big as it is in this moment,” Trevi said at a press conference in Los Angeles. “I think that with a smile on our face and with love is how we should respond to any attack and show the greatness of Latinos.”
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· · ·
(PYONGYANG, North Korea) — South Korea and North Korea were holding their first high-level talks in nearly a year at a border village on Saturday to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.
The closed-door meeting at Panmunjom, where the armistice ending fighting in the Korean War was agreed to in 1953, began Saturday evening, shortly after a deadline set by North Korea for the Southto dismantle loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border, said an official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry. North Korea had declared that its front-line troops were in full war readiness and prepared to go to battle if Seoul did not back down.
At the meeting, South Korea’s presidential national security director, Kim Kwan-jin, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo sat down with Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army, and Kim Yang Gon, a senior North Korean official responsible for South Korean affairs.
Hwang is considered by outside analysts to be North Korea’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
The meeting came as a series of incidents raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control, starting with a land mine attack, allegedly by the North, that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South’s resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts.
An official from South Korea’s Defense Ministry, who didn’t want to be named because of office rules, said that the South would continue with the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts during the meeting and would make a decision on whether to halt them depending on the result of the talks.
While the meeting offered a way for the rivals to avoid a collision for now, analysts in Seoul wondered whether the countries were standing too far apart to expect a quick agreement that could defuse the conflict.
“South Korea has openly vowed to cut off the vicious cycle of North Korean provocations, so it can’t manage to walk off with a weak settlement,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul. “The South will also likely demand the North to take responsibility for the land mine attack and apologize, and there isn’t much reason to think that Pyongyang would accept that.”
Koh, however, said that Saturday’s meeting might open the door to more meetings between the rivals to discuss a variety of issues.
South Korea had been using 11 loudspeaker systems along the border for the broadcasts, which included the latest news around the Korean Peninsula and the world, South Korean popular music and programs praising the South’s democracy and economic affluence over the North’s oppressive government, a senior military official said at a news conference, on condition of anonymity.
Each loudspeaker system has broadcast for more than 10 hours a day in three or four different time slots that were frequently changed for unpredictability, the official said. If North Korea attacks the loudspeakers, the South is ready to strike back at the North Korean units responsible for such attacks, he said.
Authoritarian North Korea, which has also restarted its own propaganda broadcasts, is extremely sensitive to any criticism of its government. Analysts in Seoul also believe the North fears that theSouth’s broadcasts could demoralize its front-line troops and inspire them to defect.
The high-level meeting was first proposed by Pyongyang on Friday afternoon. The rival countries reached an agreement for the meeting Saturday morning after the North accepted the South’sdemand that Hwang be present at the meeting, South Korea’s presidential office said.
Hwang and Kim Yang Gon visited South Korea in October last year during the Asian Games in Incheon, but their meeting with Kim, the South’s national security director, and then-Unification Ministry Ryoo Kihl-jae failed to improve ties between the countries.
In Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual Saturday and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks from the summer sun under parasols. There were no visible signs of increased security measures, though even under normal situations the city is heavily secured and fortified. More than 240 South Koreans entered a jointly run industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
The North’s state-run media has strongly ratcheted up its rhetoric, saying the whole nation is bracing for the possibility of an all-out war. Leader Kim Jong Un has been shown repeatedly on TV news broadcasts leading a strategy meeting with the top military brass to review the North’s attack plan, and young people are reportedly swarming to recruitment centers to sign up to join the fight.
“We have exercised our self-restraint for decades,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. “Now, no one’s talk about self-restraint is helpful to putting the situation under control. The army and people of the DPRK are poised not just to counteract or make any retaliation, but not to rule out all-out war to protect the social system, their own choice, at the risk of their lives.”
People were willing to talk about the tension and, as is common in public in North Korea — officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — they voiced support for their government’s policies and their leader. They also used phrases like “puppet gangsters” to refer to South Korean authorities — everyday terms in the North, in both state media and conversation.
“I think that the South Korean puppet gangsters should have the clear idea that thousands of our people and soldiers are totally confident in winning at any cost because we have our respected leader with us,” said Pyongyang citizen Choe Sin Ae.
It was not clear whether North Korea meant to attack immediately, if at all, but South Korea has vowed to continue the propaganda broadcasts, which it recently restarted following an 11-year stoppage after accusing Pyongyang of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.
Four U.S. F-16 fighter jets and four F-15k South Korean fighter jets simulated bombings on Saturday, starting on South Korea’s eastern coast and moving toward the U.S. base at Osan, near Seoul, officials said.
On Thursday, South Korea’s military fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up a threat to attack the loudspeakers.
Thousands of residents in border towns were told to move to shelters ahead of the Saturday afternoon deadline, while fishermen were banned for the second straight day from entering waters near South Korean islands close to the disputed western sea border with North Korea, officials said.
The North denies responsibility for the land mine attack and says it didn’t fire across the border, a claim Seoul says is nonsense.
The standoff comes during annual military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea. North Koreacalls the drills a preparation for invasion, although the U.S. and South Korea insist they are defensive in nature.
___
Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writers Foster Klug and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.
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· · · · ·
(GEVGELIJA, Macedonia) — Thousands of migrants have rushed past police who were attempting to block them from entering Macedonia from Greece.
The migrants went past barbed wire that blocked them from entry. Several people were injured when the police tried to stop them from rushing the border at another point on the border.
The chaos started when police decided to allow a small group of migrants with small children to cross the frontier and the rushing crowds in the back squeezed them toward the shielded police wall. Many women, at least one pregnant, and children fell to the ground apparently fainting after squeezing past the cordon.
There were no immediate reports of the number and the extent of injuries.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy traveling through a crowded neighborhood in Afghanistan’s capital Saturday, killing at least 10 people, including three foreign contractors, authorities said.
The attack struck near the private Shinozada hospital in the capital’s Macrorayan neighborhood, the sound of the powerful blast roaring throughout the capital.
The bombing killed at least nine Afghan civilians and one foreigner and wounded 60, said Wahidullah Mayar, a Health Ministry spokesman. U.S. Col. Brian Tribus, a NATO spokesman, said the three contractors had been killed, without elaborating.
Conflicting information is common after such attacks.
Najib Danish, a deputy Interior Ministry spokesman, said the attack destroyed more than a dozen of civilian vehicles.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though the Taliban has stepped up its assaults on Afghan security forces since U.S. and NATO troops ended their combat mission in the country last year. The militants also have launched a series of attacks in Kabul in recent weeks following Afghan authorities announcing the death of Taliban figurehead Mullah Mohammad Omar.
When Turkey began a two-pronged assault against Islamic State and Kurdish PKK rebels last month, critics of the Turkish government worried the fight would spread to other Kurdish targets. VOA Kurdish Service reporter Zana Omer has more on anti-IS Kurdish forces' allegations that they have recently come under Turkish attack in Syria, in this report narrated by Roger Wilkison.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/syrian-kurdish-forces-allege-turkish-attacks/2928116.html
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Kabul Car-Bomb Blast Kills 3, Wounds Dozensby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
A car-bomb attack outside a hospital in Kabul Saturday has killed at least three people, and the casualty toll is expected to grow, officials in the Afghan capital said. Reports from the scene said the bomber targeted a convoy of foreign forces in a residential neighborhood of downtown Kabul. Initial accounts said the blast killed at least three Afghan civilians. However, a Foreign Ministry spokesman quoted by Reuters said the toll could be as high as 10 dead, and that one foreign...
An American soldier has told how he helped overpower a gunman who opened fire on a train from Amsterdam to Paris.
Three of the four men who tackled a gunman on a train en route to Paris speak to the press about their actions. American student Anthony Sadler, soldier Alek Skarlatos and Briton Chris Norman describe the events on board the train and the actions of Spencer Stone who first intercepted the gunman. Stone was wounded in the battle with the attacker and Sadler and Skarlatos praise their friend’s bravery
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Bernard Cazeneuve, the French minister of the interior, holds a press conference on Saturday following the thwarted attack on a train travelling to Paris by a gunman. The attacker was overpowered by passengers on the train and three people were injured in the struggle. Cazeneuve tells the press that the individual could be a Moroccan man who Spanish intelligence services warned French police about in 2014. However, the minister says this is yet to be confirmed
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Video shot on a mobile phone shows the moments after three US citizens, two of whom were military personnel, overpowered a gunman on a high-speed train travelling between Amsterdam and Paris. Two people were injured including one of the Americans. One British citizen, Chris Norman, also helped tie up the suspect
Warning: this video contains graphic scenes
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Americans Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, and British IT consultant Chris Norman, describe how they overthrew a gunman aboard an Amsterdam-Paris train
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British management consultant Chris Norman tells how he helped restrain gunman who brought terror to high-speed Amsterdam to Paris train
The man who tried to bring carnage to a high-speed train lived in Spain and France and travelled to Syria last year
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· ·
Footage shows the gunman who attacked an Amsterdam-Paris train lying face-down with his hands tied behind his back after being overthrown by passengers
Police have reportedly been showing a copy of a Turkish passport as they question hotel staff and motorbike taxi drivers in the manhunt for the chief suspect in Bangkok's worst terrorist atrocity
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Colombia Confronts Femicide, 'Most Extreme Form of Violence Against Women' by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Colombia's new law on femicide is a key step to combat violence against women, but forensic experts and prosecutors will need to change the way they investigate gender-related killings to win convictions, officials said. In this Latin American country of 47 million people where on average one woman is killed every two days, the issue of femicide - defined as the killing of a woman by a man because of her gender - is under the spotlight. The law, which came into effect July 6, makes...
Lula's Legacy Threatened as Brazil Crisis Simmersby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
An ongoing political and economic crisis once more threatens to fell the tallest tree in Brazil's political landscape: former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. His once-sterling legacy, previously tarnished by a Congressional vote-buying scandal, is being sullied further by economic and political turmoil that has driven approval ratings for his hand-picked successor into single digits. And a far-reaching corruption probe around state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or...
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Mistrial Declared in US Police Officer's Manslaughter Trialby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
A judge in the U.S. state of North Carolina declared a mistrial Friday after a jury deadlocked in the trial of a white police officer charged in the death of an unarmed black man. The jury deliberated for more than three days before telling the judge they were deadlocked 8-4, and saw no possibility of reaching a verdict. The judge did not reveal which way the jury was leaning in the case against police officer Randall Kerrick. Kerrick faced a charge of voluntary manslaughter in the...
‘Spy’Jailing Stirs Fears of Russian Interference in Balticsby webdesk@voanews.com (Henry Ridgwell)
The sentencing by Russia this week of an Estonian security official to 15 years in jail for alleged spying is the latest incident amid growing tension between Moscow and the Baltic states. NATO fears Russia is trying to foment unrest among native Russian populations. Officials from the Baltic states and several NATO members attended the opening Thursday of the bloc’s Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia – a facility aimed at tackling cyber warfare and...
France Studies Terrorism Link to Train Attackerby webdesk@voanews.com (Lisa Bryant)
France says the man who attacked Friday a train between Amsterdam and Paris appears to have been under investigation in Spain for links to militant Islam. French authorities are now questioning him and security has been stepped up at airports and stations around the country. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said authorities were still trying to identify the man who opened fire on a packed train heading to Paris the day before. If his...
TOKYO – North Korea said Saturday that it had completed preparations for military action, cautioning that its ultimatum to the South to stop psychological warfare by Saturday evening or face military action “is not just a mere warning.”Read full article >>
BRUSSELS – A gunman opened fire on a packed high-speed train running from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday before being tackled and tied up by three Americans, according to family members and French officials, who said their quick work had foiled a major tragedy.Read full article >>
Главный редактор "Эха Москвы" Алексей Венедиктов заявил, что Владимир Путин останется на посту президента России до 2024 года.
"Сейчас всем понятно, что в 2018 году Путин пойдет на выборы и изберется, не исключено, что на своем посту он пробудет до 2024 года, если здоровье позволит", - приводит слова Вендеиктова издание "Точно".
Он также отметил, что если по какой-либо причине Путин решит уйти с поста добровольно, то он назначит близкого преемника.
В качестве преемника могут быть ряд персон, таких как Дмитрий Медведев, Сергей Иванов, Сергей Нарышкин.
"Сейчас все реальные решения в стране принимает Путин", - подчеркнул Венедиктов.
Как ранее сообщал "Российский Диалог", во вторник президент России Владимир Путин в очередной раз подтвердил свое звание «человека действия» - он погрузился на мини-подлодке к месту кораблекрушения у берегов Крымского полуострова, изъятого Москвой у Украины в прошлом году.
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©AFP
Vladimir Yakunin is leaving his job as president of Russia's state-owned railways enterprise
One is a key member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, head of Russia’s state-owned railway enterprise and a friend of the president’s since his days in St Petersburg. The other is Mr Putin’s long-term spokesman — a low-profile figure who prefers to keep the spotlight on his boss.
During a quiet summer in which the other big news stories have been the incineration of European cheese and Mr Putin’s trip in a mini-submarine, the political headlines have centred on Vladimir Yakunin, the president of Russian Railways, and Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.
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Mr Yakunin surprised many this week when he revealed he was leaving Russian Railways to run as senator for the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad — a move most analysts viewed as a demotion.
Mr Peskov, meanwhile, has found himself under media scrutiny after he was photographed at his wedding wearing a Richard Mille watch worth about $600,000 — more than four times his annual salary.
Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner, further alleged that Mr Peskov and his new wife then honeymooned aboard Maltese Falcon, a luxury yacht that cost €350,000 a week to charter. Mr Peskov has denied the yacht allegations, insisting he and Tatiana Navka, an Olympic figure skater, spent their honeymoon at a hotel in Sicily. The timepiece, he added, was a gift from Ms Navka.
The difficulties faced by Mr Peskov and Mr Yakunin reveal much about how Mr Putin manages his inner circle at a time when Russia’s economy has taken another turn for the worse. The two stories are also likely to have very different endings: Mr Yakunin has lost his position while Mr Peskov is almost certain to keep his.
“[Mr Yakunin] wasn’t directly fired but for all practical purposes he has just lost a lucrative position he has held for many years,” said Masha Lipman, visiting fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. Mr Peskov, by contrast, appeared to have successfully shrugged off the corruption allegations. “Despite reports about the watch and the yacht he seems to be completely undisturbed,” she said.
Mr Yakunin has also been the subject anti-corruption investigations by Mr Navalny. In 2013, the activist published the plans of an estate owned by Mr Yakunin outside Moscow, which included a facility to store fur coats. Mr Yakunin denied the existence of such a room and said he had sold the property. Another investigation by Mr Navalny focused on the business successes of Mr Yakunin’s son, and the foreign properties registered in his children’s name.
©AFP
Dmitry Peskov is accused of a fondness for luxuries
Why then is the experienced Mr Yakunin being sent to Kaliningrad while the functionary Mr Peskov is likely to continue to speak for the president? The answer, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a former adviser to the Kremlin, is that “every person at the top is allowed a certain number of scandals that Putin can handle. But Putin gets to decide when the glass is full.”
He and other Kremlin watchers said they did not believe Mr Yakunin’s demotion was related to the corruption allegations, but to his management of Russian Railways. Mr Yakunin has been criticised for not modernising the state company and Russia’s lagging infrastructure quick enough. He has also been a vocal opponent of the liberalisation of Russia’s rail industry.
Andrew Weiss, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, said Mr Yakunin was almost fired last year, only to be given a temporary reprieve after he was put under US sanctions. To dismiss one of Russia’s most vocal patriots then would have looked as though Mr Putin had caved in to western pressure, Mr Weiss added.
“Yakunin has been a poster child with everything that’s wrong with the state monopolies,” he pointed out. “Now with Russia on the eve an election cycle that will carry us through [to the] spring 2018 presidential election a company of Russian Railways’ size needs to be in competent hands.”
There is speculation in Moscow that the Yakunin move — the highest-level personnel change in the country’s leadership in more than three years — could lead to more reshuffling in the elite. Mr Pavlovsky said he could see one or two major job changes following in the coming months.
Mr Putin has been unusually quiet about the developments. This week, he said “it was [Mr Yakunin’s] choice” to leave Russian Railways. He has yet to comment on Oleg Belozerov, a little-known bureaucrat who was previously deputy transport minister and is to replace Mr Yakunin.
The president’s thinking on such matters was, however, outlined in a 2009 essay in the Russian journal Russky Pioner titled: “Why is it hard to sack a person?”
“A crisis is a good occasion and the right time to talk about cadres,” Mr Putin wrote, adding that he always gave someone a chance to defend themselves and their record before firing them. As for the deed itself: “I, unlike the former Soviet leaders, always do it in person,” he added.
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The global stock selloff spells less trouble for the economics of rich countries than for those in emerging markets.
Senior officials from the two Koreas met for talks at a border outpost, offering a possible route out of a military standoff.
Iran unveiled a short-range solid fuel ballistic missile, an upgraded version that it says can more accurately pinpoint targets.
Authorities praised the two U.S. military members who tackled and subdued a gunman on a Paris-bound train Friday, breaking up what could have been a deadly terrorist attack.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A federal judge in California has ordered the government to release immigrant children from family detention centers "without unnecessary delay," and with their mothers when possible, according to court papers.
In a filing late Friday, California U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee refused the government's request to ...
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U.S. forces are on “enhanced status” as a deterrent measure after resuming annual war games with South Korea in wake of the South’s rare exchange of fire with North Korea Thursday, according to the Department of Defense.
NBCNews.com |
Two Members of US Military Rushed France Train Attacker
NBCNews.com Two members of the U.S. military rushed a gunman who opened fire aboard a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris Friday afternoon, thwarting what could have been a much more serious attack. National Guard soldier Alek Skarlatos said in an interview ... 2 members of US military stop Islamist attacker on train in BelgiumCNN US military members overpower gunman on train in FranceNew York Post 3 wounded as off-duty US servicemen subdue gunman on Paris-bound trainFox News Wall Street Journal all 1,096 news articles » |
August 22, 2015, 7:45 AM (IDT)
Spanish anti-terrorist sources identified the gunman who injured three passengers on the Amsterdam-Paris fast train Friday as Ayoub el-Qahzzani, a 26-year-old Moroccan who was known to secret services, according to El Pais. They said he "had residency" in Spain for a year until 2014, when he moved to France. He then traveled to Syria and returned to France soon after.
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Reports: Israeli leaders drew up plans to attack Iranian military
CNN "In 2010, the military chief of staff said Israel lacked the 'operational capability'; in 2011, two key ministers waffled at the last minute; and in 2012, the timing did not work out because of a joint United States-Israel military exercise and visit ... and more » |
August 22, 2015, 7:52 AM (IDT)
President Obama expressed profound gratitude for the “courage and quick thinking” of several passengers, including US service members, who subdued the gunman on the Amsterdam-Paris train. Their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy, he said.
The two Americans, described as unarmed US marines, who subdued the gunman were Anthony Sadler, from Pittsburg, California and Alek Skarlatos from Roseburg, Oregon. Chris Norman, a Briton living in France, pitched in to help them. French news accounts said he was armed with an automatic pistol, a Kalashnikov rifle and a box cutter knife.
The high-speed train is popular for travel between France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. It is used extensively by businesspeople, diplomats, European Union officials and tourists. Unlike the Eurostar train between Paris and London, luggage does not pass through X-ray machines or other forms of screening.
For years, North Korea's litany of threats has been largely dismissed — Seoul, after all, is still not drowning in a "sea of fire," despite Pyongyang's repeated promises to make it so.
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The Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, is taking a calculated approach to arguably the most consequential decision of his early tenure — whether to recommend that any all-male combat roles remain closed to women.
August 22, 2015, 9:18 AM (IDT)
The Moroccan gunman, Ayoub Qahzzani, 26, who injured three passengers on the Amsterdam-Paris fast train Friday, Aug. 21, before he was subdued, was one more Muslim extremist known to French intelligence who was nonetheless able to commit an act of terror. debkafile: This selfsame scenario has been repeated time and again in three years since the Toulouse Jewish school outrage. The bravery of two US servicemen and other passengers averted a massacre on the packed Thalys train.
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Police, FBI searching for motive after fatal shooting at federal building in ...
Fox News NEW YORK – Investigators are trying to determine why an armed veteran opened fire in a federal building in Manhattan, fatally shooting a security guard before killing himself. Federal agents swarmed the New Jersey home of Kevin Downing late Friday. Police, FBI trying to determine motive in fatal shooting at NYC federal buildingCP24 Toronto's Breaking News all 439 news articles » |
FORT BENNING, Georgia (AP) - The Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, is taking a calculated approach to arguably the most consequential decision of his early tenure - whether to recommend that any all-male combat roles remain closed to women.
Central to his thinking, he said in an ...
Overnight, police let only small groups of families with children cross the border by walking to a railway station in the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, where most take trains to the border with Serbia before heading toward EU-member Hungary.
Permanence may be the illusion of every age, but predictions are hard, and so history is littered with Paul Ehrlichs and Harold Campings whose premonitions of apocalypse fail to come true. Yet one does also see the occasional Cassandra, whose warnings go unheeded until too late. It thus seems understandable that James Piereson, president of the William E. Simon Foundation and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, hedges his bets in Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of America’s Postwar Political Order, his new book about the imminent collapse of the political order that has dominated America since World War II. Instead of telling us when and how this order will collapse, he tells us it simply must, and explains why.
Piereson identifies for his readers a historical pattern: since the Founding, “the political economy of American capitalism has evolved in three distinct chapters.” These are the “Jefferson-Jacksonian Era” of mounting conflict over slavery from 1800-1860, the “capitalist-industrialist era” of laissez-faire from 1865 to 1930, and the “postwar welfare state” that emerged in the 1930s and ’40s.
The last of these is, in Piereson’s reckoning, nearing its end. Our era awaits only a crisis on the magnitude of the Civil War or the Great Depression to usher in its successor, an age that will be characterized by political and cultural traits dramatically different from our own.
Though the initial appeal of Piereson’s theory comes from the intriguing regularity of these “regime changes” in American history—they arrive roughly every 70 years—Piereson knows that history is not a metronome. But his wide-ranging observations on the senescence and decadence of some of the fundamental aspects of our postwar welfare state will force the reader to think.
Consider economics, or higher education. Our Keynesian economic infrastructure has become less tenable because “Keynesian spending policies may in fact encourage the formation of distributional coalitions that eventually render those policies less effective,” straining the political relationship “between influential rent-seeking groups and those who are compelled to fund their benefits.” Our academic infrastructure, an essential tool to enforce the liberal consensus, has in the past 50 years “gone through a democratizing revolution, with the result that more students are being sold an increasingly expensive product that neither their professors nor the deans and presidents of their colleges can even begin to define.”
Piereson covers a lot of ground in his analysis, describing how the American university became what it is today; how conservatism emerged as a respectable political philosophy against overwhelming odds after World War II; how the assassination of John F. Kennedy by a Fidel Castro sympathizer created a crisis in contemporary American liberalism that still affects us today (an argument he has explored in full elsewhere); how today’s polarized America emerged from successful efforts, on both left and right, to form an institutional framework that has locked the two camps in a stalemate—and much, much more. The result is a thorough survey of the major political and cultural institutions of our time.
Though mostly a collection of material already published by Piereson, the book—the general argument which expands on a widely read essay—doesn’t feel stale at all. But is it right about the future? Piereson is, at least, optimistic about what’s coming. He assures readers that the end of our era need not find them “hoarding gold or stockpiling canned food.” Indeed, conservative readers will take comfort in Piereson’s belief that the coming era will likely have “a focus on growth,” “an emphasis on federalism,” and “a campaign to depoliticize the public sector” by restraining public sector unions. Yet one also can’t blame those same readers for wondering, given today’s political environment, how such dramatic changes will, or can, occur—or whether there might be dramatic changes, but in the other direction.
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