Tag Archives: World War II

China says United States should ‘brush up on’ South China Sea history

Chinese vessels in South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States needs to brush up on its history about the South China Sea, as World War Two-related agreements mandated that all Chinese territories taken by Japan had to be returned to China, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Australia.

China has been upset by previous comments from the new U.S. administration about the disputed waterway.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should not be allowed access to islands it has built there. The White House also vowed to defend “international territories” in the strategic waterway.

However, last week U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis suggested that diplomacy should be the priority in the South China Sea.

In comments carried on the foreign ministry’s website late on Tuesday, Wang said he had a “suggestion” for this American friends. “Brush up on the history of World War Two,” Wang was quoted as saying during a visit to Canberra, Australia.

The 1943 Cairo Declaration and 1945 Potsdam Declaration clearly state that Japan had to return to China all Chinese territory taken by Japan, Wang said.

“This includes the Nansha Islands,” he added, using China’s name for the Spratly Islands.

“In 1946, the then-Chinese government with help from the United States openly and in accordance with the law took back the Nansha Islands and reefs that Japan had occupied, and resumed exercising sovereignty,” Wang said.

“Afterwards, certain countries around China used illegal methods to occupy some of the Nansha islands and reefs, and it’s this that created the so-called South China Sea dispute.”

China is committed to having talks with the parties directly involved, and in accordance with historical facts and international law to peacefully resolve the issue, and that position will not change, Wang said.

Countries outside the region should support the efforts of China and others in the region to maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea, and not do the opposite, he added.

China sets great store on Mattis’ comments stressing diplomatic efforts in the South China Sea, as this is not only the position set by China and Southeast Asia but also the “correct choice” for countries outside the region, Wang said.

China claims most of the South China Sea, while Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei claim parts of the waters that command strategic sea lanes and have rich fishing grounds along with oil and gas deposits.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)

Dozens of survivors pay homage to victims of Auschwitz

Survivors walk in remains of Nazi German concentration camps

OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and some of the last survivors of Auschwitz paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust on Friday, 72 years after the Nazi death camp was liberated in the final throes of World War Two.

At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, Szydlo told dozens of people gathered in the camp that the suffering of the victims was a “wound that … can never be healed and should never be forgotten”.

“No one can understand this suffering,” Szydlo said. “I want a message to go out again from this place today that what happened in this German camp was evil … An evil that can be overcome with good. Memory and truth are our responsibility, they are our weapons against evil.”

Nazi German occupation forces set up the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Oswiecim, around 70 km (45 miles) from Poland’s second city, Krakow.

Between 1940 and 1945, Auschwitz developed into a vast complex of barracks, workshops, gas chambers and crematoria.

More than a million people, mainly European Jews, were gassed, shot or hanged at the camp, or died of neglect, starvation or disease, before the Soviet Red Army entered its gates in early 1945 during its decisive advance on Berlin.

Szydlo’s conservative government worries that the world will forget that Auschwitz was a German camp, and has launched a campaign against any mention of “Polish death camps” in international media.

Of the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust, about half had been living in Poland.

(Reporting by Janusz Chmielewski; Writing by Justyna Pawlak; Editing by Lidia Kelly and Kevin Liffey)

Hundreds of U.S. Marines land in Norway, irking Russia

OSLO (Reuters) – Some 300 U.S. Marines landed in Norway on Monday for a six-month deployment, the first time since World War Two that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there, in a deployment which has irked Norway’s Arctic neighbor Russia.

Officials played down any link between the operation and NATO concerns over Russia, but the deployment coincides with the U.S. sending several thousand troops to Poland to beef up its Eastern European allies worried about Moscow’s assertiveness.

Soldiers from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina landed a little after 10 am CET at a snow-covered Vaernes airport near Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, where temperatures were reaching -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit).

U.S. troops are to stay in Norway for a year, with the current batch of Marines being replaced after their six-month tour is complete.

A spokesman for the Norwegian Home Guards, who will host the Marines at the Vaernes military base, about 1,500 km (900 miles) from the Russian border, said the U.S. troops will learn about winter warfare.

“For the first four weeks they will have basic winter training, learn how to cope with skis and to survive in the Arctic environment,” said Rune Haarstad, a Home Guard spokesman. “It has nothing to do with Russia or the current situation.”

In March the Marines will take part in the Joint Viking exercises, which will also include British troops, he added.

The Russian Embassy in Oslo did not immediately reply to a request for comment by Reuters on Monday. It questioned the need for such a move when it was announced in October.

“Taking into account multiple statements of Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway we would like to understand for what purposes is Norway so … willing to increase its military potential, in particular through stationing of American forces in Vaernes?” it told Reuters at the time.

A spokeswoman for Norwegian Ministry of Defence also said the arrival of U.S. Marines had nothing to do with concerns about Russia.

However, in a 2014 interview with Reuters, Norway’s Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said Russia’s annexation of Crimea showed that it had the ability and will to use military means to achieve political goals.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik, Gwladys Fouche and Dominic Evans)

U.S. intelligence study warns of growing conflict risk

US Soldier walks in front of tank in Iraq

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The risk of conflicts between and within nations will increase over the next five years to levels not seen since the Cold War as global growth slows, the post-World War Two order erodes and anti-globalization fuels nationalism, said a U.S. intelligence report released on Monday.

“These trends will converge at an unprecedented pace to make governing and cooperation harder and to change the nature of power – fundamentally altering the global landscape,” said “Global Trends: Paradox of Progress,” the sixth in a series of quadrennial studies by the U.S. National Intelligence Council.

The findings, published less than two weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, outlined factors shaping a “dark and difficult near future,” including a more assertive Russia and China, regional conflicts, terrorism, rising income inequality, climate change and sluggish economic growth.

Global Trends reports deliberately avoid analyzing U.S. policies or choices, but the latest study underscored the complex difficulties Trump must address in order to fulfill his vows to improve relations with Russia, level the economic playing field with China, return jobs to the United States and defeat terrorism.

The National Intelligence Council comprises the senior U.S. regional and subject-matter intelligence analysts. It oversees the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates, which often synthesize work by all 17 intelligence agencies and are the most comprehensive analytic products of U.S intelligence.

The study, which included interviews with academic experts as well as financial and political leaders worldwide, examined political, social, economic and technological trends that the authors project will shape the world from the present to 2035, and their potential impact.

‘INWARD-LOOKING WEST’

It said the threat of terrorism would grow in coming decades as small groups and individuals harnessed “new technologies, ideas and relationships.”

Uncertainty about the United States, coupled with an “inward-looking West” and the weakening of international human rights and conflict prevention standards, will encourage China and Russia to challenge American influence, the study added.

Those challenges “will stay below the threshold of hot war but bring profound risks of miscalculation,” the study warned. “Overconfidence that material strength can manage escalation will increase the risks of interstate conflict to levels not seen since the Cold War.”

While “hot war” may be avoided, differences in values and interests among states and drives for regional dominance “are leading to a spheres of influence world,” it said,

The latest Global Trends, the subject of a Washington conference, added that the situation also offered opportunities to governments, societies, groups and individuals to make choices that could bring “more hopeful, secure futures.”

“As the paradox of progress implies, the same trends generating near-term risks also can create opportunities for better outcomes over the long term,” the study said.

THE HOME FRONT

The report also said that while globalization and technological advances had “enriched the richest” and raised billions from poverty, they had also “hollowed out” Western middle classes and ignited backlashes against globalization. Those trends have been compounded by the largest migrant flows in seven decades, which are stoking “nativist, anti-elite impulses.”

“Slow growth plus technology-induced disruptions in job markets will threaten poverty reduction and drive tensions within countries in the years to come, fueling the very nationalism that contributes to tension between counties,” it said.

The trends shaping the future include contractions in the working-age populations of wealthy countries and expansions in the same group in poorer nations, especially in Africa and South Asia, increasing economic, employment, urbanization and welfare pressures, the study said.

The world will also continue to experience weak near-term growth as governments, institutions and businesses struggle to overcome fallout from the Great Recession, the study said.

“Major economies will confront shrinking workforces and diminishing productivity gains while recovering from the 2008-09 financial crisis with high debt, weak demand, and doubts about globalization,” said the study.

“China will attempt to shift to a consumer-driven economy from its longstanding export and investment focus. Lower growth will threaten poverty reduction in developing counties.”

Governance will become more difficult as issues, including global climate change, environmental degradation and health threats demand collective action, the study added, while such cooperation becomes harder.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by John Walcott and Peter Cooney)

Knife attacker in Japan kills 19 in their sleep at disabled center

Police seen in front of disability center where mass stabbing took place

By Elaine Lies and Kwiyeon Ha

SAGAMIHARA, Japan (Reuters) – A knife-wielding man broke into a facility for the disabled in a small town near Tokyo early on Tuesday and killed 19 patients as they slept, authorities said, Japan’s worst mass killing since World War Two.

At least 25 other residents were wounded in the attack at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility for mentally and physically disabled in Sagamihara town, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo.

“This is a very heart-wrenching and shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference in Tokyo.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later told a gathering in Tokyo: “The lives of many innocent people were taken away and I am greatly shocked. We will make every effort to discover the facts and prevent a reoccurance.”

The suspect was a 26-year-old former employee of the facility who gave himself up to police. The man, Satoshi Uematsu, said in letters he wrote in February that he could “obliterate 470 disabled people”, Kyodo news agency reported.

He said he would kill 260 severely disabled people at two areas in the facility during a night shift, and would not hurt employees.

“My goal is a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanized, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society,” Uematsu wrote in the two letters given to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Kyodo reported.

Uematsu was committed to hospital after he expressed a “willingness to kill severely disabled people”, an official in Sagamihara told Reuters. He was freed on March 2 after a doctor deemed he had improved, the official said.

Uematsu lived near the facility, and a neighbor described him as a polite, young man who always greeted him with a smile.

“It would be easier to understand if there had been a warning but there were no signs,” said Akihiro Hasegawa, 73. “We didn’t know the darkness of his heart.”

The suspect apparently began changing about five months ago, said Yuji Kuroiwa, the governor of Kanagawa prefecture, where the facility is located.

“You could say there were warning signs, but it’s difficult to say if this could have been prevented,” he told reporters.

“This was not an impulsive crime … He went in the dark of the night, opened one door at a time, and stabbed sleeping people one by one,” Kuroiwa said. “I just can’t believe the cruelty of this crime. We need to prevent this from ever happening again.”

Staff at the facility called police at 2.30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds, media reports said. The man wore a black T-shirt and trousers, the reports said.

The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility was established by the local government. Surrounded by tree-covered mountains and on the banks of the Sagami River, it cares for people with a wide range of disabilities.

The facility’s website said the center had a maximum capacity of 160 people, including staff.

“IT MAKES YOU WEEP”

Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world and residents of Sagamihara said they were in shock. The last murder in the area was 10 years ago.

“This is a peaceful, quiet town so I never thought such an incident would happen here,” said Oshikazu Shimo, one of many residents of the town who gathered near the facility.

Taxi driver Susumu Fujimura said of the attacker: “He said ‘we should get rid of disabled people’ but he’s the worthless one.”

“That kind of person can’t defend themselves,” Fujimura said, referring to the victims. “That’s why so many died. It makes you weep to think of somebody just murdering them.”

The dead ranged in age from 19 to 70 and included nine males and 10 females, Kyodo said.

Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, a Kanagawa prefecture official said.

At least 29 emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.

Such mass killings are extremely rare in Japan and typically involve stabbings. Japan has strict gun laws and possession of firearms by the public is rare.

Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001. Seven people died in 2008 when a man drove a truck into a crowd and began stabbing people in Tokyo’s popular electronics and “anime” district of Akihabara.

A revision to Japan’s Swords and Firearms Control Law was introduced in 2009 in the wake of that attack, banning the possession of double-edged knives and further tightening gun-ownership rules.

Members of a doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko, Minami Funakoshi, Linda Sieg, Chang-Ran Kim, Olivier Fabre and William Mallard in TOKYO, Eric Beech in WASHINGTON and Jon Herskovitz in AUSTIN; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Sandra Maler, Grant McCool and Paul Tait)

Obama says UK relationship endures despite Brexit

President Obama delivers statement about Britain leaving EU

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Friday that strong U.S. ties to Britain and the European Union would endure after British voters chose to leave the EU in a referendum that sent U.S. officials scrambling to contain political and economic fallout.

“The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision,” said Obama, who had argued passionately for close NATO ally Britain to stay in the group.

“The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship,” Obama said in a statement.

Britain’s decision at a referendum on Thursday forced the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and dealt the biggest blow to the European project of greater unity since World War Two.

The vote threatened to damage the U.S. economic recovery, hurt Obama’s trade agenda and made it more difficult for America’s Western allies to face challenges such as Islamic State, the rise of China and climate change together in the Democratic president’s last months in the White House.

Obama administration officials are also casting a wary eye across the Atlantic at the success of Britain’s “Leave” campaign, which has similarities with Republican Donald Trump’s insurgent bid for the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Obama, during a visit to London in April, had warned against Brexit, or Britain’s exit from the EU, in an unusually strong intervention into British politics.

“I must say we had looked for a different outcome. We would have preferred a different outcome,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, traveling in Ireland, said on Friday.

Biden, in remarks prepared for a speech at Dublin Castle, took a swipe at Trump who won the Republican nomination by highlighting some of the issues, particularly immigration, that appear to have won support for Britain’s “Leave” campaign.

Without mentioning Trump by name, Biden warned against “politicians and demagogues peddling xenophobia, nationalism, and isolationism.”

TRUMP ON BREXIT

Trump thrust himself into the heart of the Brexit issue, calling the result of the vote a “great thing” and drawing parallels to his own unorthodox presidential campaign.

“People want to take their country back. They want to have independence in a sense. You see it with Europe, all over Europe,” Trump, 70, said in Turnberry, Scotland where he reopened a golf course.

Obama hopes his former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will win the November election and safeguard his legacy but economic volatility in the United States after Brexit could hurt her chances of beating Trump.

In response to Britain’s decision to leave, Clinton said the United States must first safeguard against any economic fallout at home at “this time of uncertainty” and underscore its commitment to both Britain and Europe.

With the Brexit result rattling Wall Street and other markets around the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve sought to calm global financial markets by saying it was ready to provide dollar liquidity following the British vote.

After Brexit, the U.S. central bank’s ambitions for two interest rate rises this year now look unlikely. Traders of U.S.-interest rate futures even began to price in a small chance of a Fed rate cut, and now see little chance of any hike until the end of next year.

“One can forget about rate hikes in the near term,” said Thomas Costerg, New York-based economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “What I’m worried about is that the Brexit vote could be the straw that breaks the back of the U.S. growth picture.”

The historic divorce launched by the Brexit vote could sink hopes of a massive U.S.-EU free trade deal before Obama leaves office in January.

Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, were already stalled by deeply entrenched differences and growing anti-trade sentiment on both continents.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington, Steve Holland in Scotland and Ann Saphir in San Francisco; Writing by Susan Heavey and Alistair Bell; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

‘Explosive shock’ as Britain votes to leave EU, Cameron quits

Celebrating Britain leaving the EU

By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain voted to leave the European Union, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing the biggest blow to the European project of greater unity since World War Two.

Global financial markets plunged on Friday as results from a referendum showed a 52-48 percent victory for the campaign to leave a bloc Britain joined more than 40 years ago.

The pound fell as much as 10 percent against the dollar to touch levels last seen in 1985, on fears the decision could hit investment in the world’s fifth-largest economy, threaten London’s role as a global financial capital and usher in months of political uncertainty.

World stocks headed for one of the biggest slumps on record, and billions of dollars were wiped off the value of European companies. Britain’s big banks took a $130 billion battering, with Lloyds <LLOY.L> and Barclays <BARC.L> falling as much as 30 percent at the opening of trade.

The United Kingdom itself could now break apart, with the leader of Scotland – where nearly two-thirds of voters wanted to stay in the EU – saying a new referendum on independence from the rest of Britain was “highly likely”.

An emotional Cameron, who led the “Remain” campaign to defeat, losing the gamble he took when he called the referendum three years ago, said he would leave office by October.

“The British people have made the very clear decision to take a different path and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” he said in a televised address outside his residence.

“I do not think it would be right for me to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,” he added, choking back tears before walking back through 10 Downing Street’s black door with his arm around his wife Samantha.

Quitting the EU could cost Britain access to the EU’s trade barrier-free single market and means it must seek new trade accords with countries around the world.

The EU for its part will be economically and politically damaged, facing the departure of a member with its biggest financial center, a U.N. Security Council veto, a powerful army and nuclear weapons. In one go, the bloc will lose around a sixth of its economic output.

“It’s an explosive shock. At stake is the break up pure and simple of the union,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. “Now is the time to invent another Europe.”

The result emboldened eurosceptics in other member states, with French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders demanding their countries also hold referendums. Le Pen changed her Twitter profile picture to a Union Jack and declared “Victory for freedom!”

The vote will initiate at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state. Cameron – who has been premier for six years and called the referendum in a bid to head off pressure from domestic eurosceptics – said it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.

His Conservative Party rival Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognizable face of the “Leave” camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.

Johnson left his home to jeers from a crowd in the mainly pro-EU capital. He spoke to reporters at Leave campaign headquarters, taking no questions on his personal ambitions.

“We can find our voice in the world again, a voice that is commensurate with the fifth-biggest economy on Earth,” he said.

‘INDEPENDENCE DAY’

There was euphoria among Britain’s eurosceptic forces, claiming a victory over the political establishment, big business and foreign leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama who had urged Britain to stay in.

“Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party, describing the EU as “doomed” and “dying”.

On the continent, politicians reacted with dismay.

“It looks like a sad day for Europe and Britain,” said German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. His boss Angela Merkel invited the French and Italian leaders to Berlin to discuss future steps.

The shock hits a European bloc already reeling from a euro zone debt crisis, unprecedented mass migration and confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Anti-immigrant and anti-EU political parties have been surging across the continent, loosening the grip of the center-left and center-right establishment that has governed Europe for generations.

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose own rise has been fueled by similar disenchantment with the political establishment, called the vote a “great thing”. Britons “took back control of their country”, he said in Scotland where he was opening a golf resort. He criticized Obama for telling Britons how to vote, and drew a comparison with his own campaign.

“I see a big parallel,” he said. “People want to take their country back.”

American Vice President Joe Biden said the United States would have preferred Britain to remain in the EU, but respected the decision.

Britain has always been ambivalent about its relations with the rest of post-war Europe. A firm supporter of free trade, tearing down internal economic barriers and expanding the EU to take in ex-communist eastern states, it opted out of joining the euro single currency or the Schengen border-free zone.

Cameron’s ruling Conservatives in particular have harbored a vocal anti-EU wing for generations, and it was partly to silence such figures that he called the referendum in 2013.

When he called the referendum, he thought it would be a sure thing. But the 11th hour decision of Johnson – a schoolmate from the same elite private boarding school – to come down on the side of Leave gave the exit campaign a credible voice.

Even until the last minute, bookmakers and financial markets had overwhelmingly predicted a Remain vote.

World leaders including Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, NATO and Commonwealth governments had all urged a “Remain” vote, saying Britain would be stronger and more influential in the EU than outside.

The four-month campaign was among the divisive ever waged in Britain, with accusations of lying and scare-mongering on both sides and rows over immigration which critics said at times unleashed overt racism.

It revealed deep splits in British society, with the pro-Brexit side drawing support from millions of voters who felt left behind by globalization and blamed EU immigration for low wages and stretched public services.

At the darkest hour, a pro-EU member of parliament was stabbed and shot to death in the street. The suspect later told a court his name was “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.

Older voters backed Brexit; the young mainly wanted to stay in. London and Scotland supported the EU, but wide swathes of middle England, which have not shared in the capital’s prosperity, voted to leave.

THREAT OF UK BREAK-UP

The United Kingdom itself now faces a threat to its survival. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was “democratically unacceptable” for Scotland to be dragged out of the EU against its will.

“It is a statement of the obvious that the option of a second referendum must be on the table and it is on the table,” she told reporters, two years after Scots voted to stay in the United Kingdom. “I think an independence referendum is now highly likely.”

The global financial turmoil was the worst shock since the 2008 economic crisis, and comes at a time when interest rates around the world are already at or near zero, leaving policymakers without the usual tools to respond.

The body blow to global confidence could prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates as planned this year, and might even provoke a new round of emergency policy easing from all major central banks, despite their limited options.

The Bank of England pledged a huge financial backstop to calm plunging markets. Governor Mark Carney said it was offering to provide more than 250 billion pounds ($347 billion) plus “substantial” foreign currency liquidity and it was ready to take additional measures if needed.

Other central banks around the globe also intervened in markets. The European Central Bank said it was ready to provide euro and foreign currency liquidity if necessary.

Left unclear is the relationship Britain can negotiate with the EU once it leaves.

To retain access to the single market, vital for its giant financial services sector, London may have to adopt all EU regulation without having a say in its shaping, contribute to Brussels coffers, and continue to allow free movement as Norway and Switzerland do – all things the Leave campaign vowed to end.

EU officials have said UK-based banks and financial firms would lose automatic access to sell services across Europe if Britain ceased to apply the EU principles of free movement of goods, capital, services and people.

Huge questions also face the millions of British expatriates who live freely elsewhere in the bloc and enjoy equal access to health and other benefits, as well as millions of EU citizens who live and work in Britain.

(Additional reporting by William James, Kylie MacLellan, Sarah Young, Alistair Smout, Costas Pitas, Andy Bruce and David Milliken; Writing by Mark John and Pravin Char; Editing by Peter Graff)

Putin says Russia must strengthen as ‘aggressive’ NATO approaches

Russian President Putin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia must boost its combat readiness in response to NATO’s “aggressive actions” near Russia’s borders, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Addressing parliament on the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, Putin berated the West for being unwilling to build “a modern, non-bloc collective security system” with Russia.

“Russia is open to discuss this crucial issue and has more than once shown its readiness for dialogue,” he said. “But, just as it happened on the eve of World War Two, we do not see a positive reaction in response.”

“On the contrary, NATO is strengthening its aggressive rhetoric and its aggressive actions near our borders. In these conditions, we are duty-bound to pay special attention to solving the task of strengthening the combat readiness of our country.”

The U.S.-led military alliance is increasing its defenses in Poland and the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as part of a wider deterrent that it hopes will discourage Russia from any repetition of its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.

Russia sees NATO’s deterrence plans as hostile.

Drawing historic parallels with the 1930s, Putin said humanity now faced a danger of failing to withstand the fast-spreading threat of terrorism, just as it once failed to unite against the rising power of Nazi Germany.

“The world community did not show enough vigilance, will and consolidation to prevent that war and save millions of lives,” Putin said.

“What kind of a lesson is still needed today to discard old and frayed ideological disagreements and geopolitical games and to unite in the fight against international terrorism?”

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Maria Kiselyova and Richard Balmforth)

Man Who Saved Hundreds From Holocaust Passes Away At 106

Nicholas Winton, a British man who for half a century hid his vital role in saving the lives of hundreds during the Holocaust, has passed away at 106.

In 1988, Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home that detailed his work during the Holocaust to save the lives of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia.  He took the children who were given up by the parents in a desperate attempt to save their lives from the Nazis.

Winton was a stockbroker in 1938 when a friend asked him to cancel a Swiss vacation and come to Prague.  He discovered thousands living in horrific conditions after the infamous Kristallnacht.

While many Western nations restricted the immigration of Jews during that time.  Britain, however, had an exception through a program called Kindertransport where a Jewish child under 17 could come to the country if they had a host family.  While mass rescue efforts were carried out in Germany and Austria, there was no campaign for Czechoslovakia.

Winton ran an operation out of a Prague hotel room.  Eventually so many came for help that Winton had to open a storefront and even bribe Gestapo officials to look the other way as he transported the children to safety.

Eventually, Winton and his compatriots transported the children on nine trains.  However, the last train was captured by the Germans before it could cross the German border and none of the 250 children on board were seen again.

Winton actually thought of discarding his scrapbook with details of the historic operation.

“I did not think for one moment that they would be of interest to anyone so long after it happened,” Mr. Winton recalled later.

“Winton still shakes his head in bewilderment and disbelief when compared with Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg,” author Vera Gissing wrote. “I try to make him realize that his contribution to the human race is immeasurable.”