MOSCOW (AFP) - Dozens of
Russian soldiers are facing trial for fleeing their unit, fearing
deployment to Ukraine, a news site and a lawyer for five of the men said
Saturday.
The popular
Gazeta.ru website said several dozen soldiers would be prosecuted after
fleeing a training ground in southern Russia where they were under
pressure to "volunteer" to fight in Ukraine.
The troops had freely enlisted for the army and are not draftees, it said.
It
is the latest report to allege Russian soldiers are being sent to
eastern Ukraine despite Moscow's insistence that only "volunteers" are
fighting alongside the pro-Russian separatists.
The
defence ministry said that only four soldiers named in the report are
under investigation for "disciplinary offences", denying dozens were
involved, the Echo of Moscow radio station reported.
Gazeta.ru
cited mothers of two soldiers from the unit, based in the town of Maikop
in the North Caucasus, as saying their sons had fled a training ground
in the southern Rostov region, fearing being sent to Ukraine.
Russian Taifun, mine-resistant armoured vehicles, seen at a training ground during a military drill …
- Pressure to 'volunteer' -
A
lawyer representing five of the soldiers, Tatiana Chernetskaya,
speaking by phone to AFP confirmed the report and said "dozens" of
soldiers faced tribunals.
"They
all have the same story. They all served together in the same unit,"
said Chernetskaya, based in the southern town of Krasnodar.
"They
weren't directly forced to go to Ukraine. People came to the unit to
canvass them to go," Chernetskaya said, adding the recruiters were "not
wearing any identification tags."
"According to the soldiers, they offered 8,000 rubles ($142) per day," she said.
A Ukrainian serviceman stands at a position as workers dig trenches on the frontline of fighting aga …
The soldiers fled, not wanting "to find themselves in battle," she said.
Since
Russia is technically not at war with Ukraine, "if they were sent to
Ukraine, it could be seen as a criminal act," she added, calling the
soldiers "law-abiding."
"They
went back to Maikop and started writing resignation letters but these
were not accepted and this all led to the launching of criminal cases."
She said four of her clients are charged with going AWOL while one is charged with the more serious offence of desertion.
She said soldiers started going on trial in March and several had already been convicted.
Gazeta.ru cited the mother of 21-year-old soldier Ivan Shevkunov, who is facing up to 10 years' jail as a deserter.
"He
said that soldiers were being forced to go (to Ukraine) as volunteers,"
said the soldier's mother, named as Svetlana Nikolayevna.
Gazeta.ru
also published a handwritten statement by another soldier, Pavel
Tynchenko, who has been charged with going absent without leave.
In
the statement to the judge of the military tribunal, Tynchenko wrote:
"I did not want to go against the oath I swore and did not want to take
part in military actions in Ukraine."
Gazeta.ru
cited official statistics on Maikop garrison's military tribunal,
saying it convicted 62 soldiers of going AWOL in the first half of 2015.
The
court's website says a soldier from the Maikop unit on Thursday was
convicted of going AWOL and robbery and sentenced to nine months in a
prison colony.
The Kremlin's
rights council, an advisory body, is due to visit Maikop next week and
Chernetskaya said she planned to meet them to raise the soldiers'
trials.
"The number of
witnesses of this state crime (illegally sending soldiers to
participate in an undeclared war) is already such that it is impossible
to conceal them," opposition politician Alexei Navalny wrote on his
blog.
Eurozone leaders reach agreement on Greek bailout, removing threat of euro exit for now
.
View photo
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks with French President
Francois Hollande, center, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
during a meeting of eurozone heads of state at the EU Council building
in Brussels on Sunday, July 12, 2015. Skeptical European creditors raced
Sunday to narrow differences both among themselves and with Athens,
aiming to come up with a tentative agreement to stave off an immediate
financial collapse in Greece that would reverberate across the
continent. (AP Photo)
BRUSSELS (AP)
-- A summit of eurozone leaders reached a tentative agreement with
Greece on Monday for a bailout program that includes "serious reforms"
and aid, removing an immediate threat that Greece could collapse
financially and leave the euro.
Nine hours after a self-imposed deadline passed, the leaders announced the breakthrough early Monday.
If
the talks had failed, Greece could have faced bankruptcy and a possible
exit from the euro, the European single currency that the country has
been a part of since 2002. No country has ever left the joint currency,
which launched in 1999, and there is no mechanism in place for one to do
so.
For three days of negotiations between
Greece and its international creditors, Greek Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras held out for a better deal to sell to his reluctant legislature
in Athens this week, even though financial collapse is getting closer by
the day.
A breakthrough came in a meeting
between Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President
Francois Hollande and EU president Donald Tusk. Details were not
immediately available.
The breakthrough came
after the threat of expulsion from the euro put intense pressure on
Tsipras to swallow politically unpalatable austerity measures because
his people overwhelmingly want to stay in the eurozone.
Greece
has requested a three-year, 53.5 billion-euro ($59.5 billion) financial
package, but that number grew larger by the tens of billions as the
negotiations dragged on and the leaders calculated how much Greece will
need to stay solvent. The creditors are demanding tough austerity
measures in exchange for Greece's third bailout in five years.
Early
Monday, a Greek official said the key sticking points were the
involvement of the International Monetary Fund in Greece's bailout
program and a proposal that Greece set aside 50 billion euros ($56
billion) worth of state-owned assets in a fund for eventual
privatization.
The official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the
negotiations, said any agreement would provide quick help for Greek
banks from the European Central Bank. Without it, they risk running out
of money this week.
The negotiations began
Saturday with a meeting of finance ministers. The heads of state
convened mid-afternoon Sunday and were still negotiating at dawn Monday.
The
deal on the table appeared to include commitments from Tsipras to push a
drastic austerity program including pension, market and privatization
reforms through parliament by Wednesday, and from the 18 other eurozone
leaders to start talks on a new bailout program.
Sunday's
four-page discussion paper put to eurozone leaders and obtained by The
Associated Press spoke of a potential "time-out from the euro area" for
Greece if no agreement could be found.
It highlighted the increasing frustration of European leaders during five months of fruitless talks with Greece.
"The most important currency has been lost: that is trust and reliability," Merkel said.
Tsipras insisted his government was ready to clinch a deal.
"We
owe that to the peoples of Europe who want Europe united and not
divided," he said. "We can reach an agreement tonight if all parties
want it."
Hollande
insisted it was vital to keep Greece in the euro and said in the event
of a departure, "it's Europe that would go backward. And that I do not
want."
Greece
has received two previous bailouts, totaling 240 billion euros ($268
billion), in return for deep spending cuts, tax increases and reforms
from successive governments. Although the country's annual budget
deficit has come down dramatically, Greece's debt burden has increased
as the economy has shrunk by a quarter.
The
Greek government has made getting some form of debt relief a priority
and hopes that a comprehensive solution will involve European creditors
at least agreeing to delayed repayments or lower interest rates.
Greek
debt stands at around 320 billion euros ($357 billion) — a staggering
180 percent or so of the country's annual gross domestic product. Few
economists think that debt will ever be fully repaid. Last week, the
International Monetary Fund said Greece's debt will need to be
restructured.
___
Menelaos Hadjicostis and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels contributed to this story.
Robin van
Persie is getting ready to leave Manchester United and move to Turkey club, Fenerbahce.
He arrived in Turkey yesterday afternoon July 12th and was greeted by a
fanfare
of Fenerbahce supporters who were eager to meet him. The fans arrived in
their numbers to have a glance at the Holland international as he
arrived in private jet with his wife and two children. RVP, 31, is set
to sign a 3-year
deal worth about £240,000-a-week at Fenerbahce. More photos after the
cut...
Goal
keeping and Real Madrid legend Iker Casillas broke down in tears
yesterday Sunday July 12th as he said goodbye to Real Madrid fans during
a farewell press conference. After 25 years at Real Madrid (he joined
Real's youth academy in 1990), the 35 year old is moving to Porto
After
25 years of defending the crest of the greatest team in the world, the
most difficult day in my sports career has arrived: I have to say
goodbye to an institution that's given me everything. I have
come to this great stadium today to say goodbye to all of you. As of Saturday I'm no longer a Real
Madrid player, now I'll be a Porto player. I am moving to Porto for many
reasons.
'Firstly
I am joining Porto because of the excitement that the coach has
transmitted to me. Secondly, because of their affection, they have won
me over. I'll do everything I can to not disappoint them and fight as
hard as possible to win as many titles as I possibly can there.'
'This
club didn't just teach me how to be a sportsman, it taught me how to be
a person. I've learned a lot form all of my coaches. They have been a
fundamental part of my development and my career. Every day we've been
forming a part of Real Madrid and they've always supported me. I want to
say thank you to my parents and all my family.
'Thank you
to the Madrid fans for their support, helping me lift every cup, every
triumph, for being with me in the good moments and the bad moments.
Forgiving me a hand when I needed lifting up. I don't want to be
remembered as a good goalkeeper or a bad goalkeeper, I just want to be
remembered as a good person, with my faults.
'Thank you. Thank you. A thousand thank yous. Wherever I go, I will always shout Hala Madrid. I’m
sure in the future we’ll see each other. I’m not going to say goodbye,
because it’s not goodbye. I hope to see you soon. Thank you, to all of
you.'
One of the SUVs in Floyd Mayweather entourage crashed into a guy on a
motorcycle on Saturday night when he and his crew were on their way
home from a nightclub. This happened around 3 am.
It's unclear if Floyd was riding in the SUV involved in the accident but
in video obtained by TMZ Sports, you can see Mayweather at the crash
scene while people attend to the fallen biker.
Emergency personnel raced to help but the biker's condition is unknown.
One witness at the scene said it looked as if the motorcycle clipped the
back end of the SUV and the guy was ejected from his bike.
There are pictures which show Floyd in the passenger seat of an SUV earlier in the night so it's unlikely he was driving.
Amanda Lepore, 46, is one of the most famous transsexual fixtures on the New York
party and she has the most expensive body in the world...she bought 'em...:-)
Amanda who had a sex-change at age 19 has had three breast augmentations, buttock
implants and even had her bottom ribs broken so she could achieve a
smaller waist. It's illegal in the US so she went to do it in Mexico. She's also had multiple nips and tucks, lip injections, fillers, Botox, a nose job, a forehead lift and had her hairline lowered.
Asked how
much her cosmetic work has cost in total, the busty blonde declined to
provide an answer, merely stating: 'There is a reason I am labeled ‘The
Most Expensive Body On Earth’.
She says that her s*x change from male to female, was the most painful procedure she’s had done.
'It didn’t hurt when I got it done at the hospital,' she recounted. 'But
they give you a dilator as part of the healing process, which you have
to keep in for extended periods of time to stretch the vaginal opening. If
I could have a crystal ball and see what I look like now - you know,
modeling, hanging out with Daphne Guinness - I'd be like, "Wow, I can't
believe this" It felt like a knife. It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced.'
Some photos have been floating round social media claiming that Nicki
used to be like the pictures above on the right-with no ass and flat
boobs. Nicki however, took time out to shut down the false accusations
by posting the collage and stating:
"If u ever get to a point where u photo shop someone to make them look
"unattractive" using someone else's body Ima need u to give up on life.
There's no reason to be this pressed. Please go out there and chase your
fkng dreams!!!! It's downhill for u after u take time out to do dumb
ass shit like this. - and by the way, I wouldn't mind looking like
vashti... She fly and I think she's from Trinidad like me".
