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President Obama orders new round of sanctions on Russia
President Obama orders new round of sanctions on Russia (AP) / 21 March 2014 Obama said the latest penalties were the result of “choices the Russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community.” President Barack Obama on Thursday expanded US economic sanctions against Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, targeting President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff and 19 other individuals as well as a Russian bank that provides them support. Obama, warning of more costs to come for the Kremlin if the situation worsens, said he also signed an executive order that would allow the US to penalize key sectors of the Russian economy. Officials said Obama could act on that authority if Russian forces press into other areas of Ukraine, an escalation of the crisis in Crimea. The president said the latest penalties were the result of “choices the Russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community.” “Russia must know that further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community,” Obama said, speaking from the South Lawn of the White House. European Union leaders, too, said they would expand the number of people targeted with various sanctions and indicated they would cancel an EU-Russia summit. Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German parliament that if the crisis deepens in Crimea and Ukraine, the EU is prepared to move to economic sanctions on a higher level. Those named in the sanctions Thursday include Sergei Ivanov, Putin’s chief of staff and a longtime associate, as well as Arkady Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko, both lifelong Putin friends whose companies have amassed billions of dollars in government contracts. Also sanctioned: Bank Rossiya, a private bank that is owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, who is considered to be Putin’s banker. The U.S. sanctions followed a first round of U.S. economic penalties ordered earlier in the week on 11 people the U.S. said were involved in the dispute in Ukraine. Russia moved its military into Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula three weeks ago and has since formally annexed the strategically important region into its borders. The U.S. has declared Russia’s incursion into Crimea a violation of international law and does not recognize its annexation of the peninsula. Still, U.S. officials privately acknowledge that Russia is unlikely to give up Crimea. Instead, their top priority is keeping Russia from moving into other areas of Ukraine with pro-Russian populations. “The world is watching with grave concern as Russia has positioned its military in a way that could lead to further incursions into southern and eastern Ukraine,” Obama said. Senior administration officials said the individuals targeted by Thursday’s sanctions will have assets frozen in the United States, will be barred from doing any business in the U.S. and will be unable to make transactions in American dollars. The officials said some of those sanctioned are close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin has not been personally targeted by the first two rounds of U.S. sanctions. American sanctions on heads of state are rare, largely reserved for instances where the U.S. is seeking a change in government leadership. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Khushwant Singh, writer and journalist, passes away at 99
Khushwant Singh, writer and journalist, passes away at 99 (AFP) / 21 March 2014 Khushwant Singh, one of India’s best known writers who won fame for a searing book on partition of the subcontinent as well as his once-daring descriptions of sex, died on Thursday aged 99. The country’s most prolific author, who died at his home in New Delhi after suffering breathing problems, had only recently stopped writing despite his advanced years, his son said. “He was having some breathing problems. “He hadn’t been too unwell in his last few days and had only stopped writing recently. He was still reading newspapers and books… was mentally alert, and led a full life,” Rahul Singh told the NDTV news channel. Singh was a household name who wrote more than 100 books and countless newspaper columns, including one called With Malice Towards One And All. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called him “a gifted author, candid commentator and a dear friend” as tributes poured in for a great writer with an even greater sense of humour. “The world will always remember him as a lovable human being,” author and veteran BBC journalist Mark Tully said on NDTV. Fellow authors including Vikram Seth and former cricketers were among those who visited his Delhi home to pay their respects to a man hailed by President Pranab Mukherjee as a “fearless intellectual”, the Press Trust of India said. In an interview with AFP in 2005, Singh described his passion for writing as compulsive. “I don’t know what to do with myself if I don’t write, I have lost the art of relaxation,” he said. Singh, a Sikh born on February 2, 1915 in what is now Pakistan, occupied India’s literary centre-stage for half a century with his novels. Some in his early decades scandalised India with their sexually explicit scenes. He is best remembered for his historical novel Train to Pakistan, which recounts the tragedy and bloodshed of the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 into India and Pakistan. Singh, who penned his books and columns on yellow legal pads, became a writer relatively late. Born into a well-off family, he initially practised law in Lahore. But partition was the trigger for him to change professions. “I loathed the law. I thought I can’t waste my entire life living off other people’s quarrels,” he said. After coming to New Delhi, where his father became a prosperous property developer, he entered the diplomatic service in 1947 but soon tired of this and became a journalist and writer. Singh was cremated in Delhi later on Thursday. He is survived by his son, daughter and a niece. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Search planes fail to find Malaysia jet debris
Search planes fail to find Malaysia jet debris (AP) / 21 March 2014 The planes are part of an international effort to solve the nearly 2-week-old aviation mystery by locating two large objects a satellite detected floating off the southwest coast of Australia about halfway to the desolate islands of the Antarctic. Search planes sent to find objects in the south Indian Ocean that may be from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet began returning without success on Friday, and an Australian official said the hunt would be extended again for another day. The planes are part of an international effort to solve the nearly 2-week-old aviation mystery by locating two large objects a satellite detected floating off the southwest coast of Australia about halfway to the desolate islands of the Antarctic. The area in the southern Indian Ocean is so remote is takes aircraft four hours to fly there and four hours back, and leaves them only about two hours to search. The satellite discovery raised new hope of finding the vanished jet and sent another emotional jolt to the families of the 239 people aboard. But like the first day of searching on Thursday, efforts so far Friday have been fruitless, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division. “Although this search area is much smaller than we started with, it nonetheless is a big area when you’re looking out the window and trying to see something by eye,” Young said. “So we may have to do this a few times to be confident about the coverage of that search area,” he said. Five planes were sent out, with the last expected to head back to Perth in western Australia about 1100 GMT, he said. Young said that although the weather improved from Thursday, there was still some low cloud cover over the search area 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) from western Australia. Given that radar did not pick up anything on Thursday, searchers were using their eyes instead of equipment to try and spot the objects, forcing the planes to fly very low over the water. The aircrafts are planning to head back to the search zone on Saturday, but the search area will change slightly depending on water movements overnight, Young said. AMSA officials are also looking to see if there is any new satellite imagery that can help provide searchers with new or more information, he said. Speaking at a news conference in Papua New Guinea, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “We’ve been throwing everything we’ve got at that area to try to learn more about what this debris might be.” He said that the objects “could just be a container that’s fallen off a ship — we just don’t know.” Abbott spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he described as “devastated.” Of the 227 passengers on the missing flight, 154 were from China. “It’s about the most inaccessible spot that you could imagine on the face of the earth, but if there is anything down there we will find it. We owe it to the families of those people to do no less,” Abbott said. The development also marked a new phase for the anguished relatives of the passengers, who have been critical of Malaysian officials for what the relatives say has been the slow release of timely information. In Beijing, relatives met on Friday with Malaysian officials at the Lido Hotel, where most have been staying awaiting the latest news. Those who spoke said they had a two-hour briefing about the search but that nothing new was said. Wang Zhen, son of artist Wang Linshi, said the meeting went smoothly but that there were questions on why Malaysian authorities had provided so much seemingly contradictory information. Wang said he has hopes his father can be found alive and was praying that the Australian reports turn out to be false. He said he and other relatives are suspicious about what they were being told by the Malaysian side, but are at a loss as to what to do next. “We feel they’re hiding something from us,” said Wang, who was filling his days attending briefings and watching the news for updates. One of the objects on the satellite image was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) long — which is longer than a standard container — and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). The Norwegian cargo vessel Hoegh St. Petersburg is also in the area and its crew of 20 Filipinos is helping with the search. The ship, which transports cars, was on its way from South Africa to Australia, he said. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said another commercial ship and an Australian navy vessel were also en route to the search area. Three Chinese naval ships were heading to the area, along with the icebreaker Snow Dragon, China’s state television reported. The icebreaker was in Perth following a voyage to the Antarctica in January, but it wasn’t clear when the other ships would get there. The combination the planes are using of radar to detect objects coupled with low passes over the ocean to identify them visually is crucial because when “radar blips come back it’s not always clear what the object is,” said Michael Smart, an aerospace engineering professor at Australia’s University of Queensland. “They use the radar to focus and then they go and visually look to see what it is,” he said. “The high technology and the low technology are equally important.” The biggest challenges for the searchers are weather conditions in an area known for its storms, he said, though rainy and cloudy weather appeared to be clearing up Friday afternoon. And if the objects are partially submerged as they bob in the ocean that could also affect the planes’ radar detection capabilities. Smart predicted that “it will be just a matter of time before they are found. If they were going to sink they would have already.” The hunt has encountered other false leads. Oil slicks that were seen did not contain jet fuel. A yellow object thought to be from the plane turned out to be sea trash. Chinese satellite images showed possible debris, but nothing was found. Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation for what happened to the jet, but have said the evidence so far suggests it was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next. Police are considering the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
