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Today: 41 articles and 131 comments as of 9:27.
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Nine soldiers killed, military convoy attacked in N Wazoo
Today's Headlines
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Medvedev sacks Russia navy chief
President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed the head of Russia’s accident-prone navy and named a new air force chief on his last full day in office on Sunday as he prepares to take the No. 2 post under Vladimir Putin. Medvedev, who is on track to become prime minister after Putin returns to the presidency on Monday for a six-year term, has replaced the heads of the army, navy and air force in the past two weeks.

In a decree announced by the Kremlin, he dismissed Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, whose nearly five-year stint as navy commander included a fire aboard an atomic-powered submarine in December and a deadly accident on another submarine in 2008.

Authorities initially said all nuclear arms aboard the Yekaterinburg had been unloaded long before a fire broke out aboard the docked vessel on Dec. 29, but a senior official later suggested it may still have been carrying the weapons. The official spoke after the respected magazine Vlast quoted Russian navy sources as saying the submarine was carrying 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each armed with four nuclear warheads, during the fire set off by welding sparks.

“After something like that, the head of the navy in any functioning state would have been sacked,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow-based defence think tank CAST. He said the decision was probably made by Putin, who becomes commander-in-chief of the armed forces when he is sworn in as president on Monday.

Medvedev replaced Vysotsky with a vice-admiral, Viktor Chirkov. In another decree, he named General Viktor Bondarev to replace former air force chief Alexander Zelin, who had grumbled about military restructuring and was dismissed on April 27.

Medvedev also dismissed the commander of the army in late April, but appointed him to a high-level post as deputy head of the military general staff. On Sunday, Medvedev named Zelin as an aide to Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

Russia’s military branches have been weakened by the growing power delegated to its geographical military districts, and the air force has lost some of its functions to the Aerospace Defence Forces, said independent military analyst Alexander Golts.

But Medvedev’s main aim of the last minute announcement may have been to show “that he must be taken seriously”, Golts said.

Steered into the presidency by Putin, who faced a bar on a third straight term in 2008, Medvedev has been seen as the junior partner in Russia’s “tandem” leadership and may face trouble commanding authority as prime minister. He seems determined “to demonstrate that he is staying on - that the tandem still exists and that he still exists as the No. 2 leader of the state,” Golts said.
He's not a Joe Biden, he'll have you know...
Posted by: Steve White || 05/07/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Socialist Hollande wins French election (Taiwanese edition)
Posted by: tipper || 05/07/2012 14:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Socialist Francois Hollande wins French presidency - Sark looses.
Posted by: Water Modem || 05/07/2012 00:27 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Groovy.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/07/2012 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Surely Benjamin Netanyahu must be softly chuckling to himself.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2012 7:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Euro declines on French and Greek election results.

That didn't take long.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2012 7:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Obama invites Francois Hollande to White House.

That didn't take long.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/07/2012 8:44 Comments || Top||

#5  The danger of bribing the public with free public goodies, is that they become dependent on them and when a real cut is needed for the good of the nation, the public won't do it.

Goodbye Europe. You had a good run. Enjoy your bankruptcy and racial civil wars.
Posted by: DarthVader || 05/07/2012 9:30 Comments || Top||

#6  #4 - so it's a Socialism Summit™?
Posted by: Frank G || 05/07/2012 10:44 Comments || Top||

#7  AFAIC this is the French equivalent of Russia's VLADVEDEV = SARKOLLANDE??? I anticipate Sarkozy shall return like NOT-Gen. MacArthur.

* ION WORLD MIL FORUM > BACHELOR LEADERS: FRANCOIS HOLLANDE THE THIRD FRENCH PRESIDENT WID NO GOVERNING EXPERIENCE, NO OUTSTANDING OR EXEMPLARY CHARACTERISTICS, + NO WIFE. EURODOLLAR CRISES MAY EFFECTIVELY PREVENT HOLLANDE'S IDEALIST SOCIALIST PARTY AGENDA FROM BEING IMPLEMENTED IN FRANCE.

No Boon + no Babe - ouchies!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/07/2012 23:22 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
US election 2012: Joe Biden weighs into gay marriage debate
"I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties," he said a television interview.

His remarks came as the Obama administration continued to walk a political tightrope over same-sex marriages, with Barack Obama's own position on the issue said by aides to be "evolving".

In a sign of how sensitive an issue gay marriage is for Mr Obama's campaign strategists, gay rights groups initially took Mr Biden's words on NBC's "Meet the Press" as a significant step towards full endorsement, only for senior Obama aides to say the position remained unchanged.

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign chief strategist, clarified on Twitter that Mr Biden had only "precisely" stated Mr Obama's position that "that all married couples should have exactly the same legal rights".

A Biden aide then added further clarification: "The vice president was saying what the president has said previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights.
Posted by: tipper || 05/07/2012 01:52 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  and the reporter snipped the bit where he talked about dogs marrying cats and how his lambs slept with his lions.....
Posted by: Water Modem || 05/07/2012 8:22 Comments || Top||

#2  And the reporters had walked away as he began babbling something about donkeys in Tijuana.
Posted by: Water Modem || 05/07/2012 8:26 Comments || Top||

#3  We found in California with Proposition 8 that blacks and Hispanics are in general opposed to gay marriage, some of them quite strenuously. Axelrod won't want to risk losing this demographic.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 05/07/2012 17:26 Comments || Top||

#4  ..and as Prop 8 story demonstrates, they don't want the States to decide what they want.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/07/2012 20:16 Comments || Top||


Greek voters punish ruling coalition, reward far left
Translation: Greek voters are petulant children who don't want to pay for the many mistakes they've made.
Greece’s former finance minister and Socialist party leader called for a broad coalition government of pro-European parties, ruling out a two-party government with his conservative rivals after his party received a drubbing in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

Official projected results showed Evangelos Venizelos’ PASOK party plunging to third place with 13.6 percent and 42 seats in the 300-member parliament. The conservative New Democracy was projected in the lead with 19.18 percent and 109 seats, far below the 151 needed to form a government. The margin of error was 0.5 percentage point.

“A coalition government of the old two-party system would not have sufficient legitimacy or sufficient domestic and international credibility if it would gather a slim majority,” Venizelos said. “A government of national unity with the participation by all the parties that favor a European course, regardless of their positions toward the loan agreements, would have meaning.”
Doesn't the leader of the leading party get to decide what the coalition will be? Why is Venizelos running his mouth? His party is in third. Perhaps he should let the two leaders work it out and give him a call if they need/want him.
If borne out by final results, the outcome is devastating for PASOK, which won a landslide victory in 2009 with more than 43 percent of the vote.

Voters outraged by Greece’s protracted financial crisis and the austerity measures imposed in return for international bailouts punished both main parties, turning to smaller anti-bailout groups instead. The leftist Syriza, which was projected in second place with 16.3 percent and 50 seats, has been strongly opposed to Greece’s bailout agreements.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/07/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Translation: Greek voters are petulant children who don't want to pay for the many mistakes they've made

couldn't have said it better myself
Posted by: Waldemar Hupereque3841 || 05/07/2012 2:54 Comments || Top||

#2  They're just hastening the inevitable. Might as well get it over with.
Posted by: Spot || 05/07/2012 8:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Hoping to pick up a Greek Island for my retirement home in 2015. $500-$600 bucks?
Posted by: Frank G || 05/07/2012 10:43 Comments || Top||

#4  not a bad idea Frank!
Posted by: Water Modem || 05/07/2012 11:22 Comments || Top||

#5  To be honest the far-left is doing what proper capitalists would do.

i.e. no bailouts.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 05/07/2012 11:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Looks like the far right also gained seats. Anti immigrant, tired of supporting non greeks, called neo nazis.
Posted by: bman || 05/07/2012 12:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Common to all democracies are electorates who act like petulant children, unwilling to pay (themselves, anyway) for the many mistakes they have made, are currently benefiting from, continue to make, and will make in the future.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/07/2012 13:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Didn't the EU install the current gov't by fiat not long ago? My take is that either they will step in again, or the Greeks will be summarily kicked out of the Euro as the Germans decide that they've played Daddy Warbucks for too long.

I figure that France is rapidly looking to join Greece. At that point the whole house of cards collapses.
Posted by: AlanC || 05/07/2012 14:47 Comments || Top||

#9 

What austerity?
Posted by: Beavis || 05/07/2012 15:35 Comments || Top||

#10  Fair point, Beavis. When the Greeks cut their government budget by a third they can call. Spain, Italy, same thing.

Of course, we could cut ours by a third and not miss much.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/07/2012 17:46 Comments || Top||

#11  Looks like the far right also gained seats. Anti immigrant, tired of supporting non greeks, called neo nazis.

Wanna bet their economic policies are indistinguishable from the rest of those elected? "National Socialists" are "far-right" only in the eyes of "International Socialists".
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 05/07/2012 18:33 Comments || Top||

#12  "Facism is always descending on America, but it always lands in Europe."
Posted by: Barbara || 05/07/2012 18:51 Comments || Top||

#13  "National Socialists" are "far-right" only in the eyes of "International Socialists".

This is one of my pet peeves lately. The Nazis were Socialists. They called themselves the National Socialist German Workers Party, fer cripes sake. Try telling this to someone who 'knows' the Nazis are right-wing. You'd have an easier time explaining quantum mechanics to a cow.
Posted by: SteveS || 05/07/2012 19:47 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2012-05-07
  Nine soldiers killed, military convoy attacked in N Wazoo
Sun 2012-05-06
  Man wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen: tribal chief
Sat 2012-05-05
  Pro-Regime Gunmen Kill 12 'Qaida' Militants in Yemen
Fri 2012-05-04
  Bajaur teenyboomer kills 24
Thu 2012-05-03
  Afghanistan: Pakistani driving truck bomb arrested
Wed 2012-05-02
  Suicide bomb blast hits hotel in Somalia, two MPs believed dead
Tue 2012-05-01
  'Egyptians thwart Iranian plot to kill Saudi envoy'
Mon 2012-04-30
  US drone 'kills three militants' in Miramshah
Sun 2012-04-29
  Syria Troops Kill 10 Rebels in Damascus Region
Sat 2012-04-28
   21 Taliban Insurgents Killed in Clashes
Fri 2012-04-27
  Separate bomb blasts rock Nigeria's newspapers, at least six killed
Thu 2012-04-26
  Libya bans religious, tribal or ethnic parties
Wed 2012-04-25
  Sacked Yemen Air Force Commander Quits Post
Tue 2012-04-24
  India orders deportation of 10 French nationals over Maoist links
Mon 2012-04-23
  Kazakh court sends 47 men to prison for terrorism

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