The only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has died of colon cancer in a US care home, aged 85.
Svetlana Alliluyeva, also known as Lana Peters, passed away in the state of Wisconsin on 22 November, US officials have confirmed to BBC Russian.
Her defection from the Soviet Union in 1967 was a propaganda coup for the US. She wrote four books, including two best-selling memoirs.
But she said she could not escape the shadow of her father.
Online footage of the incident, which occurred earlier this month during an afternoon news bulletin on the privately held REN TV channel, is being avidly viewed in both Russia and the United States.
In the footage, Tatyana Limanova, an award-winning senior newsreader at the channel, can be seen briskly reading out an item about how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has just assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Asia Pacific Cooperation organisation.
She is then heard to say that the post “has (previously) been held by Barack Obama” before mechanically and unambiguously raising her left arm and showing the camera her raised middle finger in an offensive gesture that is sometimes known as “flipping the bird.”
The channel, which goes out to 120 million people across Russia, has declined to comment. But sources close to it have tried to defuse the row by claiming that the newsreader had believed she was off camera at the time and merely providing a voice-over for a report. According to the same storyline, the rude gesture was intended for studio technicians who had been trying to put her off her stride.
REN TV has traditionally been perceived as a more liberal channel in a country where TV content is tightly controlled by the state. But it is now controlled by structures owned by a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and has been criticised for allegedly becoming more slavish to the Kremlin.
Police have sent hundreds of letters to anti-cuts activists warning them of the consequences of attending a 10,000-strong student demonstration in central London on Wednesday.
The letters have been sent to anyone arrested in connection with previous public disorder offences even if they were later cleared or charges were dropped.
The police have admitted the names and addresses come from a database of those arrested during anti-austerity protests. They include protesters aged 17.
At a briefing on Monday, Metropolitan police officials said letters would only be sent to those who had been convicted of offences. But on Tuesday the force confirmed that anyone who had been arrested in the past year in relation to an “austerity related” protest had been sent the warning.
The letter, which arrived on Tuesday, reads: “It is in the public and your own interest that you do not involve yourself in any type of criminal or antisocial behaviour. We have a responsibility to deliver a safe protest which protects residents, tourists, commuters, protesters and the wider community. Should you do so we will at the earliest opportunity arrest and place you before the court.”
Signed by Simon Pountain, the Met commander leading Wednesday’s operations, the letter goes on to warn of the detrimental effects of conviction on their chances of employment and says that if people find themselves near disorder they should move away at the earliest opportunity.
Sausage the dog likes to be in on the action.
The SS indulged their bloodlust on men, women and children alike. While homes and shops blazed around them like some hellish inferno, women were violated and those who were pregnant were stabbed in the guts. Small babies were bayoneted in their cribs. The village priest was beheaded.
By the time Hitler’s men had left the Greek village of Distomo near the ancient town of Delphi on that bloody day in June 1944, 218 people were dead.
The Waffen-SS was pleased with its work: the local partisans who had dared to attack a German unit had been taught a bitter lesson in revenge.
The slaughter at Distomo was such an outrage that, in 2003, even a German Federal Court judge described it as ‘one of the most despicable crimes of World War II’.
But he refused to grant the families of the victims any compensation for their suffering, and not a single German soldier was ever punished for what he and his comrades had done.
The Distomo massacre is just one example of the terrible suffering endured by the people of Greece during World War II and, some would say, of the German government’s reluctance to pay for the crimes committed against the Greeks in their nation’s name.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056400/Greece-debt-crisis-Greeks-believe-Germans-owe-60bn.html#ixzz1cYMa3hnh
London (CNN) — WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange lost a court battle to stay in the United Kingdom Wednesday and will be extradited to Sweden to face questioning over sex charges, a court ruled.
Appeals court judges Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice Duncan Ouseley rejected all four of the arguments Assange’s defense team used to fight the extradition.
They will hold another hearing later this month to determine whether he can appeal.
Assange, who has been under house arrest for nearly a year while waiting to find out the results, said Wednesday he will now consider his next steps.
“I have not been charged with any crime in any country,” he said on the steps of the High Court in London. “Despite this, the European arrest warrant is so restrictive that it prevents UK courts from considering the facts of a case, as judges have made clear here today.”
The U.S. is coming to Europe’s financial rescue.
So far, America’s role is fairly limited. But if the crisis continues to grow and the U.S. takes on a wider role, U.S. consumers and taxpayers could feel a bigger impact. The biggest exposure could come from America’s status as the single largest source of money for the International Monetary Fund.
The latest round of American financial assistance came Thursday with a promise by the Federal Reserve to swap as many dollars for euros as European bankers need. In the short run, those transactions won’t have much impact because the central banks are simply swapping currencies of equal value. If the move helps avert a wider crisis, it could help spare the global economy from another recession.
But over the long term, consumers could feel the impact of central bankers flooding the financial system with cash, according to John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics.
“This is a lender of last resort function,” he told CNBC. “With the dollar injections that the Fed has done, it’s like giving a patient medicine with really bad side effects.” Ryding said the bad side effect in the U.S. has been inflation, which has picked up to 3.8 percent year over year.
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that recognition of a Palestinian state is an obligation not an option.
He told the Arab League that before the year’s end “we will see Palestine in a very different situation”.
Mr Erdogan made a new attack on Israel, saying its government’s mentality was a barrier to peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinians are currently preparing a bid for United Nations membership despite Israeli and US opposition.
Mr Erdogan is in Egypt as part of a tour of three Arab states that recently ousted their leaders, in an attempt to improve Turkey’s standing in the region.
Turkey’s relations with Israel have worsened since Israeli forces boarded an aid ship in May last year as it was heading for Gaza.
Nine Turkish activists were killed during the raid. Israel has refused to apologise and said its troops acted in self-defence.
The European Union’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that honey which contains trace amounts of pollen from genetically modified (GM) corn must be labelled as GM produce and undergo full safety authorisation before it can be sold as food.
In what green groups are calling a “groundbreaking” ruling, the decision could force the EU to strengthen its already near-zero tolerance policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Bavarian beekeepers, some 500m from a test field for a modified maize crop developed by Monsanto – one of only two GM crops authorised as safe to be cultivated in Europe – claimed their honey had been “contaminated” by pollen from the plant.
The European court of justice found in their favour, a ruling that should offer grounds for the beekeepers to claim compensation in a German court.
Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, at the centre of phone hacking claims, was still being paid by the tabloid’s owners while employed as the Conservative Party’s media chief, the BBC said.
Coulson received several hundred thousand pounds in severance pay after he began work in July 2007 as the director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron’s party, who were then in opposition, the report said.
The 43-year-old was arrested in July in the probes into phone hacking and corruption at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday tabloid and was released on bail until October. Coulson has always denied wrongdoing.
Police began raiding houses overnight across London in connection with riots in recent days following an evening of relative calm in Britain’s capital except for some isolated incidents.
More than 100 warrants are being executed to round up suspects that maybe be behind some of the country’s worst rioting in decades, said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh.
Police have already arrested almost 900 people in London since the violence began on Saturday, and 371 have been charged. Hundreds more people are expected to be in custody by the end of Thursday.
Prosecutors are working round the clock to deal with those who have already been arrested, said Dominic Valitis, a CBC freelance correspondent in London, speaking ahead of an emergency cabinet meeting Thursday.
Valitis pointed out that London newspapers have identified everyone from a schoolboy, to a hairdresser, teacher and millionaire’s daughter among those in custody. He added that it has also been learned an 11-year-old girl has been arrested.
What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately.
This was the surprising injunction from the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster last week. There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police’s “counter terrorist focus desk” called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.”
The move angered some anarchists who complained that being an anarchist should not imply criminal behaviour. They said they feel unfairly criminalised for holding a set of political beliefs.
The man facing 21 years in jail for carrying out Friday’s twin attack on Norway is due to make his first appearance in court to explain his actions. Prosecutors are set to ask for his trial to be closed to the public and media. 32 year old Anders Behring Breivik has admitted responsibility for a bomb attack in the capital, and a massacre at a youth camp. However he’s denied any criminal guilt. 93 people reportedly lost their lives, but police say that number could be revised downwards. The bomb in Oslo targeted buildings connected to Norway’s governing Labour Party, and the youth camp on Utoya island was also run by it. Investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT the case highlights a new brand of terrorism.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society must raise a bond of US$1.4 million if it wants to avoid its flagship vessel Steve Irwin being held in Shetland indefinitely due to legal action brought against the radical protest group by a Maltese fishing company.
Captain of the ship and founder of the organisation Paul Watson has issued an urgent appeal to supporters to raise the cash, which would allow it to leave Shetland and continue with its planned campaign against the annual slaughter of pilot whales in Faroe. Its smaller vessel Brigitte Bardot left Shetland for Faroe on Sunday morning.
The Steve Irwin has been detained since Friday afternoon after a civil lawsuit was brought against it in the UK courts by the Maltese company Fish & Fish, which is claiming damages over action taken against its bluefin tuna fleet in the Mediterranean in June 2010.
On Tuesday evening the Steve Irwin was moved from its berth at Holmsgarth over to Heogan in Bressay to make way for the arriving tall ships. LPA chief executive Sandra Laurenson said the port authority was quite happy for the boat to stay in Lerwick and said she had “no thoughts one way or another about any of our clients”.
The Fish & Fish lawsuit alleges that Sea Shepherd campaigners damaged property belonging to Fish & Fish when the Steve Irwin rammed their tuna pen on the high seas in the Mediterranean last year. It claims that a combination of the damage caused to its net and the loss of 600 valuable fish, with a weight of 35 tonnes, amounted to US$1.4 million, around £875,000.
LONDON – A phone-hacking scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s media empire grew on Thursday with claims that Britain’s top-selling tabloid may have listened to the voicemail of relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
News International, the parent company of the News of the World tabloid, said it would be contacting the Defence Ministry after a report in the Daily Telegraph that the phone numbers of British soldiers were found in the files of a private investigator jailed for hacking phones.
“If these allegations are true we are absolutely appalled and horrified,” it said in a statement.
Rose Gentle, the mother of fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq’s oil port of Basra in 2004, told the BBC she was “totally disgusted” by the allegations.
“I’d never buy that paper again, if this is true, they need to be brought to justice for this, they need to pay for this,” she said.
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