List of All Articles with Tag 'w'

A former Austrian minister who announced recently that she was moving to Russia to lead a think tank, reportedly flew in her ponies to Moscow on a military plane. Karin Kneissl will move to St Petersburg to work at the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues [GORKI], she told the Russian TASS news agency recently. Last week Ms Kneissl brought two of her ponies to St Petersburg on a military aircraft from the Russian air base at Hmeimim in Syria following a diversion from its intended mission of transporting troops. The Insider reported that Fighterbomber Z-channel confirmed that an Il-76 military transport aircraft was used to carry the animals. Ms Kneissl, 58, received a lot of notoriety for inviting Russian presidentVladimir Putin to her wedding in 2018. She co-founded the GORKI centre which she set up with St Petersburg University in June to “help define the policies for the Russian Federation” with a focus on the Near and Middle East. She said: “Since there is a lot of work and it requires a lot of attention, I can’t do it in passing, I decided to move to St Petersburg for this work.” It was reported that the Russian aircraft used to bring her two ponies belonged to the 224th flight detachment of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation which in May came under US and Ukrainian sanctions for transporting equipment and mercenaries of the Wagner Group. Ms Kneissl – who is a former foreign minister – relocated to France in September 2020 and took on the role of a guest columnist for Russia Today, an outlet often perceived as a propagandistic mouthpiece of the Kremlin. Her invitation to Mr Putin drew widespread criticism. It occurred just months after several EU countries, excluding Austria, had expelled numerous Russian diplomats in response to the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. On Wednesday, the former Austrian minister expressed shock over her move to Russia turning “political”. In a Telegram post, she said that she had moved her “books, clothes and ponies from Marseille to Beirut via DHL” in June 2022. Ms Kneissl had been living in Lebanon after leaving Austria in 2020 amidst a political scandal. However, Lebanon served as a temporary arrangement, she explained, and she would travel to Russia every six weeks for work. “Due to sanctions there are neither flights nor DHL [for her move to Russia],” she wrote. “I therefore had the option of accompanying a Russian transport flight from Syria to Russia, for which I am very grateful.” Ms Kneissl held the position of Austrian foreign affairs minister from 2017 to 2019. Meanwhile, the website of the Department of Veterinary Medicine of the Leningrad Region stated on 9 September that veterinarians carried out “all the necessary measures when importing animals into the territory of the Russian Federation”. “Specialists conducted a clinical examination of the ponies, took blood samples, and also quarantined them. Domestic horses are healthy”. Read More A flotilla of migrant boats from Tunisia overwhelms an Italian island and tests Meloni's policy Complex Napoleon: how Bonaparte’s unrivalled ambition built an empire and left a tangled legacy Weapons, spy satellites and nuclear ambitions: what we learned from Putin’s summit with Kim Jong-un in Russia The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

The University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus was put on lockdown for the second time in two weeks after an armed person waved a gun inside a bagel shop. An alert was sent out at 12.54pm ET on Wednesday, asking students and staff to “go inside now” and to “avoid windows” because of the threat “on or near campus”. An all-clear alert was put out at 2.10pm. An official told The Daily Tar Heel that the incident came when the suspect allegedly brandished a gun at Alpine Bagel over an employment-related conflict. No shots were fired and police said that suspect Mickel Deonte Harris, 27, was arrested at around 2.45pm just north of the campus. This marks the second terrifying incident at the school in just over two weeks. On 28 August, the campus was on lockdown for hours amid reports of an “armed and dangerous person”. That person was identified as Tailei Qi, a 34-year-old graduate student who allegedly shot and killed Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences. Read More UNC campus on lockdown over ‘armed and dangerous person’ two weeks after shooting Students criticize the University of North Carolina's response to an active shooter emergency Audio reveals 911 caller in University of North Carolina shooting immediately identified a suspect Who was UNC Chapel Hill shooting victim Zijie Yan?

President Joe Biden's aides privately acknowledge a rematch with Donald Trump in 2024 could be his best path to reelection, but they are terrified by what would happen if he lost -- which operatives on his campaign and throughout the Democratic Party worry is a very real possibility.

Hundreds of communities around the country will share more than $1 billion in federal money to help them plant and maintain trees under a federal program that is intended to reduce extreme heat, benefit health and improve access to nature

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally gave his conference the green light to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Now the harder work begins.

Chelsea are exploring a potential January move for Brentford striker Ivan Toney.

Liverpool and Manchester United use the international break to scout Benfica's Antonio Silva and Atalanta's Giorgio Scalvini.

Olivia Dunne said, 'There's definitely an underlying problem, which is that the money needs to go to support women's sports'

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the Georgia 2020 election subversion case, is set to hold a hearing on Thursday to address a series of legal requests submitted by two of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants ahead of their trial next month.

Sean Strickland also suggested that young men could look up to Jordan Peterson as a role model instead

A Russian pilot fired two missiles towards an RAF surveillance plane after mistakenly believing he had permission to fire. Following the incident last September, Russia claimed it had been caused by a “technical malfunction” with the UK’s Ministry of Defence publicly accepting their explanation. However, intercepted communications reveal that one of the Russian pilots believed he had been given permission to target the aircraft following an ambiguous command from a Russian ground station. The two Russian SU-27 fighter jets had encountered the RAF plane, which was carrying a crew of up to 30 people, as it was flying a surveillance mission over the Black Sea in international airspace on 29 September. Three Western defence sources with knowledge of the incident have told the BBC that the two Russian pilots received words to the effect of “you have the target”. This prompted one of the pilots to release an air-to-air missile, which successfully launched but failed to strike its target. A row then broke out between the two Russian pilots, as the second did not believe they had been given permission to fire. However, a second missile was released but simply fell from the wing - suggesting the launch was aborted or the weapon malfunctioned. As the Rivet Joint is loaded with sensors to intercept communications, the RAF crew would have been able to listen in to the incident which could have resulted in their own deaths. After the Russian Ministry of Defence called it a “technical malfunction”, the UK government confirmed the incident had taken place. In a statement to MPs on 20 October, the former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace described it as a “potentially dangerous engagement”. However, he added: "We do not consider this incident to constitute a deliberate escalation on the part of the Russians, and our analysis concurs that it was due to a malfunction." An intelligence leak, published online by US airman Jack Teixera, revealed that the US miliary spoke of the incident as a “near shoot-down”. “The incident was far more serious than originally portrayed and could have amounted to an act of war,” the New York Times reported. The MoD has now told the BBC that “this incident is a stark reminder of the potential consequences of Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.” Read More South Korea expresses 'concern and regret' over military cooperation talks between Kim and Putin What is a Storm Shadow cruise missile? Weapons, spy satellites and nuclear ambitions: what we learned from Putin’s summit with Kim Jong-un in Russia The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Benjamin Ackerman was convicted in a series of audacious burglaries that spanned from December 2016 to July 2018