Category: Europe

Russia to submit request to UN for new Arctic borders

A decade after its first application was turned down, Russia plans to submit another request to the United Nations (UN), seeking to expand its Arctic borders by over 1 million square km, a senior government official said Wednesday.

“If the request is approved, Russia will fix its sovereign right over an extra territory of 1.2 million square meters in the Arctic Ocean and will also have a chance to increase its forecasts for hydrocarbon resources by 5 billion tons of equivalent fuel,” Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi told a meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin.

He added that the approval of the Russian claim would support Moscow’s geopolitical interests in the Arctic and provide its control over seabed and covered waters.

Moscow initially submitted its claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in 2001 but was asked in 2002 to revise the application by adding more trustworthy data. Russia could again submit the claim next spring.

“Now all the work has been done. Since 2002 rather a large volume of field and camera work has been carried out in ice conditions,” Interfax news agency quoted Donskoi as saying.

For the UN to recognize Moscow’s ownership of those areas, it must be scientifically proven that they are a continuation of the continental crust with the same general geological structure.

Russia, along with the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway, exercises sovereignty of 200 nautical miles (370 km) exclusive economic zone from their respective Arctic shorelines.

All the five countries have reserved the right to demand expansion of their exclusive zones, which requires each country to demonstrate the seabed is a natural extension of its continental shelf.

Source: Xinhua

Russian planes everywhere: UK media hypes intercept

Most media reports based on the NATO statement failed to mention that the Russian planes did not cross any borders and remained within international airspace in every mentioned case

Two Royal Air Force jets reportedly threatened to shoot down a Latvian cargo plane, rushing at supersonic speeds to intercept it, after the plane failed to respond to air traffic control over Kent in Southern England and sent authorities into panic mode.

Russian planes everywhere

The excitement surrounding the intercept – apparently based on post-9/11 terrorist attack fears – came amid a heightened terror alert in the UK at the time of the allied military campaign against the Islamic State.

Media reports mirrored the panic frenzy triggered by the incident, but in a peculiar way: first saying that the cargo plane was “Russian” and then switching to a “Russian-made” reference, RT reported.

Both takes were wrong: the Antonov design bureau, the producer of An-26 planes, is a Ukrainian company founded in Soviet times, and the plane in question belonged to a Latvian-registered company, ironically called RAF-Avia.

However, the British media seemingly capitalized on the latest NATO reports of “unusual” increased activity of Russian military aircrafts over the Atlantic and the Black Sea.

NATO stated that it has intercepted four groups of Russian planes since Tuesday. “These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” the alliance said.

Most media reports based on the NATO statement failed to mention that the Russian planes did not cross any borders and remained within international airspace in every mentioned case.

“I am instructed by Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom to warn you that, if you do not respond immediately to my orders, you will be shot down,” radioed one of the jets, according to an audio recording circulating in UK media.

The incident occurred at about 5pm local time after the Latvian Antonov An-26 aircraft failed to make contact with air traffic controllers.

British Typhoons were tasked with intercepting the cargo plane. “To fulfill their quick reaction role, they were cleared to travel at supersonic speed,” an RAF spokesperson said, adding that the speed explains the loud noise people heard in the air.

Many locals took to Twitter, describing how their houses shook after the loud bangs.

Communications with the civilian pilots were restored only after the jets intercepted the plane.

The Latvian plane was then escorted to London’s Stansted Airport at around 5:20 pm “All three people who were on board have been spoken to by police,” AP quoted Essex Police spokeswoman Emma Thomas as saying. “It was established that everything was in order and the reason for the short loss of communication was due to a change in airspace.

 

‘EU foreign policy prisoner to US threats’

The EU is trapped between anti-Russian members and threats to European companies

EU foreign policy has become a prisoner of the United States, trapped and forced to impose and maintain sanctions against Russia, prominent French economist Jacques Sapir told RIA Novosti Wednesday.

“The EU at first had no intention of moving to a sanctions regime as harsh as the US. But, the US trick was to let the threat of a possible move by the US against any EU company, doing business with Russia in US dollars hovering,” Sapir said.

Then, the EU ended up trapped between on one hand some EU countries (Poland and the Baltic countries) that are deeply anti-Russian and possible US threats against EU companies if they did not abide US sanctions. We could consider that EU foreign policy has been successfully captured by the United States.”

Late Tuesday, permanent representatives to the European Union decided against altering the existing sanctions regime against Russia.
Jacques Sapir explained that “it would be extremely difficult to cancel the sanctions “at least before a delay of 6 months.”

“To do that, the EU would have to build a “consensus” and if Poland and the Baltic countries don’t agree, sanctions could not be cancelled. But, we have to remind ourselves that the sanctions were put in place for 6 months. Once we reach this deadline (by early January 2015) the situation could evolve in another direction,” Sapir told RIA Novosti.

Sapir noted that “the sanctions process against Russia is the only way the EU could be seen to react to Russian policies on Crimea and Ukraine.” But the fact of using sanctions and “that European sanctions were, at first, only cosmetic” demonstrates the weakness of the European Union in facing the United States.

The European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied.

The latest round of sanctions came into effect on September 12, targeting Russian defense companies, alongside the country’s largest banks, energy companies and certain high profile individuals.

War criminals ‘liberated’ Kosovo

According to the European Union Special Investigative Task Force’s (SITF) chief prosecutor, Clint Williamson some KLA senior officials committed crimes against humanity and war crimes following the end of the Kosovo War in 1999.

In a statement made recently, SITF announced its findings on the alleged crimes committed by members of ethnic-Albanian rebel organization Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought Kosovo’s separation from Serb territories in the 1990s.

The SITF says it found evidence “that certain elements of the KLA intentionally targeted the minority populations with acts of persecution that included unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, other forms of inhumane treatment, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites.”

Williamson underlined that the victims of these crimes were mainly Serbs, Roma and other minorities, but also Kosovo Albanians who were labeled as either collaborators with the Serbs or political opponents of the KLA leadership.

The SITF was set up by the European Union in September 2011 to conduct a full-scale criminal investigation into the allegations contained in the report of Council of Europe Rapporteur Dick Marty, who claimed he had information about former KLA officials harvesting and trafficking human organs.

Many people were mistreated by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the SITF found

“Over the past two and a half years, the SITF has conducted an intense, detailed investigation into the allegations in the Marty Report,” wrote Williamson the statement. “This investigation has involved interviews of hundreds of witnesses in countries throughout Europe and elsewhere. It has involved the review of thousands of pages of documents compiled by numerous organizations and individuals that were engaged in Kosovo during and after the period of our investigative focus.”

He added that the investigation has been a “challenging exercise” but was nevertheless convinced that it has been “the most comprehensive investigation ever done of crimes perpetrated in the period after the war ended in Kosovo in June 1999.”

In its press release, the SITF claims it can file an indictment against KLA individuals once “an appropriate judicial mechanism is established to host a fully independent, impartial and transparent trial that ensures the highest standards of security for witnesses and for criminal proceedings.”

Williamson thanked the European Union, its member states and international partners for their ongoing efforts in setting up a court for the proceedings.

Source: DW

‘The goal of sanctions is a color revolution in Russia’

The goal of Western economic sanctions is a “color revolution” in Russia, Russian Academy of Sciences presidium member, academician Yevgeny Primakov is convinced. He told TASS in a jubilee interview of conspiracy theories around oil prices, the U-turn of Russia’s economy to the East and the role of informal diplomacy in conditions of a political crisis. On October 29, Yevgeny Primakov, who consecutively headed the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Foreign Ministry and the government, turns 85.

– How large-scale can the influence of reciprocal sanctions be on the global policy and economy?

– I can’t agree with the term “reciprocal sanctions”. The sanctions imposed by the United States and their allies against Russia are one thing. And response measures taken by Russia are quite another thing. The aim of anti-Russian economic sanctions is to weaken Russia, corner us, put into practice the idea of a “color revolution” in our country. The response measures that in their scale are not comparable to anti-Russian sanctions are mainly aimed to create an atmosphere that does not favor escalation of sanctions imposed by the West. Of course, in such a situation, a signal is sent to relevant departments and businesses on the required support for the domestic producer in order to loosen our dependence on imports, especially in the food sphere.

Economic sanctions without a relevant decision of the UN Security Council are a measure that contradicts global processes – both economic ones aimed to develop interaction in the interests of all countries, and political ones who solve the problems of creating various systems of counteraction to the real threats to the security of the modern world.

– Has escalation of the conflict discredited the leading institutions of international economic cooperation – the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the IMF? Do they require transformation?

– The development of the conflict imposed on us by the United States directly contradicts the principles that underlie the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF, but it does not mean that Russia should quit these institutions of international economic cooperation. Even in conditions of the changed global situation, Russia does not accept a course for self-isolation.

– Does the role of informal diplomacy grow in conditions of political contradictions? In particular, do you think that representatives of big business of Russia, the US and the EU will contribute to rapprochement of political positions of the countries involved in the confrontation?

– Informal diplomacy is especially important now, including at the level of Russian, American and European businesses, interested, it seems, not in destruction but in creation, in development, first of all, of economic cooperation.

– Has China retained the status of the United States’ arch geopolitical rival against the cool-off in Russian-US relations? Or is it now Russia?

– As far as economics is concerned, in the context of the existing inter-dependence of the United States and China their competition is unlikely to fade into the background, particularly so now, that the Chinese economy has taken first place. At the same time, I do not believe that one should project this situation to the worsening of relations between the United States and Russia, which by no means signifies that Russia positions itself as the United States’ main geopolitical rival.

Polish arms flood into Ukraine with media looking the other way

Western governments have flooded the media with false reports of Russian troops in Ukraine. By contrast, reports of Polish troops and mercenaries in Ukraine’s civil war have been ignored.

A protest action against the participation of Polish soldiers and mercenaries in combat actions in Ukraine occurred on October 4 near the parliament building in Warsaw. Participants held flags of Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. They carried placards with slogans: “Stop Bandera, “Stop supporting Banderites. We remember Volyn!”, “No to Polish soldiers participation in NATO military operation in Ukraine”.

The participation of Poles in the Ukrainian crisis has many aspects, including the training of nationalist militants, the participation of mercenaries hired by Polish private contractors in the combat actions in Donbass, the weapons supplies to the Ukraine’s regime and the formation of a joint Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian brigade – LITPOLUKRBRIG.

Polish involvement in training Ukrainian militants is now admitted. For instance, in the spring 2014 Nie magazine published an article describing the training course of 86 Pravy Sector (an ultra-right radical organization in Ukraine) militants in Warsaw at the expense of the Polish government. The month-long course included the organization of mass protests, and the tactics of street fighting and sharp shooting, including a sniper course. “The terrorists trained in Poland killed people during the Maidan events,” according to Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a MEP from Silesia.

On June 16, the self-defence servicemen hit an IL-76 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force. They found in the wreckage many burnt Polish documents which belonged to about 40 mercenaries from Poland and Lithuania who were being hastefully transported to Luhansk. On June 26, a Polish female sniper was killed near Saur-Mogila (Savur-Mohyla). She used the newest American 12,5 mm caliber rifle. Late at night on July 12, a Ukrainian block post was eliminated near Ilovaisk; some of the dead wore Polish insignia. On September 2, acting Security Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic Leonid Baranov said the self-defence forces took a group of Polish mercenaries as prisoners. According to the same source, some Polish militants surrendered to self-defence forces as fighting was raging for the Donetsk airport on September 3. According to witnesses, American Poles have the reputation of being the most merciless among Polish mercenaries.

“From the start of the events that led to the coup in Ukraine, the role of Poland has been neglected for one very good reason: it has been murky”, wrote Deana Stryker in her page of OpEdNews in a June edition 2014 edition. She went on to write:

As the war in the southeast of Ukraine rages on, there is increasing proof of Poland’s involvement. Though indirect (i.e. no official Polish military units on the ground), it is no less lethal. Not only was Poland complicit in training urban terrorists in the run-up to the EuroMaidan chaos, it has also sent mercenaries to put down the anti-coup protesters in the east, and now there is photographic proof. Jerzy Dziewulski, security advisor to former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, was photographed last week with former interim Ukrainian president Alexander Turchynov in Slavyansk.

Dziewulski was a security adviser to then Polish President Alexander Kwaśniewski who is now a board member of Burisma Holding – the largest private gas producer in Ukraine. In April before the punitive operation in Donbass started Robert Hunter Biden, the son of US Vice President and Devon Archer, a close friend of the US State Secretary John Kerry’s family, joined the company’s board of directors. Burisma Holdings plans to launch energy supplies to Europe from the Dneprovsko-Donetsk basin, a region allegedly awash with shale gas reserves. For instance, the Yuzov shale gas field (total territory – 7885 square km) includes Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Krasny Luch, and Svyatogorsk of the Donetsk region, as well as Balaklea and Isyum of the Kharkiv region. The contract has gone to Royal Dutch Shell.

By the end of summer the Kiev regime formally asked Poland to start arms supplies, but the information on weapons deliveries taking place in practice had leaked out before. A secret operation conducted in Odessa on June 16 came into the open. Ships unloaded 12 self-propelled auto-loading 152 mm VZ-77 Dana guns produced in the Czech Republic and taken from the Polish inventory, as well as staff buses and trucks. Military equipment and soldier’s uniforms with Polish flags and insignia pointed to the 1-st Mazur Artillery Brigade from Poland. Howitzers, buses, and support vehicles were taken to the rail terminal Razdelnaya for loading. On September 13, people in West Ukraine saw with their own eyes 34 German Leopard tanks entering the territory of Ukraine from Poland and then moving east.

On September 19, 2014 in Warsaw Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine signed an agreement to form a joint brigade. The LITPOLUKRBRIG will be headquartered in Poland’s eastern city of Lublin. Poland is to play the major role in forming the unit. Polish media call it a mini-NATO against Russia (Mini NATO przeciwko Rosji). The brigade is to serve as a cover to legalize the activities of Polish mercenaries fighting the armed forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics. At the same time it will prepare the ground for getting the people of Malorossiya (little Russia, an administrative-territorial region of the Russian Empire that encompasses most of modern North Eastern Ukraine) to return to Polish-Lithuanian rule.

Source: Russia Insider

Russia opens Europe’s largest natural gas exchange

Russia launched a new and independent natural gas exchange that will reside in St. Petersburg, and will make the facility the largest market for natural gas trading in all of Europe.

Known as the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX), this trade facility will allow for international and domestic gas operations to sell their products in Russia and in a centralized location, and will become part of the growing Eurasian Economic Zone that is emerging in the East as global trade moves away from the dollar and away from U.S. hegemony.

The importance of this independent market exchange is that natural gas can work towards a complete separation from oil, which under the current system tends to price both commodities on similar scales and in dollar denominations. It will also open up the market for new buyers who are solely interested in natural gas, and help facilitate a new pricing structure that will allow Russia and other gas producers to eventually remove the energy source from the petro-dollar and from U.S. control over the monetary component in gas trading.

“Russia, the world’s second-largest producer of natural gas, has launched its first auction of natural gas on Friday at the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX). It will be Europe’s largest natural gas trading post.

The project is intended to create a more competitive market for natural gas prices, which at present are more-or-less tied to oil. Now, independent producers will have access to a broader range of buyers.

The exchange will facilitate up to 35 billion cubic meters of gas annually, with Gazprom, Russia’s largest producer, maintaining the right to sell a half of that, and independent producers the remaining 17.5 billion cubic meters.” – RT

It is interesting to note that the SPIMEX is beginning operations just two days after the tragic and highly suspect death of Total CEO Christophe de Margerie, who was in Russia to discuss energy topics with government and oil industry leaders. And with de Margerie being a staunch advocate of taking oil and energy off the antiquated petro-dollar system, it is very likely Total will be intrinsically involved in this new exchange.

With economic sanctions, and secret oil deals with Middle Eastern producers causing dire financial consequences to Russia’s currency and energy industries, the best way to circumvent external attacks is to simply bypass the recognized market structures and create your own platforms of trade, and in currencies that are beneficial to the well being of your economy. And while it may take some time before natural gas is completely segregated from oil and the petro-dollar, the introduction of the largest natural gas exchange in Europe will eventually allow Russia to establish price discovery for the commodity, and change the way customers are allowed to purchase this crucial form of energy for their natons and industries.

Source: examiner.com

Marine Le Pen: Deliver the Mistral to Russia

Marine Le Pen insists France has contractual obligations to deliver the vessel to Russia and should resist US pressure to break them

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s third-largest party Front National, demanded on Friday that France fulfilled its contract on the delivery of Mistral-class helipcopter carriers to Russia.

“France has taken obligations under the contract on the delivery of vessels to Russia. However, we now see that it has broken its obligation on the US president’s orders,” Le Pen said.

She added that no other country would sign any contracts with France that scraps deals at the last moments on Barack Obama’s orders.

“France should stop being a US lapdog and become a sovereign country free to make its own choice,” Le Pen said.

Russia and France signed a €1.2 billion deal for the delivery of two Mistral-class ships in June 2011. The first vessel, the Vladivostok, was floated out in October 201. The second ship, the Sevastopol, is supposed to be delivered in 2015. France will have to pay Russia a penalty fee if it fails to fulfil the contract.

‘Keep sanctions, Putin is winning’

Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine by continuing to back pro-Russian separatists and flouting a cease-fire, making it crucial that sanctions on Russia remain firm, France’s ambassador to the U.S. said.

The Russian president “has won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was,” Ambassador Gerard Araud said yesterday at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington… Echoing the view of other European envoys in Washington, Araud expressed concern that the Ukraine conflict has hit an impasse, leaving Putin the winner by default.

Poroshenko is “kneeling in front of Putin with the cord around his neck and saying, ‘You know, you have won,’” and Putin is still not backing down, Araud said.

While many observers have called Putin a geopolitical chess player, he said, the Russian leader is more a “poker player really, putting all the money on the table, saying, ‘Do the same,’ and of course we blink. We don’t do the same.”

The economic sanctions against Russia must stay in place to prevent Putin from going further, said Araud, who moved to Washington in September after serving as the French ambassador to the United Nations.

“Whatever we decide is a disaster for us,” Araud said, again expressing his personal view. On one side, he said, lies France’s credibility as an arms supplier who delivers on contracts, and on the other, the difficulty of delivering a weapons system to Putin, who might use it against Ukraine or a European ally.

Araud concludes – rather ominously – and far too honestly for a paid-up member of the European elite:

“The question is there on the table: When is Putin going to stop?” Araud said. “That’s the reason that we need to keep the sanctions” because, “let’s be frank, it’s more or less the only weapon that we have. We are not going to send our soldiers in Ukraine. It does not make sense to send weapons to the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians would be defeated real easily, so it will only prolong the war” and lead to a “still bigger Russian victory.”

The various oligarch controlled parties seem to have won a strong victory against the various Nazi parties in the elections being held by the junta currently: 44% vs 16%, but the official and final results will only be known on Wednesday.

Source: Bloomberg

Soros in a corner

Those who would gain the most from an IMF spending spree in Europe would be, you guessed it, billionaires like George Soros.

The Russian “existential war threat” is, to Soros, nothing but an excuse to end the “austerity experiment” and to return to its inebriated spending ways.

The globalist American neo-cons were hoping the Ukraine civil war would become an all out war between Russia and Ukraine, thus unleashing the “spend your way to prosperity” for Soroses of the world.

This plan seems to be failing, so Soros turned to a desperate measure, an opinion piece that does more for Vladimir Putin, than Soros imagined.

Here are the highlights from what the Open Society founder has to say about the “existential Russian threat” in a just released Op-Ed in the New York Reviews Of Books:

Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence. Neither the European leaders nor their citizens are fully aware of this challenge or know how best to deal with it. I attribute this mainly to the fact that the European Union in general and the eurozone in particular lost their way after the financial crisis of 2008.

And:

[Europe] fails to recognize that the Russian attack on Ukraine is indirectly an attack on the European Union and its principles of governance. It ought to be evident that it is inappropriate for a country, or association of countries, at war to pursue a policy of fiscal austerity as the European Union continues to do.

More desperate still:

All available resources ought to be put to work in the war effort even if that involves running up budget deficits

And then really crying out openly for a full war:

[IMF] should provide an immediate cash injection of at least $20 billion, with a promise of more when needed. Ukraine’s partners should provide additional financing conditional on implementation of the IMF-supported program, at their own risk, in line with standard practice.

French detectives join investigation into Total CEO’s death

Russian Prosecutor General’s Office agreed on French detectives to participate in a probe of the crash of a French jet Falcon at Moscow airport Vnukovo in which France’s oil giant Total CEO Christophe de Margerie died, spokesperson of the Prosecutor General’s Office Marina Gridneva told TASS.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office has granted the French partners’ request on their coming to Russia to participate in the investigation of the criminal case opened over the oil major Total CEO’s fatal jet crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on October 20,” she said.

During the takeoff at Vnukovo airport on Monday night, the Dassault Falcon business jet, bound for Paris, collided with a snowplow, caught fire and fell onto the runway. All the people on board died in the crash.

The field stage of the Falcon jet crash investigation was completed on Thursday. A chief investigator with the Interstate Aviation Committee reported the results of the field stage.

The crew of the French Falcon jet that crashed in Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Monday night noticed the snowplow just 14 seconds before takeoff.

A trainee air traffic controller supervised by instructor was guiding Falcon at Vnukovo before crash. All systems of Falcon jet were properly functioning until crash.

The collision of the snowplow and Falcon jet occurred on an intersection of runway strips. The runway strip was free when takeoff authorization was given. Falcon’s speed was about 250 km/h when it crashed with the snowplow.

All fragments of the jet have been collected from the crash site. A thorough examination of the fuselage, collected fragments and fuel is still to be conducted in the future.

A Moscow court on Thursday ruled that the prime suspect in the case. Vladimir Martynenko, a snowplow operator who allegedly caused the crash of the French Falcon jet, remains in detention until December 21.

The court ruled in favor of the prosecution after preliminary medical examination results were announced that Martynenko was drunk at the moment of the crash.

Russia’s Investigative Committee spokesman said the level of alcohol found in Martynenko’s blood was 0,6.

Medical tests show that four staff members of Moscow’s Vnukovo-3 airport detained in connection with the Falcon jet crash were sober, the official spokesman of Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Thursday.

Sweden abandons its search for ‘underwater threat’

The Swedish Navy has halted its search for an alleged foreign submarine in the country’s territorial waters near Stockholm, The Local cited the Navy as saying Friday.

“At 8 a.m. local time (06:00 GMT) a major naval operation, launched in the area of the [Stockholm] archipelago last Friday, has completed,” the Navy said in a statement broadcast by the local television.

No reason was given for abandoning the search.

On October 22, the Swedish Armed Forces said the search for an alleged foreign submarine is entering a “new phase” and will continue for as long as necessary.

The Russian Defense Ministry believes the military operation in the Baltic conducted by Sweden in search of possible “foreign underwater activity” can only lead to undermining stability and escalate tension in the region.

Swedish Armed forces were ready to use force if they detected any foreign submarine in the waters of the Stockholm Archipelago, the supreme commander general had said during the operation in search of the “underwater threat”.

“Such unfounded actions of the Swedish Defense Department, fuelled by the Cold War-style rhetoric, are only leading today to escalation of tension in the region,” Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists on Friday.

“It might result not in strengthening of a particular country’s security, but in undermining the principles of the naval economic activity in the Baltic Sea,” he added.

Sweden started its largest since the Cold War military operation in the Baltic a week ago, explaining that the troops were engaged in search of a possible “foreign underwater activity.”

Vnukovo crash: Custody demanded for snowplow driver

A court in Moscow is set to consider on Thursday an appeal from investigators asking to extend a custody term for Vladimir Martynenko, an operator of a snowplow that caused a tragic crash in which Total’s CEO Christophe de Margerie, two pilots and a flight attendant, all of them French citizens, died in the crash.

Officials from the Russian Investigative Committee demanded the detention of the snowplow driver until December 21, saying that if he is not held, he could warn “other participants in the crime.”

During the takeoff at Moscow airport Vnukovo on Monday night, the four-seat Dassault Falcon business jet, en route to Paris, collided with a snowplow, caught fire and fell onto the runway.

Following the incident Martynenko was detained for the period of 48 hours, which expire on Thursday. Martynenko, who emerged unhurt from the incident, was reportedly under alcoholic influence, while he himself acknowledged that he had a cup of coffee with cognac in it before his shift.

A criminal case has been opened in Russia into the violation of traffic safety and operation of the plane. Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika personally oversees the investigation.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, said earlier on Thursday that Four staff members of Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport were detained on suspicion of their duties’ negligence in regard to the Falcon-300 private jet crash.

The detained are chief engineer of the airport’s service Vladimir Ledenev, who was in charge of snow-clearing works at the time of the incident, flights director Roman Dunayev, intern air traffic controller Svetlana Krivsun and airport’s chief air traffic controller Alexander Kruglov, who was in charge of the air traffic at the time of the tragic crash.

The head and deputy-head of Vnukovo Airport have also resigned, the airport’s press service announced.

“Due to tragic events on the night of October 20 to 21, the head of the Vnukovo International Airport Andrey Diakov and deputy head, Lieutenant-General of Aviation in Reserve Sergey Solntsev, have resigned. The resignations have been accepted,” said a statement.

Guinean attacked ‘for having ebola’

A Guinean woman has been attacked in a bus in Rome by angry passengers who told her she was infected by Ebola and had to get off the bus, Italian media reports. She was taken to hospital suffering from multiple bruises.

Fataomata Sompare, 26, was about to get off the bus on Monday, said Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper, as cited by the Local.

A teenage girl who was on the bus with her friends saw Sompare and began accusing her of having the deadly virus. Then some of the teen’s relatives started beating the woman.

“They told me that I had Ebola and that I had to get off the bus,” said Sompare, who has been living in Italy for four years.

People at a bus stop near Grotte Celoni Metro station in the east of the city managed to save the woman, who suffered multiple bruises after being beaten by passengers. The police arrived and she was taken to hospital.

The incident was reported to public prosecutors by Sompare’s lawyer.

“[She is] a victim of racism, which is now rampant in this city,” the Sompare’s partner Alessandro Corbelli told Il Messaggero. He added that the incident was “shameful” and she had been attacked “only because she’s black.”

The incident is not the only example of Ebola hysteria in recent days. In the US, Ebola-phobic parents sent a Maine teacher on mandatory leave after he returned from Dallas, where first victim of the virus in the country died. In Mississippi, parents pulled their kids out of school because of the principal’s trip to Zambia.

The death toll from the Ebola virus has reached 4,877 people for far, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

According to the UN health body, 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst-affected by the virus, have contracted the disease.

Source: RT