The car at the bottom of the sinkhole in which a man almost drowned and the van on top of it. Sinkhole in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The man was on the verge of drowning, six meters under, when firefighters arrived and rescued him. The cause of the cavity is unknown.
One car has been swallowed and another was left hanging at the top of the hole. As shown in the picture, the bottom of the cavity is full of water.
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Lugansk militia leader Aleksey Mozgovoi was assassinated by unknown gunmen on Saturday after the vehicle he was traveling in ran into an ambush.
Mozgovoi was the head of Lugansk's Prizrak ("Ghost") Brigade militia, one of the most prominent militias in the region.
According to the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic's Deputy General Prosecutor, Mozgovoi was killed alongside six other people. Mozgovoi's entourage included his press secretary and three members of his security detail, according to Russian news site LifeNews."This happened at around the same place as where an assassination attempt against Mozgovoi was made on March 7. The ambush took place on the highway between Lugansk and Alchevsk, unknown persons shot at the jeep Mozgovoi and his guards were traveling in. Mozgovoi was seriously injured and died on the spot," a representative of the militia told RIA Novosti.
Mozgovoi was killed when the car he was traveling in ran into an ambush outside the village of Mikhailovka, east of his group's headquarters in Alchevsk, in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic.
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Citing an unnamed source in US intelligence, says Clapper is unhappy with Berlin's "inability to contain secret data". According to the report, the Bundestag committee on investigating the recent secret service scandals handed some secret documents to the media.
For the US it is "more dangerous than what Snowden did," Bild quoted the source as saying, referring to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of worldwide surveillance.
Now, the US secret services are reviewing the areas in which cooperation with the BND can be reduced or ended altogether, the paper reports. Several joint projects have already been canceled, it says.
Both the German government and the US embassy in Berlin refused to comment on the report.
In April, German media reported that over the past decade, the BND helped NSA in spying all over Europe. The US agency sent its German colleagues so-called "selectors", which included IP addresses, emails, and phone numbers guiding what targets must be spied on.
One report suggested that the BND sends about 1.3 billion pieces of phone and text data to NSA per month.
The public outrage over those allegations and the subsequent investigation cost Chancellor Angela Merkel about a third of her approval rating. In late April, her government was accused of lying to parliament saying it had no knowledge of Washington's surveillance activities in Germany.
Cleveland officer Michael Brelo, 31, faced two counts of voluntary manslaughter after mounting the hood of the suspects' car and firing shots into their windshield in 2012. He faced up to 22 years in prison if found guilty.
But Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O'Donnell ruled on Saturday that Brelo's "entire use of deadly force was a constitutionally reasonable response to an objectively reasonably perceived threat of great bodily harm."
The verdict was met with protests from those who say the shooting was racially motivated, as Brelo is white and the motorists were black. Standing at the doors of the Justice Department where Brelo was found not guilty, the demonstrators shouted "No justice, no peace."
A line of police officers in riot gear was initially shown at the doors, though officers later retreated inside.
Brelo was one of 13 officers who fired 137 shots at a car with Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams inside, following a high-speed chase on November 29, 2012.
The officer was charged criminally because prosecutors said he waited until the car had stopped and the pair were no longer a threat to mount the hood of the car and fire 15 shots into its windshield.
The grand jury also charged five police supervisors - none of whom fired shots - with misdemeanor "dereliction of duty" for failing to control the chase. All five have pleaded not guilty. No trial dates have been set.
Russell, 43, and Williams, 30, were each shot more than 20 times. Although prosecuting attorneys argued they were alive until Brelo's shots, medical examiners for both sides testified that they could not determined the order in which the fatal shots were delivered.
The chase and subsequent shooting began when an officer attempted to pull over Russell for a turn-signal violation. Russell initially stopped the car, but drove off as the officer got out of his car.
About five minutes later, Russell's car backfired as he sped past the Cleveland police headquarters. More than 100 officers in 62 marked and unmarked cars were involved in the 22-mile chase.
The Cleveland shooting helped prompt an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), which concluded in December that the department had engaged in a pattern of using excessive force and violating people's civil rights.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the year-and-a-half-long investigation uncovered evidence of"systematic deficiencies," "inadequate training" and "ineffective policies" by local law enforcement between 2010 and 2013. It also found that officers too often used deadly force when it was not called for.
The city and DoJ are currently negotiating a reform-minded consent decree which will be approved by a federal judge and overseen by independent monitors.
The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass the legislation as France battles an epidemic of wasted food that has highlighted the divide between giant food firms and people who are struggling to eat.
As MPs united in a rare cross-party consensus, the centre-right deputy Yves Jégo told parliament: "There's an absolute urgency - charities are desperate for food. The most moving part of this law is that it opens us up to others who are suffering."
Supermarkets will be barred from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. Those with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft (400 sq m) or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to €75,000 (£53,000) or two years in jail.
"It's scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods," said the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot, a former food minister who proposed the bill.
In recent years, French media have highlighted how poor families, students, unemployed or homeless people often stealthily forage in supermarket bins at night to feed themselves, able to survive on edible products which had been thrown out just as their best-before dates approached.
But some supermarkets doused binned food in bleach to prevent potential food-poisoning by eating food from bins. Other supermarkets deliberately binned food in locked warehouses for collection by refuse trucks to stop scavengers.
The practice of foraging in supermarket bins is not without risk - some people picking through rotten fruit and rubbish to reach yoghurts, cheese platters or readymade pizzas have been stopped by police and faced criminal action for theft. In 2011, a 59-year-old father of six working for the minimum wage at a Monoprix supermarket in Marseille almost lost his job after a colleague called security when they saw him pick six melons and two lettuces out of a bin. Pressure groups, recycling commandos and direct action foraging movements have been highlighting the issue of waste in France. Members of the Gars'pilleurs, an action group founded in Lyon, don gardening gloves to remove food from supermarket bins at night and redistribute it on the streets the next morning to raise awareness about waste, poverty and food distribution.
The group and four others issued a statement earlier this year warning that simply obliging supermarket giants to pass unsold food to charities could give a "false and dangerous idea of a magic solution" to food waste. They said it would create an illusion that supermarkets had done their bit, while failing to address the wider issue of overproduction in the food industry as well as the wastage in food distribution chains.
The measures are part of wider drive to halve the amount of food waste in France by 2025. According to official estimates, the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year - 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. The combined national cost of this is up to €20bn.
Of the 7.1m tonnes of food wasted in France each year, 67% is binned by consumers, 15% by restaurants and 11% by shops. Each year 1.3bn tonnes of food are wasted worldwide.
The Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution, which represents big supermarkets, criticised the plan. "The law is wrong in both target and intent, given the big stores represent only 5% of food waste but have these new obligations," said Jacques Creyssel, head of the organisation. "They are already the pre-eminent food donors, with more than 4,500 stores having signed agreements with aid groups."
The logistics of the law must also not put an unfair burden on charities, with the unsold food given to them in a way that is ready to use, a parliamentary report has stipulated. It must not be up to charities to have to sift through the waste to set aside squashed fruit or food that had gone off. Supermarkets have said that charities must now also be properly equipped with fridges and trucks to be able to handle the food donations.
The French law goes further than the UK, where the government has a voluntary agreement with the grocery and retail sector to cut both food and packaging waste in the supply chain, but does not believe in mandatory targets.
A report earlier this year showed that in the UK, households threw away 7m tonnes of food in 2012, enough to fill London's Wembley stadium nine times over. Avoidable household food waste in the UK is associated with 17m tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
© RIA Novosti / Yury Kochetkov
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Prime Minister Medvedev charged with enforcing repayment of $3 billion in Eurobonds
Vladimir Putin is one of those rare world leaders that talks straight, and call it like it is. The man is pure realpolitik to the max, and as red pill as you can get.
While the western financial oligarchs fiddle around, trying to find creative wording for what is happening to Ukraine's recent announcement (call it something, but don't use the word default)...Russia's President breaks it down for all to digest...
Default...hell yes, let's not kid ourselves."This de facto announcement of a looming default demonstrates that the level of responsibility and professionalism [of the country's leadership] appears to be low, despite the fact that the country is being ran from the outside."
The icing on the cake..."country is being ran from the outside." Yeah that means you President Pyatt, Queen Nuland and all the CIA analysts currently working out of the Kiev SBU government offices.
Who is to blame for Ukraine's utter and complete meltdown?
All the fools and turncoats who gathered at Maidan (paid by Soros and unpaid as well), who sold out their country for their individual greedy desires. They let the vultures take over and have now destroyed their entire history, present and future.
You all got played...big time!
RT reports...
Ukraine's statement regarding a possible default is a consequence of Kiev's low level of professionalism, said Russian President Vladimir Putin, ordering the Finance Ministry to sort out the issue of Ukraine's debt to Russia.
"The announcement of the upcoming default shows a level of responsibility and professionalism which is apparently not high," Putin said at a meeting with members of the government.
"As far as I understand, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] doesn't provide any loans to countries that are in a situation of default or bankruptcy," he added addressing Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, requesting that he hold consultations on Ukraine's debt to the Russian Federation.According to the conditions of the loan, Russia is already within its rights to demand early repayment of Ukraine's debt, but has not done so at the request of Kiev and the IMF, Putin said, adding that Russian banks have issued around $25 billion in loans to Ukrainian creditors.
"We have long had the right to request an early repayment of these funds, bearing in mind that under the terms of our agreement signed according to European law, there is a right to demand early repayment if the total public debt of Ukraine exceeds 60 percent," he said. "However, at the request of our Ukrainian partners and the IMF, we do not exercise this right. We do not want to aggravate the economic situation of our partners and neighbors, which is already complicated," he concluded.
The Finance Ministry hasn't yet noted any violations of the terms of the loan agreement with Ukraine, but if they appear, Russia is ready to resolve the issue in court, Siluanov said.
"Until now, Ukraine has fulfilled all its obligations on debt service. The last payment was made in February this year; the next payment in the amount of $75 million is due on June 20. There have been no violations of the agreement, except for covenants," he said.
"If we see a violation of the commitments that Ukraine took upon itself when we invested our resources in the bonds of its government, we will request a judicial procedure in order to protect our interests," he concluded.
On May 19, the Ukrainian government adopted a law, valid until 1 July 2016, which gives it the power to declare a moratorium on some loan repayments. The country's prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, said that suspension of payments will only be applicable to private loans. However, Ukraine continues to consider its $3 billion debt to Russia private, a position that Moscow completely refutes.
Special attention is now paid to Syria and the weakened regime of Bashar al-Assad in the face of a new armed assault against Damascus. The attempts to trade the support of Syria for a number of concessions on Ukraine and Crimea allegedly made by John Kerry failed. Then Americans attempted blackmail, which is the strategy of choice for Washington in the countries that resist its dictate. On May 19 the Russian embassy in Syria was shelled by militants, presumably Jaysh al-Islam, which resulted in one of the shells exploding in the main building of the diplomatic mission. Fortunately, there was nobody there in the room destroyed by the explosion. Immediately after the attack the State Department swiftly condemned this act of terrorism. But we all are well aware of the fact that the "southern front" operating in the suburbs of the Syrian capital is controlled by Jordan with a certain amount of US assistance, unlike the "northern front" guided by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The shelling of the Russian embassy - is clearly a signal to Russia that it should abandon its support of the Syrian regime.
The White House continues to exploit the Iranian theme to dissuade Moscow supplying the Islamic Republic with S-300 air defense systems. But America didn't even try to propose a fair exchange. Yet, Washington think tanks are well of aware of the fact that Moscow will no longer buy any of America's fraudulent tricks, as happened a few years ago with the introduction of sanctions against Iran and the freezing of the contract to supply the S-300s. The US goal is clear and simple - to sow doubts in Tehran about the principal position of Russia on Iran, thus pushing Iranians to unnecessary concessions in discussions on the Iranian nuclear program.
Another old trick has been the alleged desire of the GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, to launch a full-scale cooperation with Russia, particularly in the coordination of global oil prices. The emissaries of the Arabian monarchies one by one have been visiting the Russian capital with handfuls of promises. Naturally, none of those were planned to be implemented, as they are designed to lure Russia's leadership into a trap. But this lesson has already been learned as well, especially in the times when the former Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Saudi Prince Bandar were eager to promise billions of dollars of investment in the Russian economy, the purchase of Russian weapons, and lucrative contracts, yet no concrete steps followed.
Now a new player is being used - Turkey, which seems to be seriously offended by Russia's position on the Armenian Genocide. Turkey, for which the question of recognition or non-recognition of the genocide is the most painful of all, instantly responded to the fact that on 24 April, Vladimir Putin visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial, built in memory of the genocide victims of 1915. Turkish officials said that there could be no justification for this visit, three days later, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "remembered" events regarding the Crimea. The Turkish leader said that Russia should account for their actions in Crimea and Ukraine before condemning the massacre of Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915.
Washington was eager to request even more anti-Russian statements from Turkey, including those relating to the Crimea, that followed one after the other. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that the recent unofficial Turkish delegation that was visiting the Crimea, found signs of human rights violations. Such an assessment on the situation on the ground from Cavusoglu looks rather strange, since they contradict statements made by members of the delegation themselves. On April 29 the head of the unofficial delegation Mehmet Uskyul said that he is satisfied with the treatment of Crimean Tatars on the peninsula. Even more dramatic statements were made by Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on May 14 at a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers. According to this Turkish official "The illegal annexation of the Crimea can not be tolerated". The Turkish prime minister also urged NATO states to support Ukraine so it could better ensure the security of its own people. Ahmet Davutoğlu went as far as stressing that NATO states should not forget about the suffering of the people of the Crimea...
Ankara canceled a regular meeting of the Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council and the arrival of Sergey Lavrov to Antalya that was scheduled on May 16. Formally - under the pretext of difficulties caused by the forthcoming parliamentary elections, after which a new government will be formed. But all that buzz can negatively affect a project of fundamental importance for Russia - the "Turkish Stream", which couldn't make the United States any more happier.
Another front of this anti-Russian campaign was opened in Macedonia. The United States is actively advancing a possible regime change in Skopje to counter Russian influence. It's also important to note that the "Turkish Stream" would stretch across Macedonian soil. That's what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week about those events: "Objectively speaking, the events in Macedonia are unfolding against the background of the government's refusal to join the policy of sanctions against Russia and the vigorous support Skopje gave to the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, to which many people oppose, both in Brussels and across the ocean. So we can't help but feeling that there is some sort of connection here."
In fact, Washington has tried to stage a "color revolution" by organizing mass demonstrations launched by the local opposition. Even the country's Albanian minority, which has nothing in common with Macedonian opposition came out to the streets to support rallies in the capital, Skopje. For Moscow this looks all too familiar. Events are moving in the same direction as they were in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, when the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych was ousted during mass demonstrations organized by the United States and Poland.
So the latest maneuvers of American diplomacy - is nothing but a smokescreen designed to hide the true intentions of the Obama administration. Washington's strategic goal remains the same - to weaken Russia by all means necessary and break it apart from those countries which are engaged in cooperation with Moscow. Therefore there's no trusting US promises or even reaching deals with them. All this smooth-talking is a mere trap in the hope that Russian pro-Western liberals might convince President Putin that the White House is sincere. But US think tanks have missed one thing - "Ukrainian lessons" have not been lost on the Kremlin.
Peter Lvov, Ph.D in political science, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook"
