Saturday, September 3, 2022

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 WEED, Calif. (AP) — The fire-stricken Northern California town of Weed has long been seen by passersby as a whimsical spot to stop along Interstate 5 and buy an ironic T-shirt, but residents say they've grown edgy in recent years due to a new danger: Dark skies, swirling ash and flames that race so quickly they leave little time for escape.

Former President Donald Trump responded to President Joe Biden's condemnation of "MAGA Republicans" by calling the president an "enemy of the state" during a Saturday rally in Pennsylvania. 

Across the United Kingdom, businesses and households are warning that they won't make it through the winter without help from the government. That sets up enormous challenges for the incoming prime minister, who will be announced this week.

For months, the United Kingdom has endured a leadership vacuum while the country has skidded toward a recession and a humanitarian crisis triggered by soaring energy bills.
Since Boris Johnson announced he would leave office in July, the outlook for growth has weakened. Annual inflation is running above 10% as food and fuel prices leap. Frustration over the rising cost of living has compelled hundreds of thousands of workers who staff ports, trains and mailrooms to go on strike. The British pound just logged its worst month since the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, hitting its lowest level against the US dollar in more than two years.
 
 
"It's just one blow after the other," said Martin McTague, who heads up the UK's Federation of Small Businesses. "I'm afraid I can't find any good news."
The situation could get much worse before it gets better. The Bank of England anticipates that inflation will jump to 13% as the energy crisis intensifies. Citigroup estimates inflation in the United Kingdom could peak at 18% in early 2023, while Goldman Sachs warns it could reach 22% if natural gas prices "remain elevated at current levels."

A man with a trade union flag awaits the start of the sold-out campaign event "Enough Is Enough." Faith leaders and unions came together to raise support to tackle the cost of living crisis by demanding real pay rises, slashing energy bills and taxing the rich.

 
 
The contenders to succeed Johnson — current foreign secretary Liz Truss and former finance minister Rishi Sunak — face calls to announce a dramatic intervention as soon as one of them becomes the fourth Conservative leader of the country in a decade.
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The most urgent problem will be dealing with the skyrocketing cost of energy, which could unleash a wave of business closures and force millions of people to choose between putting food on the table and heating their homes this winter. Experts have warned that people will become destitute and cold-weather deaths will rise unless something is done fast.

 
"Everybody is assuming that there will be a swift and decisive announcement that puts this issue to bed, or at least provides people with reassurance," said Jonathan Neame, who runs Shepherd Neame, Britain's oldest brewer. "If there's not, that person will come under very considerable pressure."

An energy 'catastrophe'

Energy bills for households will rise 80% to an average of £3,549 ($4,106) a year from October. Analysts say the household price cap could rise to more than £5,000 ($5,785) in January and jump above £6,000 in April ($6,942).
 
'Starve or freeze to death': Millions of elderly Brits fear a grim choice this winter as costs spiral
 
As people are forced to reevaluate their budgets, the boom in consumption that followed the Covid-19 lockdowns is dissipating fast. The Bank of England has warned the UK economy will fall into a recession in the coming months.
"The key challenge that the energy price surge poses is that households that use lots of energy — and in particular poorer households — are going to really struggle to make ends meet," said Ben Zaranko, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. "It's going to mean really big cutbacks in other areas of spending."
Meanwhile, Neame, whose portfolio includes about 300 pubs across southern England, said business owners are panicking. They're getting quoted insane numbers for year-ahead utility bills, if they can find suppliers at all. Nick Mackenzie, the head of the Greene King pub chain, said that one location it works with reported its energy costs had jumped by £33,000 ($38,167) a year.
"It's really daunting for a lot of businesses, especially the ones who came through Covid in a weakened state," McTague said. "They're now struggling to deal with another once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe."
The crumbling British pound could exacerbate problems, making it more expensive to import energy and other goods, pushing inflation even higher.

Overlapping crises

It's not the only reason business owners and investors are increasingly anxious. While job vacancies fell between May and July, they remain 60% above their pre-pandemic level. Finding workers to fill open roles has been a particular challenge in the United Kingdom since the country voted to leave the European Union. About 317,000 fewer EU nationals were living in the United Kingdom in 2021 than in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics.
 

Biden spoke on "threats to American democracy" he said were being peddled by ardent supporters of Trump during a prime time speech at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on Thursday. 

"MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards. Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love," Biden said. "They promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence."

Biden's speech came days after he railed against the "MAGA philosophy," which he described as "semi-fascism."

Firefighters survey homes on Wakefield Avenue destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Firefighters survey homes on Wakefield Avenue destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)© Provided by Associated Press

Their fears exploded to life again in recent days as California’s latest inferno burned homes and buildings and forced evacuations in the small community about 280 miles (451 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

At the rally Trump replied, saying the speech was "vicious, hateful and divisive" and accusing the president of not even remembering his speech the next morning.

"This week, Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president. Vilifying 75 million citizens... as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state, Trump said. "You're all enemies of the state. He's an enemy of the state."

Among the thousands of people displaced was Naomi Vogelsang. Her home destroyed, dog missing, and 10-year relationship with her boyfriend recently ended – all she could do on Saturday was sit outside a wildfire evacuation center with $20 in her pocket, waiting for a ride to the casino.

“It can’t be any worse,” she said.

The day before, flames raced from Roseburg Forest Products, which makes wood products, into Weed's Lincoln Heights neighborhood where a significant number of homes burned and residents had to flee for their lives. The blaze known as the Mill Fire had spread to more than 6.6 square miles (17 square kilometers) by Saturday evening and was 25% contained.

 

The sun rises over Mt. Shasta and homes destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

The sun rises over Mt. Shasta and homes destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)© Provided by Associated Press

After fleeing the fire, 63-year-old Judy Christenson remembered a similar escape 40 years ago when, as a young parent, she had to rush her children out of a burning home. Last summer, a wildfire forced her to evacuate and leave her pets behind. Now, Christenson says she leaves harnesses on her pets all the time so she can grab them at a moment’s notice and leave.

The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin endorsed by Donald Trump is calling for people to take up “pitchforks and torches” in reaction to a story that detailed his giving to anti-abortion groups, churches and others — rhetoric that Democrats say amounts to threatening violence.

Tim Michels, who co-owns the state’s largest construction company, faces Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the battleground state. If Michels wins, he will be in position to enact a host of GOP priorities passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature leading into the 2024 presidential election. Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in modern state history and is campaigning on his ability to serve as a check on Republicans.

Michels, a multimillionaire, this week reacted strongly to a story published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailing charitable giving by him and his wife’s foundation, some of which went to anti-abortion groups and churches that have taken anti-gay positions.

Since the story’s publication, Michels has gone after not just Evers and Democrats, but also the Journal Sentinel and, more broadly, all reporters.

“I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how love the liberal media has become,” Michels said Thursday on a conservative talk radio show.

“People need to decide: ‘Am I going to put up with this? Am I going to tolerate this, taking somebody that gives money to churches or cancer research and use that as a hit piece in the media?’ I’m appalled. It’s disgusting.”

That’s further than he went in a campaign website posting on Thursday when he encouraged people to “Get involved. Push back. Speak up. Volunteer. Donate. Vote.”

Evers’ spokesman, Sam Roecker, tweeted Friday that Michels had gone too far.

“Instead of explaining why he’s funding groups working to ban access to abortion and contraception, Tim Michels is encouraging violence,” Roecker wrote. “He’s too radical for Wisconsin.”

Hannah Menchoff, a Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson, accused Michels of threatening violence in an “extreme attempt to pander to Donald Trump and the MAGA base.”

Michels’ campaign spokesperson, Anna Kelly, on Friday downplayed his comments.

“Only political hacks and media accomplices would freak out about Tim using a figure of speech to emphasize the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s ridiculous characterization of his donations to churches, nuns, and charitable causes as ‘radical,’” she said.

Michels, who has used the Journal Sentinel article in fundraising pleas, posted a lengthy response to the piece on his campaign website Thursday. He accused Evers and the “corrupt media” of turning his charitable giving and faith “into something malicious.”

“I will never, ever apologize for giving to charitable causes, or for being a Christian,” Michels wrote. “However, the Journal Sentinel should be ashamed of their anti-religious bigotry.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel executive editor George Stanley defended the article, noting that the paper ran a piece on the same day about security costs for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate that his Republican opponent was urging people to read.

Homes and vehicle destroyed by the Mill Fire line Wakefield Avenue on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)© Provided by Associated Press

“Whenever this happens, I get really bad,” Christenson said from the front seat of a car at an evacuation center in Yreka as Felix, her orange cat, napped in the backseat. “I can’t think straight.”

 

Nestled in the shadow of Mt. Shasta — a 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) volcano that is the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range — Weed is no stranger to wildfires.

Strong winds in the area that fan flames drew the town's founder for a very different reason. Abner Weed, a Civil War soldier who is said to have witnessed the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender before moving to California, chose to put a sawmill there because the wind would dry out the timber, according to Bob West, a lifelong resident who co-owns Ellie’s Espresso and Bakery, a coffee and sandwich shop that contains some historical items of the town’s past.

At a Pennsylvania rally supporting senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, the first since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago residence, Trump briefly fixated on the chief executive of Facebook's parent company.

"Last week, the weirdo — he's a weirdo — Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night," Trump said during the speech, going on to mimic their alleged conversation: "'Sir, I'd love to have dinner, sir. I'd love to have dinner. I'd love to bring my lovely wife.' All right, Mark, come on in. 'Sir, you're number one on Facebook. I'd like to congratulate you.' Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it."

Trump has previously made similar comments about Zuckerberg. Last year, following his suspension from Facebook, he said the executive "used to come to the White House to kiss [his] ass" and called Zuckerberg "sick" for deplatforming him.

 

The winds make Weed and the surrounding area a perilous place for wildfires, whipping small flames into a frenzy. Weed has seen three major fires since 2014, a period of extreme drought that has prompted the largest and most destructive fires in California history.

That drought persists as California heads into what traditionally is the worst of the fire season. Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

 

A scorched pickup truck sits in front of a Wakefield Avenue home destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A scorched pickup truck sits in front of a Wakefield Avenue home destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)© Provided by Associated Press

Dominique Mathes, 37, said he’s had some close calls with wildfires since he has lived in Weed. But he’s not interested in leaving.

 

“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Everybody has risks everywhere, like Florida’s got hurricanes and floods, Louisiana has got tornadoes and all that stuff. So, it happens everywhere. Unfortunately here, it’s fires.”

Evacuation orders were quickly put in effect Friday for 7,500 people – including West, who is 53 and has lived in Weed since he was a 1-year-old. He had never had to evacuate for a fire, but now he’s had to do it twice.

“It’s way worse than it used to be,” he said. “It affects our community because people leave because they don’t want to rebuild.”

Cal Fire Siskiyou Unit Chief Phil Anzo said crews worked all day and night to protect structures in Weed and in a subdivision to the east known as Carrick Addition. He said about 100 structures were destroyed.

Two people were brought to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta. One was in stable condition and the other was transferred to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a burn unit.

“There’s a lot at stake on that Mill Fire,” Anzo said. “There’s a lot of communities, a lot of homes there.”

Evacuees and firefighters quickly filled up local hotels while others rushed to stay with family and friends outside of the evacuation zone.

Vogelsang was not as fortunate. She said she slept on a bench in Weed until she could get a ride to the evacuation center. She said she’s spent most of the time crying about Bella, her 10-year-old English bulldog who — despite her best efforts — would not follow her out of the fire and is lost.

“My dog was my everything,” she said. “I just feel like I lost everything that mattered.”

___

Associated Press journalist Stefanie Dazio contributed from Los Angeles.

talukdar bari barisal kalurbap Turkish, Greek tension places 2022 Online News DIpjol

 Long-running tensions between Turkey and Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean are ramping up pressure on NATO exactly at a time when the 30-country Euro-Atlantic military alliance must pull together to tackle the multiple destabilizing factors sparked by Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

The city of Litchfield is home to Hillsdale County’s largest industrial park thanks to the city’s Tax Increment Finance Authority — which encompasses most of the industrial park — reinvesting tax dollars back into the manufacturing community.

Litchfield City Manager Jason Smith may be relatively new to the job, but he has a grasp on the struggles manufacturers face in today’s economy.

Much of the situation employers are facing today has gone unchanged this year. Many jobs sit vacant as employers struggle to find qualified candidates to fill skilled positions.

A grisly drug-induced homicide captivated the media in Saudi Arabia this April, when a man in the country's Eastern Province set his family house on fire before iftar, the meal that ends the Ramadan fast. Four members of his family were killed.

Police said he was under the influence of shabu, a methamphetamine, according to local papers.
Saudi media has been sounding the alarm lately over the rise in drug use, with one columnist describing shipments of narcotics to the kingdom as an "open war against us, more dangerous than any other war."
 
 
On Wednesday, Saudi authorities announced the largest seizure of illicit drugs in the country's history after nearly 47 million amphetamine pills were hidden in a flour shipment and seized at a warehouse in the capital Riyadh.
The record seizure demonstrates what experts say is Saudi Arabia's growing role as the drug capital of the Middle East, driving demand and becoming the primary destination for smugglers from Syria and Lebanon.
The kingdom, they say, is one of the largest and most lucrative regional destinations for drugs, and that status is only intensifying.
Wednesday's operation was the biggest single smuggling attempt in terms of narcotics seized, according to the General Directorate of Narcotics Control. While authorities didn't name the drug seized or where it came from, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has previously said that "reports of amphetamine seizures from countries in the Middle East continue to refer predominantly to tablets bearing the Captagon logo."
 
 
Captagon was originally the brand name for a medicinal product containing the synthetic stimulant fenethylline. Though it is no longer produced legally, counterfeit drugs carrying the captagon name are regularly seized in the Middle East, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
Drug busts of captagon in Saudi Arabia and around the region have grown over time. Earlier this week, A US Coast Guard boat seized 320 kilograms of amphetamine tablets and almost 3,000 kilograms of hashish worth millions of dollars from a fishing boat in the Gulf of Oman.
The drug was popularized in the kingdom some 15 years ago but has taken off more intensely in the past five years, "perhaps becoming on par with cannabis," according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, who has written on the topic.
One of the reasons captagon is spreading in use is "because there is a supply flood now coming mostly from Syria" where it is produced "on an industrial scale in the chemical factories inherited from the [Assad] regime" and supplied by warlords and affiliates of the regime.
Saudi Arabia's Center for International Communication didn't respond to CNN's request for comment.
Captagon can be sold for between $10 and $25 a pill, meaning the latest Saudi haul, if it was the same drug, has a street value of up to $1.1 billion, based on figures from the International Addiction Review journal.
"Captagon's amphetamine-type properties are sought out as a coping mechanism that can aid users facing food insecurity in staving hunger, and inducing a euphoric 'rush' that users have said to help with traumatic stress," said Caroline Rose, a senior analyst at the New Lines Institute in Washington, D.C. who has studied the captagon trade. "It's also been said that these same traits for captagon have been sought out by foreign workers in wealthy Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, seen to aid work performance."
While hashish and khat are also common drugs in the kingdom, amphetamines are popular among Saudi youth. A 2021 study in the journal of Crime, Law and Social Change cited a user as saying, "captagon is small. My school mates and I like it more than hashish. Not like hashish, we can buy in tablet......Once we get 25 riyals from [our] parents, we can buy one tablet and enjoy it."
"In wealthier consumer markets, the drug has a different appeal, serving as a recreational activity amongst its growing youth population that, despite social reforms... have reportedly struggled with boredom amidst widespread youth unemployment and a lack of opportunities for leisurely activities," said Rose. "Some consumers have justified captagon as less of a taboo substance, compared to 'harder' drugs like opiates and cocaine."
Since many young people in Saudi Arabia have been taking drugs as a result of boredom and lack of social opportunities, the increased freedoms introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could help reduce some of that use, said Felbab-Brown.
"The important thing is neither to curtail the freedoms, nor to turn concerts into places of dragnets and raids, but rather to educate young people," she told CNN.
Over the past few years, a number of drug rehabilitation centers have popped up across the kingdom after the government began licensing private establishments.
Khalid Al Mashari, the CEO of Qaweem, one of the first such centers to open, says around four or five have opened in the past two years. That's a testament to the government's recognition of the importance of rehabilitation, he says, but it also shows that the problem is on the rise.

“Companies are struggling to find talent, whether it is because of a lack of specialized talent for their needs, pay, work environment or a combination of the three is something that each company should be investigating on their own,” Smith said. “For example, it doesn’t matter what the starting pay is for a specialized welder or highly skilled trade, if there are none looking for work, there’s not much that can be done to quickly fill those spots. It comes down to supply and demand.”

If there are a lot of people in the field, Smith said, job seekers will go where they can find the best balance of a good environment and strong pay. If a company offers lower wages compared to other regional companies competing for the same talent, they’ll struggle.

Thousands of Russians from across the country were in central Moscow on Saturday to pay their final respects to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who was viewed by some as a great reformist but was reviled by others who blamed him for the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Inside the grand hall of Moscow’s famed House of the Unions — with its windows draped in black and its chandeliers dimmed as solemn classical music played — people walked by Mr. Gorbachev’s coffin, flanked by two guards of honor. Some mourners left flowers on a table in front of the coffin.

Mr. Gorbachev died on Tuesday at age 91, after what Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital said was “a long and grave illness.”

Today we confirm our joint political intention to finalise and implement a comprehensive prohibition of services which enable maritime transportation of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products globally," the ministers said.

The provision of Western-dominated maritime transportation services, including insurance and finance, would be allowed only if the Russian oil cargoes are purchased at or below the price level "determined by the broad coalition of countries adhering to and implementing the price cap.

From the beginning, it was clear that the Kremlin would not accord Mr. Gorbachev the aplomb of a grand state ceremony that characterized funerals of his Soviet predecessors. It was not broadcast live by state television, and there were no lines of sobbing people in gray coats, carrying red carnations.

“It’s the same with poor working environments and conditions,” Smith said. “Word travels fast in a field. If a company has a reputation for being a poor environment, the culture will need significant change, or it’ll have to offer an incredibly high wage to attract talent.” The outlook for the remainder of 2022 is promising as companies are starting to realize that work environments and conditions are equally as important as pay.

“This generation of workers has a totally different mindset than generations past,” Smith added. “The days of taking a job at 18 and staying until you are 60, regardless of conditions, are long gone. Even the days of staying on board until you’re headhunted away are slowly fading off. Workers now are starting to see the benefits of work-life balance and prioritizing happiness over loyalty, security, and money.”

 

A week ago, citing Turkish Defense Ministry sources, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that Greek surface-to-air missiles had locked on to Turkish F-16 fighter jets carrying out a reconnaissance mission in international airspace. Greek officials dismissed the account with a statement from the Defense Ministry saying that five Turkish jets appeared without prior notification to accompany a flight of U.S. B-52 bombers through an area subject to Greek flight control, the Associated Press reported.

The incident was only the latest in a series of claims by Turkey, and pushback from Greece that has prompted both countries to lodge complaints with NATO.

Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council, likened Turkey’s behavior to that of China, which has made sweeping claims of sovereignty over the sea and its natural resources, antagonizing neighboring countries, including Taiwan, and Vietnam.

"Turkey considers the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean in the same way that China considers the South China and the East China Seas, and the way China has been infringing on the area and making additional claims is what Turkey has been doing," he told Fox News Digital.

He added that a mix of internal and external factors had left Turkey feeling increasingly isolated and vulnerable, pushing Erdogan to focus on foreign policy and tensions with Greece to deflect from domestic problems.

Greece and Turkey have been locked in a maritime and territorial dispute for decades, but with shifting geopolitical alliances and the discoveries of natural gas and oil in regional waters, relations have deteriorated sharply not only impacting NATO, but also bilateral ties to the U.S. and other countries in the immediate region.

In 2020, the two states clashed over exploratory drilling rights in the sea where Greece and Cyprus claim exclusive economic zones. That incident led to a naval standoff between the two countries. More recently, Turkey has watched with increasing suspicion and frustration as Greece has grown closer to regional allies such as Israel, Egypt and France, as well as the United States.

In May, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed a joint session of Congress warning that in light of the war in Ukraine, NATO could not allow a "further source of instability on its south-eastern flank." Mitsotakis’ visit to Washington, which finalized a Greek purchase of F-35 fighter jets, drew condemnation from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who charged that its neighbor was lobbying against U.S. arms sales to Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan observes a military exercise in Izmir, Turkey, on June 9, 2022. President Erdogan observed the final day of a large-scale joint military exercise in Turkey's western Izmir province on Thursday. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan observes a military exercise in Izmir, Turkey, on June 9, 2022. President Erdogan observed the final day of a large-scale joint military exercise in Turkey's western Izmir province on Thursday.  (Xinhua via Getty Images)

However, one person was conspicuously absent. Citing a busy schedule, President Vladimir V. Putin did not attend the proceedings. Instead, he paid his last respects to Mr. Gorbachev on Thursday, bringing a bouquet of flowers to his coffin at the hospital in Moscow.

 

Mr. Putin’s absence sent a clear message: While the Kremlin wanted to avoid any direct condemnation of a person who was once at its helm, it also wanted to distance itself from the symbol of an era whose legacy Mr. Putin is now largely trying to undo.

Ankara has faced sanctions from Washington over its ties with Russia, most notably a 2019 purchase of an advanced Russian missile defense system, but Turkey’s powerful role in NATO has forced the Biden administration to walk back its approach. In June, when NATO leaders met in Madrid, the prospect of fighter jets for Turkey was raised by the president as he worked to secure Turkish support for Sweden and Finland’s accession to the organization.

Turkey’s initial opposition to those countries joining NATO, as well as its close ties with Russia, have put it at odds with the U.S. and other members, including Greece, whose role as a strategic security partner for the U.S. has only been growing. In recent months, the Greek port of Alexandroupolis, which sits adjacent to Turkey and Bulgaria in the northern Aegean Sea, has become a central focal point as the U.S. increases its military presence in Eastern Europe.

According to statistics collected by Zemenides' orgranization, this year has seen a dramatic increase in Turkish violations of Greek national airspace from 618 in the first half of 2021 to some 2,377 during the same period in 2022. In addition, Turkish jets have begun flying over inhabited islands belonging to Greece, coming very close to the mainland not too far from the Alexandroupolis port.

US AFFIRMS GREEK SECURITY IN FACE OF TURKISH BELLIGERENCE

"It’s not one project or another," said Zemenides, pointing to the EastMed Forum, which includes Greece but excludes Turkey, the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, defense agreements between Greece and the U.S., and another with France.

"Turkey sees a picture with all these guys together and the other picture is of Erdogan with Putin and Iran holding hands," he said. "Turkey has bet on its Eurasia orientation, they have bet other partners and it is starting to boomerang as its economy suffers with high inflation, so now they’re following the playbook of external tensions to distract everybody from domestic difficulties."

Friday, September 2, 2022

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 The former US Marine who spent six years on the run in Central America after allegedly killing his girlfriend has been pictured teaching English class in El Salvador - days after feds tracked him down to the classroom and arrested him for the slaying.

Considered so dangerous he was given the highest-ever bounty by U.S. Marshals, 36-year-old Raymond 'RJ' McLeod, was found Monday teaching English in the small city of Sonsonate, set 20 miles inland from the Pacific.

A man was detained Thursday night after he aimed a handgun at point-blank range toward Argentina's politically powerful Vice President Cristina Fernández, and President Alberto Fernández said the assassination attempt failed because the gun did not fire.

"A man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger," the president said in a national broadcast.

He called it "the most serious incident since we recovered democracy" in 1983 and urged political leaders, and society at large, to repudiate the incident.

This still image taken from a video provided by Television Publica Argentina shows a man pointing a gun at Argentina´s Vice President Cristina Fernandez during an event in front of her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. 

This still image taken from a video provided by Television Publica Argentina shows a man pointing a gun at Argentina´s Vice President Cristina Fernandez during an event in front of her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022.  (Television Publica Argentina via AP)

Supporters of the vice president have been gathering in the streets surrounding her home since last week, when a prosecutor called for a 12-year sentence for Fernández as well as a life-long prohibition in holding public office as part of a case involving alleged corruption in public works during her 2007-2015 presidency. Fernández, who is not related to the current president, has denied all charges.

The president spoke shortly after video from the scene broadcast on local television channels showed Fernández exiting her vehicle surrounded by supporters outside her home when a man could be seen extending his hand with what looked like a pistol.

Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China, according to scientists and experts. Pakistani officials and experts say there’s been a 400% increase in average rainfall in Pakistan's areas like Baluchistan and Sindh, which led to the extreme flooding.

Earlier this week, the United Nations and Pakistan jointly issued an appeal for $160 million in emergency funding to help the 3.3 million people affected by floods that have damaged over 1 million homes.

On Friday, authorities were warning people in the district of Dadu in the southern Sindh province to move to safer places ahead of floodwater from the swollen Indus river that's expected to hit the region this week.

In May, some parts of Sindh were the hottest place in Pakistan. Now people are facing floods there that have caused an outbreak of waterborne diseases. Although flood waters continued to recede in most of the country, many districts in Sindh remained underwater.

Farah Naureen, the director for Pakistan at the international aid agency Mercy Corps, told The Associated Press that around 73,000 women will be giving birth within the next month, and they needed skilled birth attendants, privacy, and birth facilities. Otherwise, she said, the survival of the mother and the newborn will be at risk.

According to the military, rescuers, backed by troops, resumed rescue and relief operations early Friday. Rescuers are mostly using boats, but helicopters are also flying to evacuate stranded people from remote flood-hit towns, villages and districts across Pakistan areas and deliver food to them.

The ninth flight from the United Arab Emirates and the first from Uzbekistan were the latest to land in Islamabad overnight as a military-backed rescue operation elsewhere in the country reached more of the 3 million people affected by the disaster. Multiple officials blamed the unusual monsoon and flooding on climate change, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who earlier this week called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the deadly crisis.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the planes brought food items, medicine and tents. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif had planned to travel to UAE on Saturday, but he postponed the trip to visit flood-hit areas at home.

So far, Pakistan has received aid from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, U.A.E. and some other countries. This week, the United States also announced to provide $30 million worth of aid for the flood victims.

Pakistan blames climate change for the recent heavy monsoon rains that triggered floods.

The vice president ducked as supporters surrounding the person appeared shocked at what was happening amid the commotion in the Recoleta neighborhood of Argentina’s capital.

The man, whose identity was not released by authorities, was detained seconds into the incident.

The president said the firearm had five bullets "and didn't fire even though the trigger was pulled."

Itamar Ben-Gvir
FILE - Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, center, surrounded by right wing activists with Israeli flags, speaks to the media as they gather for a march in Jerusalem, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Ben-Gvir, an ultr...
The Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir calls his Arab colleagues “terrorists.” He wants to deport his political opponents, and in his youth, his views were so extreme that the army banned him from compulsory military service.

Yet today, the populist lawmaker who was once relegated to the margins of Israeli politics is surging ahead in the polls ahead of November elections. He has received the blessing of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is poised to emerge as a major force that could propel the onetime premier back to power.

Ben-Gvir’s stunning rise is the culmination of years of efforts by the media-savvy lawmaker to gain legitimacy. But it also reflects a rightward shift in the Israeli electorate that has brought his religious, ultranationalist ideology into the mainstream and all but extinguished hopes for Palestinian independence.

“Over the last year I’ve been on a mission to save Israel,” Ben-Gvir recently told reporters. “Millions of citizens are waiting for a real right-wing government. The time has come to give them one.”

Ben-Gvir, 46, has been a fixture of Israel’s extreme right for more than two decades, gaining notoriety in his youth as a disciple of the late radical rabbi, Meir Kahane. He first became a national figure when he famously broke a hood ornament off then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car in 1995.

“We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too,” he said, just weeks before Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Kahane’s violent anti-Arab ideology -- which included calls to ban Jewish-Arab intermarriage and for the mass expulsion of Palestinians -- was considered so repugnant that Israel banned him from parliament and the U.S. listed his party as a terrorist group. Kahane himself was assassinated by an Arab assailant in New York in 1990.

But in recent years, his followers and some of his ideas have made their way to the Israeli mainstream — in large part thanks to Ben-Gvir.

He transitioned into politics last year after a career as a lawyer defending radical Jewish West Bank settlers. His intimate knowledge of the law has helped him test the boundaries of the country’s incitement laws and avoid sanctions that have prevented some of his closest associates from running in elections.

Ben-Gvir, for instance, calls Kahane “righteous and holy” but also says he doesn’t agree with everything his former mentor said. He's careful to limit his own calls for expulsion to those who engage in violence and lawmakers — Jewish or Arab — who he says undermine the state.

Before entering politics, he removed a photo of Baruch Goldstein -- a Jewish militant who gunned down 29 Palestinians in a mosque in 1994 -- from his living room. He no longer allows his supporters to chant “Death to Arabs” at political rallies. Instead, they are told to say, “Death to terrorists!”

Supporters say Ben-Gvir has changed, been misunderstood, or wrongly painted an extremist.

“People mature. People develop,” said Nevo Cohen, Ben-Gvir’s campaign manager. “They stuck a label on Ben-Gvir that is totally wrong.”

Ben-Gvir’s office turned down an interview request. But he makes frequent appearances on Israeli TV and radio, displaying a cheerful demeanor, quit wit and knack for deflecting criticism as he banters with his hosts.

He also has tapped into a wave of anti-Arab and nationalist sentiment driven by years of violence, failed peace efforts and demographic changes. Ben-Gvir’s supporters are largely religious and ultra-Orthodox Jews, who tend to have large families, and also come from the influential West Bank settler movement. Ben-Gvir himself lives in a hard-line settlement next to the West Bank city of Hebron, home to more than 200,000 Palestinians.

 

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Aminul Hoque European Union makes it more difficult Natore one pulped ded very sad midul 2021

 The European Union has agreed to reduce the number of new visas available to Russian citizens, but stopped short of an outright ban on travel to the bloc.

As the war in Ukraine stretches into its seventh month, North Korea is hinting at its interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country’s east.

The idea is openly endorsed by senior Russian officials and diplomats, who foresee a cheap and hard-working workforce that could be thrown into the “most arduous conditions,” a term Russia’s ambassador to North Korea used in a recent interview.

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration,” citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.

Again, as I just said, this is just a sad approach at this point because they're trying to not focus on the condition of their campaign right now," Fetterman said. "And when they want to get into a serious conversation and really talk about having a debate, I'd be happy to engage in that. But right now, the fact that they have chosen to have a deeply unserious campaign to just ridicule somebody that is just recovering from a stroke."

Without any followup questions, the "11th Hour" host quickly moved on to other topics. 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 24: Stephanie Ruhle, Anchor, MSNBC, speaks onstage during the 2019 Concordia Annual Summit - Day 2 at Grand Hyatt New York on September 24, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit) (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

Appearing on "America's Newsroom," Dr. Oz denied claims that his campaign was "making fun" of Fetterman's stroke and went on to knock the Democrat for ducking from the debate. 

"I offered John Fetterman numerous opportunities to explain to me how I can make it easier for him to debate, but at this point, since he's given numerous reasons for not showing up, including the fact he didn't have time in his schedule, I'm of the opinion that he's hiding his radical views because he is the furthest far-left radical candidate at any competitive Senate race this cycle, and he doesn't want those views to be exposed," Oz told co-host Dana Perino.

 Ranger Aerospace, a private equity consolidator and management holding company specializing in aerospace operations and aviation services deals since 1997, marks its twenty-fifth anniversary since inception this year. During September, Ranger is hosting a business reception called "A Celebration About People" to highlight the 25 years milestone. Ranger has built several separate platform companies to over $100 Million revenues each thus far in its colorful 25-year history and has managed as many as 4,250 personnel at 56 airports. Ranger adds value by bringing accomplished leaders to bear on deep operational improvements and aggressive accelerated growth. Ranger focuses heavily on operations, marketing, quality, and people, with a principled "Good to Great" incremental approach to business transformations.

RANGER AEROSPACE, founded in 1997, celebrates its 25th anniversary 2022. Press Release on Sept. 1, 2022.
 
RANGER AEROSPACE, founded in 1997, celebrates its 25th anniversary 2022. Press Release on Sept. 1, 2022.

"PEOPLE are the priceless soul of any successful enterprise, and we are proving that every day." -- Steve Townes, CEO

Ranger's latest holdings are ACL Airshop, which provides air cargo products, and services to airlines clients at more than half of the world's Top 50 cargo airports, and InTech Aerospace, which performs MRO and retrofit services on commercial airliner interiors. The pivotal investment in ACL Airshop won the Deal of the Year award for 2016 from M&A Advisor magazine, an international financial publication. In earlier aviation ventures, Ranger Aerospace won similar awards for Deal of the Year in 2009, and Deal of the Decade in 2011 (for the decade ending 2010). Ranger's divestiture of Ranger International Services Group won 3 Deal of the Year awards in 2012 for the sale of that aerospace/defense technical services company to a major international engineering firm.

 Decibel Cannabis Company Inc. (the "Company" or "Decibel") (TSXV: DB) (OTCQB: DBCCF), announces that the Company has determined to postpone its annual general meeting (the "Meeting") of holders of common shares (the "Shareholders") of the Company that was scheduled to be held at 2:00 p.m. (Calgary time) on Thursday, September 1, 2022.

Logo (CNW Group/Decibel Cannabis Company Inc.)
 
Logo (CNW Group/Decibel Cannabis Company Inc.)

The Company is postponing the Meeting in an effort to encourage greater Shareholder participation at the Meeting. To date, the Company has received proxies from just under one-third of the Shareholders with an unusual number of withheld votes compared to prior annual general meetings of the Company. The board of directors of the Company (the "Board") has decided that it is in the best interest of the Company and its Shareholders to postpone the Meeting to allow for a broader level of participation by Shareholders to ensure good corporate governance and to give the Board time to hear any concerns that any Shareholder may have. The new Meeting date will be announced at a later date.

About Decibel

Decibel is uncompromising in the process and craftsmanship needed to deliver the highest quality cannabis products and retail experiences. Decibel has three operating production houses along with its wholly owned retail business, Prairie Records. The Qwest Estate in Creston, BC is a licensed and operating 26,000 square foot cultivation space which produces the widely championed, rare cultivar-focused brands Qwest and Qwest Reserve, which are sold in six provinces across Canada. Thunderchild Cultivation, is a licensed and operating 80,000 square foot indoor cultivation facility in Battleford, SK. The Plant, Decibel's extraction facility, in Calgary, AB has 15,000 square feet of Health Canada licensed extraction and product development space. This production house will fuel the growth of our brands Qwest, Qwest Reserve, Blendcraft, and General Admission, into new and innovative product formats like concentrates, vapes, edibles and beyond.

Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during a Republican leadership forum at Newtown Athletic Club on May 11, 2022 in Newtown, Pennsylvania.  (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Despite polling indicating a Fetterman lead, Dr. Oz said he is confident he will prevail as issues like the border crisis and fentanyl epidemic ravage communities.

"Pennsylvanians appreciate how far left radical John Fetterman is, that doesn't align with our values," Oz said. "That's not what people want in Pennsylvania. They want folks who can understand the values of all Pennsylvanians and protect people accordingly. That's not what John Fetterman is about."

"We cannot afford John Fetterman," he continued. 

The talks came after North Korea in July became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

EU foreign ministers decided Wednesday to fully suspend a visa facilitation agreement between the European Union and Russia that gives Russians preferential treatment when applying for an EU visa. The measure is part of the bloc's wide-ranging package of sanctions imposed on Russia over its war on Ukraine.
The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a news conference following the ministerial meeting in Prague that the decision "will significantly reduce the number of new visas issued by the EU member states" given that the process would become more complicated and will take longer.
 
The agreement will still need to be approved by all member states at the European Council, the EU body that is comprised of heads of states and governments.
Borrell said the measure was necessary because there has been a "substantial increase on border crossings from Russia in neighboring states" since mid-July, which has become "a security risk for these states."
"We have seen many Russians traveling for leisure and shopping as if no war was raging in Ukraine," Borrell said. "It cannot be business as usual," he added.
Visas were already restricted to some categories of Russian nationals and many Russian officials and prominent figures close to the Kremlin have been banned from entering the bloc.
The agreement to suspend the visa facilitation program was a compromise after the 27-member bloc failed to introduce a total visa ban, which was proposed by some eastern European, Baltic and Nordic states. The Czech Republic, Latvia and Finland have already taken measures to restrict Russians from traveling into the EU, while Estonia even banned Russians who already had visas from entering the country.
But in a memo circulated ahead of the meeting, France and Germany urged against far-reaching changes to the EU's visa policy, "in order to prevent feeding the Russian narrative and trigger unintended rallying-around-the flag effects and/or estranging future generations."
"While understanding the concerns of some Member States in this context, we should not underestimate the transformative power of experiencing life in democratic systems," the memo read.
We cannot afford to appear disunited on such an important thing, which is the people-to-people relations between the Russian society and the European people," Borrell said, adding that the EU's visa policies "should reflect that and continue to allow for people-to-people contacts in the EU with Russian nationals not linked to the Russian government."
In a tweet on Wednesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had met with Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra in Prague and thanked him "for the principled stance on the need to restrict travel of Russians to the EU."
But divisions remained over the issue following the meeting.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Wednesday that several member states including his country "have raised their voice" against a blanket visa ban. But Estonia said it and its neighbors would consider forging ahead with their own restrictions.
In a statement, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said that he supported ending the EU's visa facilitation agreement with Russia but that "this alone would not be enough."
"Until we have reached an agreement on how to restrict the entry of Russian nationals to the European Union, Estonia and other countries that share a border with Russia and Belarus will consider a national visa ban or restricting border crossings for Russian nationals with EU visas," Reinsalu said in the statement released on the Foreign Ministry's website.
Moscow had already announced it would retaliate if the EU decided to ban visas for Russian nationals. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists Tuesday that such a move would be a "very serious decision that can be directed against our citizens."

As the war in Ukraine stretches into its seventh month, North Korea is hinting at its interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country’s east.

The idea is openly endorsed by senior Russian officials and diplomats, who foresee a cheap and hard-working workforce that could be thrown into the “most arduous conditions,” a term Russia’s ambassador to North Korea used in a recent interview.

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration,” citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.

The talks came after North Korea in July became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Enamul Korim China sets October start for congress Bangura Online Office 2022 Habib

 The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union and for many the man who restored democracy to then-communist-ruled European nations, was mourned Wednesday as the loss of as a rare leader who changed the world and for a time gave hope for peace among the superpowers.

month, with the rising cost of fuel even more worrying for her winter energy bills.

“I don’t want to end up, like, skeletal… eventually it’s gonna have to stop. But whether I’ll be able to afford to eat by then, I don’t know,” she told CNN in a phone interview.

'Starve or freeze to death': Millions of elderly Brits fear a grim choice this winter as costs spiral

'Starve or freeze to death': Millions of elderly Brits fear a grim choice this winter as costs spiral© Provided by CNN

Vyonne DeBurgo, 77, says the government has "no clue what it's like to live on the amount of money I have to live on in a week." - Independent Age

The average British household will see its annual energy bill rise to £3,549 (approximately $4,180) from October – a rise of £1,578 ($1,765), an 80% increase – after the country’s energy regulator raised the price cap last week. The price cap sets the maximum amount that energy suppliers can charge for each unit of energy and gas.

It’s a crisis that should be at the forefront of government action. But instead, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been all but absent, taking two vacations in less than a month. His critics have accused him of washing his hands of the energy crisis and deflecting the blame onto Russia’s war in Ukraine. “We also know that if we’re paying in our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood,” Johnson said in a visit to Kyiv on August 24.

Meanwhile, Downing Street has said it is up to the next prime minister to introduce any major new spending plans to support those suffering hardship. Two candidates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, are currently battling to become the next Conservative Party leader, and so prime minister, with results expected on September 5. Only grassroots Conservative Party members, who represent less than 0.3% of the electorate, can vote in the contest. Demographic data suggest they are more likely to be White, male and middle class than the general British population.

And while research shows older people are more likely to vote Conservative, neither candidate has outlined a clear plan on how to tackle a cost-of-living crisis that’s already being felt acutely by many in that age group.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are final candidates in race to succeed Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are final candidates in race to succeed Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister© Provided by CNN

Conservative Party leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

Around 2 million pensioners were already living in poverty prior to the crisis, according to data from the Center for Ageing Better, a charity focused on improving the lives of older people, whose 2022 annual report found that there were more than 200,000 more poor pensioners in 2021 than in the previous year.

Around 44% of people who have reached the current UK state pension age of 66 say it is their main source of income, according to figures from the Money and Pension Service, which is sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. Most pensioners are on the basic state pension at £141.85 a week (around $170), or about £7,400 ($8,770) a year, with a newer pension introduced in 2016 equal to about £9,600 ($11,376) a year. The state pension rose by 3.1% in April, a figure far below the inflation rate at the time, at 9%. The next increase in state pension will be next April.

“So those people were already struggling, and now we’re in a situation where they will be having an even worse time and many more will have fallen into poverty because of what’s happening,” said Morgan Vine, head of policy and influencing at the charity Independent Age.

People who responded to a survey conducted by Independent Age in June and July painted a dismal picture of their daily life. “I have turned my heating off, I don’t mop my floor as often. I do not vacuum as often, I only wash up if I really have to, I can no longer bake with my grandchildren which breaks my heart,” said one, whose name was not given.

“Holiday a thing of the past, social life a thing of the past, if the costs continue to rise I have no answers, wouldn’t mind work but am 88 no one wants me,” said another respondent, also unnamed.

Such poverty is exacerbating health conditions, with life expectancy also dropping, according to the Center for Ageing Better report, which noted that the number of years older people are spending in good health is also on the decline.

The NHS Confederation, a body representing leaders in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) said this month that fuel poverty in particular is creating a “vicious cycle of healthcare need,” explaining that doctors can treat a patient’s illness but that if the ailment – for example, a chest infection – is caused by cold, damp housing, the cycle of infection will continue when the patient returns home.

It’s a concern that’s on DeBurgo’s mind. She’s not sure how she’ll afford to keep the heat on this winter to manage the symptoms connected to her fibromyalgia and arthritis.

Rather, the driver had just left a brothel in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, and sheriff's police officers had been watching. What Sgt. Timothy Hannigan and his team really wanted was information.

"How to get in; what do you got to do when you get in? Who do you pay? What do you got to pay? Is there any secret word? Is there a secret text message you've got to send to get in there?" are the questions to which police want answers, Hannigan explained.

The people who are pulled over do talk to officers – and tell them everything, Hannigan said.

"Usually, they're nervous, and then, they don't want to get caught up with their wife," Hannigan said. "So we talk to them. We just ask them if they'll cooperate with us, and they do."

Hannigan told Donlon the Sheriff's police had been watching the Bridgeport brothel for two and a half weeks. The next step was to shut it down.

Joining a raid for the first time, was Pamela Nicole Dukes. She joined the Cook County Sheriff's Police Special Victims Unit in January.

But the man who died at age 91 on Tuesday was also reviled by many countrymen who blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union and its diminution as a superpower. The Russian nation that emerged from its Soviet past shrank in size as 15 new nations were created.

The loss of pride and power also eventually led to the rise of Vladimir Putin, who has tried for the past quarter-century to restore Russia to its former glory and beyond.

“After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms. He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation” President Joe Biden said.

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War but although widely feted abroad, he was a pariah at home. It was unclear how news of his death will be received in Russia amid its nationalist war in Ukraine.

World leaders paid tribute to a man some described as a great and brave leader.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “in a time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all.”

French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened up a path of liberty for Russians. His commitment to peace in Europe changed our shared history.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called him “a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history” and “did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War.”

“The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace,” the U.N. chief said in a statement.

 
 

He added that “these were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

China's ruling Communist Party will hold its five-yearly congress beginning on Oct. 16, with Xi Jinping poised to secure an historic third leadership term and cement his place as the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

The Politburo announced on Tuesday the start date for the congress, which typically lasts about a week and takes place mostly behind closed doors at the Great Hall of the People on the western side of Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.

Xi, 69, has steadily consolidated power since becoming party general secretary a decade ago, eliminating any known factional opposition to his rule. He is expected to exert largely unchallenged control over key appointments and policy directives at a Congress that many China-watchers liken to a coronation.

Despite headwinds that have buffeted his path to a third term - from a moribund economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and rare public protests to rising frictions with the West and tensions over Taiwan - Xi is poised to secure a mandate to pursue his grand vision for the "rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" for years to come.

Since assuming power, Xi, the son of a communist revolutionary, has strengthened the party and its role across society and eliminated space for dissent.

Under Xi, China has also become far more assertive on the global stage as a leader of the developing world and an alternative to the U.S.-led, post-World War Two order.

"He will take China to an even more Sino-centric approach to policy, particularly foreign policy," said Steve Tsang, director of the University of London's SOAS China Institute. "He will also reinforce the importance of the party leading everything in China, and the party following its leader fully," Tsang said.

Xi's likely ascendancy to a third five-year term, and possibly more, was set in 2018 when he eliminated the limit of two terms for the presidency, a position that is set to be renewed at the annual parliamentary meeting in March.

On Wednesday, the website of the party's official People's Daily posted an infographic highlighting Xi's vision, including one of his signature pronouncements: "Party, government, military, people, education; east, south, west, north, central: the party leads everything."

KEY PERSONNEL

A day after the 20th Party Congress, Xi is expected again to be conferred the roles of General Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

With little change expected in broad policy direction, key outcomes from the Congress will revolve around personnel - who joins Xi on the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and who replaces Premier Li Keqiang, who is set to retire in March.

Contenders to be premier, a role charged with management of the economy, include Wang Yang, 67, who heads a key a political advisory body, and Hu Chunhua, 59, a vice premier. Both were previously the Communist Party boss of the powerhouse southern province of Guangdong.

Another possibility for the premiership is Chen Min'er, 61, a Xi protege who is party chief of the vast municipality of Chongqing but has never held nationwide office.

The makeup and size of the next PSC, now at seven members, will also be closely watched.

Two current members have reached traditional retirement age, and China-watchers will look for whether the inclusion of any new member reflects a need to accommodate alternative viewpoints, although under Xi the notion of "factions" in Chinese politics appears largely to have become a relic.

"After putting his loyalists into positions of power with this party congress, Xi will have a bigger mandate to push through whatever policies he wants," said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

BEYOND THE CONGRESS

After the congress, many in China and globally will watch for Beijing's efforts to stave off a protracted economic downturn, which raises the chance COVID curbs being eased, although a lack of widespread immunity among China's 1.4 billion people and the absence of more effective mRNA vaccines remain constraints.

Beijing's strict "dynamic zero" COVID policy has led to frequent and disruptive lockdowns that have frustrated citizens, battered its economy and made China a global outlier.

Investors will also watch for how Beijing copes with souring relations with the West.

Xi's stated desire to bring Taiwan under Beijing's control will also be in focus during a third term, especially with tensions heightened following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent Taipei visit. Taiwan's democratically-elected government strongly rejects China's sovereignty claims.

Since assuming power, Xi has quashed dissent in the once-restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang and brought Hong Kong to heel with a sweeping national security law.

Few China-watchers expect Beijing to make a military move on Taiwan anytime soon, and there is little sign of preparing society for such a high-risk step and the blowback it would provoke, such as heavy Western sanctions.

But for Xi, successfully resolving the "Taiwan question" would secure his place in Chinese history alongside Mao's.

Daily Mail Australia has been told Victorian prisons have been flooded with Wifi signals over the past two years, with tablets provided to prisoners in an effort to keep the peace and allow inmates to maintain contact with loved ones.

Hope, 26, has been caged for the past 10 years and has another five to serve after initially being placed into juvenile detention for what was supposed to be a maximum of 16 months.

It was May 18, 2012 when Hope was first locked-up and since that day he has spent most of his time caged in isolation cells due to his targeted violence against prison staff.

'When I was 17, most kids were in school trying to get their first kiss. I was at f**king adult prison,' he told Obeda from his prison cell.

Hope had been moved to adult jail after he bashed staff at Parkville Youth Justice Centre, which houses children aged between 15-17 years of age.

Hope's 'chin-check' on a Parkville guard earned him an additional two-and-a-half year stay in an adult jail.

Housed in isolation alongside the likes of Obeda, things went from bad to worse for the young offender.

Due for release in December 2015, Hope, aged just 20, went on a bloody rampage two months before his release date while caged within Barwon Prison, which also houses some of the nation's most violent criminals.

'The screws were just racist c**ts. Just bad, racist f**king scumbags,' Hope claimed.

When his request to be moved back into isolation was rejected by prison management, Hope said he decided 'to go hard on the screws'.

'Bashed the whole unit and got 10 years for it,' Hope said.

Stuck again in isolation, Hope had yet another nine months added to his sentence just a couple of years later when he attacked the guards while trying to bash Christopher Dean Binse - aka 'Badness'.

Binse is one of Australia's most infamous criminals, who like Hope has spent most of his life behind bars.

Hope said he was compelled to bash Binse, who claims to have reformed in recent years, because of his persistent ratting on other inmates.

'Apparently he's an alleged underworld figure, biggest dog going around, lagging everyone,' Hope said.