Ukraine rebels claim to control Donetsk airport

Jan. 15, 2015: Smoke rises over the new terminal of Donetsk airport. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

DONETSK, Ukraine –  Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine claimed Monday that they have seized control of the Donetsk airport after days of intense fighting. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed a retreat.

“All attempts of the Ukrainian army to take the airport and to get revenge for the defeat of the last year… have failed,” rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said at a press conference early Monday in Donetsk.

He accused Ukraine of using rocket and artillery fire with an intensity that rebel forces had “never experienced before.”

The city of Donetsk, the separatist stronghold, was shaken by heavy outgoing and incoming artillery fire over the weekend as a battle raged for the air terminal and surrounding areas. Sporadic explosions could still be heard from the direction of the airport early Monday.

Reduced to rubble, the airport is of limited strategic importance in the short term, but has great symbolic value. In the longer term, the government fears that the separatists could use the airport to expand their control over eastern Ukraine and create an air supply route with Russia.

Ukrainian officials did not confirm a retreat. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko would say only that the situation remained tense.

Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on his official Facebook account early Monday that wounded soldiers had been evacuated from the air terminal overnight, but did not say how many troops had remained.

“We will not abandon our own, nobody has forgotten them,” he wrote. “Everything will be (ours), but just not right away. We are learning.”

Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 66 wounded in the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said. He would not say how many of those casualties occurred at the airport.

The U.N. estimates that more than 4,700 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April.

The separatists increased the stakes last week by successfully taking over large sections of the airport, where Ukrainian troops had remained despite coming under rocket attacks for months on end. The Ukrainians then unleashed a counter-offensive, supported by a hasty reinforcement of troops and heavy armor.

Lysenko said that according to a cease-fire agreement reached in September, the airport was to be left under Ukrainian control. Russia and the separatists dispute this.

Russia and Ukraine both expressed willingness on Monday to work toward implementation of the cease-fire agreement, including a provision to pull back heavy weapons. But each side put the onus on the other for the lack of progress.

The resumption of fighting and the inability of the warring sides to find common ground scuttled plans for the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany to meet last week.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday they would discuss how preparations for such a summit were developing. “But in any case we must decide this week whether we are on the path toward preparing for a summit or not,” he said.

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Ukraine rebels claim to control Donetsk airport

Pro-Russian separatists destroy airport, reportedly kill 12 on bus in attacks across Donetsk

Jan. 13, 2015: In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, a man walks past snow covered with blood as he passes by a bus destroyed by a rebel shell at the checkpoint near the town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. (AP) (The Associated Press)

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry shows the inside view of a bus destroyed by a rebel shell at the checkpoint near the town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015. At least 10 civilians were killed and a further 13 wounded as the bus was hit by a pro-Russian separatists’ shell while passing through the checkpoint, local officials said. (AP Photo/Ukrainian Interior Ministry) (The Associated Press) The media surround British officials as they present ten armored vehicles from the British government to the OCSE special monitoring mission in Ukraine’s east, hit by a war conflict with pro-Russian separatists, in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (The Associated Press) The media surround British officials as they present ten armored vehicles from the British government to the OCSE special monitoring mission in Ukraine’s east, hit by a war conflict with pro-Russian separatists, in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (The Associated Press) The media surround British officials as they present ten armored vehicles from the British government to the OCSE special monitoring mission in Ukraine’s east, hit by a war conflict with pro-Russian separatists, in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (The Associated Press)

Pro-Russian separatists unleashed a series of bomb attacks Tuesday in eastern Ukraine, leveling a key airport in Donetsk, killing 12 in an attack on a passenger bus and almost certainly dooming a short-lived cease-fire, according to reports.

A senior State Department official confirmed to Fox News that the separatists destroyed the government-held airport in eastern Ukraine Tuesday afternoon.

The facility has been “flattened” and the air control tower was “decimated,” the official said. “They are now fighting over rubble.”

Maria Ivanovna, a local retiree, told The Associated Press she has become desensitized to the blasts and drew an arc with her arm to show how shells fly over her home toward the airport.

“We will survive the same way we did after World War II. Ration cards for bread; 11 ounces for children; 800 grams for factory workers and 1,200 grams for miners,” she said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Tuesday the bus attack was “egregious” and blamed Russia for helping to arm the separatists.

“We again call on Russia to fulfill its commitment under the Minsk Agreement, which includes ceasing its substantial military support to the separatists, restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over the international border between Ukraine and Russia, releasing all hostages, and working toward the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine,” Harf said.

Across Donetsk, the city that Russian-backed separatists call their capital, explosions and the sound of shells whistling overhead are again unnerving the local population. The holiday period was spent in relative tranquility after a new truce was called in December between government troops and Russian-backed militia. But by late last week, that uneasy calm was steadily unraveling.

In the single largest loss of life so far this year, civilians traveling on a commuter bus from Donetsk were killed Tuesday afternoon by what Ukrainians say were rockets fired from a Grad launcher in rebel territory. Regional authorities loyal to Kiev said the bus was passing a Ukrainian Army checkpoint at the time, putting it in the line of fire.

Leading rebel representative Denis Pushilin denied responsibility for the attack.

The warring sides are now trading accusations over who is responsible for the breakdown in the truce that led to Tuesday’s deaths.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that separatist attacks in recent days suggest an attempted onslaught to push back the frontline is under way. Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko says Ukraine’s armed forces unilaterally resumed hostilities and that his fighters would respond in kind.

An AP reporter over the weekend saw a convoy of around 30 military-style trucks without license plates heading for Donetsk, suggesting that new supplies were coming in for the rebels.

NATO’s top commander, Gen. Philip Breedlove, said Tuesday that there has been a continued resupply and training of rebel forces over the holiday period.

“Those continue to provide a concern and something that we have to be thinking about,” Breedlove said.

Ukraine and the West have routinely accused Russia of being behind such consignments. Moscow flatly rejects the charges, although rebel forces are so well-equipped with powerful arms that the denials have become increasingly hollow.

In the rebel-held Donetsk suburb of Makiivka, the thrash of outgoing mortars shakes still-inhabited neighborhoods on a daily basis. Separatists have consistently denied using residential areas for cover, but there are ample witness accounts undermining those claims.

Ukrainian responses to artillery lobbed out of Donetsk are woefully inaccurate and regularly hit houses and apartment blocks, often killing people inside. The separatist military headquarters in Donetsk said Tuesday that 12 people had been killed and another 30 injured in the preceding three-day period. It did not specify who had been killed.

There is little sign of life in Makiivka these days. People rush home from work or aid distribution points and occasionally come out of shelters to exchange information about where shells are landing.

A senior U.N. human rights official said this week that developments look poised to go in one of three directions — a frozen conflict, an escalation in violence or an evolution to sustainable peace.

“In case of frozen conflict, we will more or less continue to be seeing [the same] human rights violations that we have been facing so far,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “But in case of escalation of hostilities, which is quite possible, we could also be seeing further internationalization of the conflict and far more human rights violations and suffering.”

The grimmest of outcomes appears most likely.

A hoped-for round of peace negotiations this week between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France has been put on ice — possibly indefinitely.

Ukrainian military authorities talk like they are bracing for the long-haul and Tuesday laid out plans for a new round of mobilization.

Volodymyr Talalai, deputy head of the army’s mobilization planning, said recruits will be drawn from all regions of the country. He gave no figure for how many people will be mobilized, but said that the primary aim of the upcoming drive is to enable the rotation of forces.

Unremitting violence is radicalizing the mood. One resident of Donetsk’s Petrovsky neighborhood — one of the most intensely bombed — said she took up arms and joined the separatist army after a rocket hit a home in her neighborhood.

“A Grad landed … and people were killed and blown to bits,” she said, giving her name only as Vera. “How were we supposed to react? We are out here defending ourselves.”

Wearing a balaclava and cradling an automatic rifle, Vera said her 19-year-old son too wanted to sign up, but that she refused to let him.

“I told them I would rather go myself than let my child do it,” she said.

Fox News’ James Rosen and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Pro-Russian separatists destroy airport, reportedly kill 12 on bus in attacks across Donetsk

Court to decide if ... MAN BREAKS COP"S FINGER AT AIRPORT

There was high drama at the Norman Manley International Airport recently, after a man allegedly broke a policeman’s finger because he did not want him to search his luggage.

Twenty-one-year-old Joel Bailey, of a Greater Portmore, St Catherine, address, was charged with assaulting the police, assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, along with abusive and calumnious language when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

It is alleged that on September 9, about 1:45 p.m., Bailey arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, to board a COPA airline flight to Panama.

security checks

While the police were making their security checks, the accused was stopped, interviewed and a search was requested for his luggage.

According to reports, Bailey refused to observe the procedure and allegedly uttered, “yow mi nuh like police enuh. Unuh a …, unuh a sodomite, unuh think unuh can do me nuttin!”

He was then told by the lawman to desist the abusive language, however, he allegedly continued to be verbally abusive to the officer.

The officer then warned him about his behaviour, to which he reportedly approached the officer and at arms length, proceeded to point his finger in the officer’s face and allegedly said, “police bwoy, mi wi tump yuh inna yuh face.”

arresting him

Afterwards, the officer informed Bailey that he would be arresting him for the offences committed and attempted to arrest him, to which the accused allegedly used his right hand to hit the lawman on his ring finger, breaking it.

After injuring the policeman, Bailey reportedly began to behave in a boisterous and disorderly manner, and a crowd gathered shortly after.

Bailey was subsequently restrained and arrested with the assistance of other police officers and members of COPA Airlines and taken into custody.

Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey ordered Bailey to surrender his travel documents, a stop order was also made. He is to return to court on October 2.

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Court to decide if ... MAN BREAKS COP"S FINGER AT AIRPORT

Chaos at Curacao airport: Two dead, six injured in drive-by shooting

a terrified traveller is comforted in the arrivals hall after the shootings.

WILLEMSTAD, Curacao, Thursday July 17, 2014, CMC – Two people were killed and others injured in a drive by shooting late Tuesday at the Curacao international airport.

Dolfijn FM said the shooting occurred just outside the arrivals area at Curacao International Airport. It said one of the dead was a young man from the Buena Vista neighborhood of Curacao.

Terwijl net een driveby shooting heeft plaatsgevonden @ Curacao Airport, hoor ik vliegtuigen landen/stijgen as usual. pic.twitter.com/aRu1Z4CjlI

— Adir Ayubi (@AdirAyubi) July 16, 2014

The police report that suspects in a white car were waiting for the victims and fired multiple shots, killing two and injuring six others.

The airport police engaged the suspects in a shootout, however they managed to flee the scene.

According to the Associated Press, last year, Curacao had 22 homicides, down from 45 in 2002. Among the 2013 slayings was the unsolved assassination of influential lawmaker Helmin Wiels, who was shot to death on a beach as he socialized and sipped a beer.

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Chaos at Curacao airport: Two dead, six injured in drive-by shooting

Investors in Norman Manley Airport privatisation given end of month deadline

Investors have been given until the end of  the month to submit expressions of  interest in the privatisation of Jamaica’s Norman Manley International Airport.Written submissions should be made to the Development Bank of  Jamaica (DBJ) by 6pm July 30. According to a notice from the DBJ, the Transport Ministry is trying to find a private sector operator with experience in the aviation sector to operate, finance, develop and maintain Norman Manley International under a long term concession agreement.IFC, a member of  the World Bank Group, has been appointed lead advisor on the structuring and implementation of  the project. Interested parties will have the opportunity to participate in  investor conferences. The one-on-one meetings will discuss feedback on the airport project. One of  the conferences will take place in London on July 21 and 22 and the other in Kingston on July 28 and 29.The development of Norman Manley International Airport is in keeping with Jamaica’s Global Logistics Hub Initiative.

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Investors in Norman Manley Airport privatisation given end of month deadline

Peter Binose: Fraud against the IMF, Argyle Airport?

Peter Binose

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, Sunday June 29, 2014 - For you all to consider that what I write is true to public records and political fact. Public records that are held in Grenada, and Micro Fiche copies in the US.

It worried me greatly when Ralph Gonsalves announced in Saint Vincent that he is here to finish the work of Maurice Bishop. I am still seeking an explanation of exactly what that statement means and what part of Bishops work Gonsalves wants to adopt?

We must remember that Gonsalves was very close to Bishop, shortly after the Marxist Grenada revolution, travelling with Bishop in his car and writing political speech’s for him. [its all a matter of public record, and a written record by Gonsalves himself] We know that Bishop was capable of writing his own speech’s but these were busy times and he needed help, help by like minded Caribbean people.

So when Gonsalves announced he is here to finish the work of dead Marxist, Maurice Bishop, I previously asked the question on several sites such as this, “what part or parts of Bishops work does he intend completing”. Is it some, is it a selection, or is it all?

Bishop did a lot of dreadful things, one of the things that Bishop did was undertake to obtain money fraudulently from the IMF and other lending institutes.

I am sure that Maurice Bishop was not the first and will not be the last MARXIST even non Marxist Caribbean leader or ruler to deceive the IMF.

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Some present day governments today may well be using the same method. Falsifying finance figures, also tourism, agriculture, fishing, large project figures, even crime records, and other statistics. Whether CUBA still offers advice on how to do this is another consideration, even a question we should verociously ask. Ask in the expectation that we are given an answer, if not by our own government, perhaps by some other entity. Is it still a service offered to its associates, its Caribbean political admirers and followers.

On the advice of Russia and Cuba Maurice Bishop of Grenada had suggested to his party Central Committee how to overcome the IMF and World Bank requirements, by keeping two sets of books and records, so as to defraud the IMF.

When the Americans invaded Grenada, they found, confiscated and shipped to the US 6 tons of paper records. The best kept records of a Communist revolution ever to be found anywhere. There were thousands of records some as government central committee records, some even written in the hand of Bishop.

They found all sorts of records, including the diaries of Maurice Bishop, and all the secret official agreements between Bishops regime and Cuba, East Germany, Russian USSR, Vietnam, North Korea, and dozens of other communist bloc countries, most of whom had required that such contracts and agreements be kept secret. Kept secret because they included contractual intentions, also numbers and details of arms and military supplies, made or proposed.

The records were copied in the US by the microfiche method, and then returned to Grenada. Returned to Grenada where they were made fully available for the public to scrutinise.

With regards to the fraud against the IMF, here are the US record office and Grenadian record locations and references.

US PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE MARYLAND

www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/reading_room/153.pdf

Micro Fiche, page 9
Grenada Revolution, Deception on Economic Matters
Minutes of Central Committee:
At a meeting in Grenada on August 3, 1983, the political/Economic Bureau of the NJM noted that International Monetary Fund requirements for badly needed assistance would be difficult to meet -
“Comrade Maurice Bishop suggested that we use the Suriname and Cuban experience in keeping two sets of records in the banks for this purpose”
Later in the same meeting -
“Comrades again highlighted the urgent importance of training Comrades to adjust the banking figures. Someone should be sent to Cuba or the Soviet Union”
And again -
“The comrades from Nicaragua and Cuba must visit Grenada to train Comrades in the re-adjustment of the books.”
Extracted from documents found by the U.S. forces when they invaded Grenada in 1983, stored on Micro Fiche in Maryland, USA. available to the public. Originals returned to Grenada Public Records Office.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS HELD AT THE GRENADA PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE:
Box 1 Folder 72
Minutes of Meetings – August 1983
Date: 3 Aug 1983: Description: Minutes of Central Committee, Political Bureau, Economic Bureau and other Meetings refer to the economy, fraudulently readjusting the books for IMF.

This opinion is not meant to infer or imply that Ralph E. Gonsalves is involved in the altering of any records whatsoever in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, or of committing or planning any illegal act.

But as the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister who makes statements about the dead criminal Marxist, Maurice Bishop, we really do require some answers to his statements. Exactly what work of Maurice Bishop does PM Gonsalves intend emulating or completing?

Its a simple question. Because without the answer people may rightly or wrongly assume that Gonsalves intends to adopt all the work of Bishop.

That may well lay them open to being sued by Gonsalves, so for the sake of Justice, please PM Gonsalves, lets have the low down of your intentions.

There have recently been another opinions, one by ‘Simon Rouse’ quoting the International Airport that was being built by the Cubans in Grenada, being built for the use as a military airport. An opinion that asks if St. Vincent’s Argyle airport project is a military project.

I first raised the above questions about Maurice Bishops fraud, on several occasions since 2011. To date no answer, no explanation, no rendition to the Vincentian people who are owed an explanation, nothing except silence.

Some say silence is golden but in this matter its not, it hangs like a lead weight around the neck of those decent non-Marxist members of Vincentian society. Those people who are coming to feel tricked and deceived by their leaders, those people who want to know the truth and want an answer from the Gonsalves family leadership.

I say Gonsalves family leadership because PM Gonsalves is an elected member, his son is an unelected member, selected by him as a senator and minister, his cousin Julian Francis has stood for election on several occasion, always to be rejected by the people, an unelectable and unelected member of parliament, except by Gonsalves choice of him as a senator and minister. Between them the trio hold all the important post’s and ministries, between them the trio control parliament and every ministerial meeting. Between them the trio are effectively the government of SVG., the central committee. Between them, by some, the trio may well be described as a family dictatorship.

Wake up people and smell the sulphur. Wake up Diaspora and seeketh the way of the Lord, reject those that claim to only work Obeah for the Lord.

“If I work Obeah, I only work Obeah for the Lord“, Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peter Binose. Peter Binose,self appointed keeper of the bugle, thrown the whistle away.

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Peter Binose: Fraud against the IMF, Argyle Airport?

Argentina airport evicts LAN carrier

22 August 2013 Last updated at 04:24 ET “They are eliminating competition in a vicious way”

Latin America’s biggest airline has said the Argentine authorities have evicted it from its hangar in Buenos Aires’ main domestic airport.

Latam Airlines says its LAN Argentina operation will be unable to continue if the eviction notice is acted on.

The Chilean-Brazilian owned carrier is the main competitor to Argentina’s state-run Aerolineas.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has often been accused of protecting state-run firms.

The decision to evict LAN Argentina has outraged the airline, travel agents and trade unions, which fear job losses.

LAN Argentina said it had spent $5m on maintaining the hangar at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, and paid $20,000 each month in rent under a contract that runs to 2023.

The airline said it had been given 10 days to leave the hangar, but had been given no reason for the eviction.

“We’ll go to the courts to enforce our rights,” said Agustin Agraz, LAN Argentina’s spokesman.

The airport authorities said the eviction was “in the national interest”, but did not elaborate.

Ms Fernandez’s government was widely criticised by international investors last year for nationalising an oil firm part-owned by Spanish company Repsol.

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Argentina airport evicts LAN carrier

Malaysia"s Genting to upgrade Bahamas airport

Business

Friday, August 16, 2013

MALAYSIAN conglomerate Genting Group is announcing plans to upgrade the Bimini airport as part of a US$150-million resort project in the Bahamas.The company says it will lengthen the runway to 6,000 feet to accommodate regional jets and add lights for night operations.Genting Chairman KT Lim and Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie attended a groundbreaking Wednesday for the company’s new 350-room hotel on Bimini. The company previously announced plans for a casino after acquiring the former Bimini Bay Resort and rechristening it Resorts World Bimini. The company also launched a cruise ship between Bimini and Miami. The airport expansion and hotel are scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.Bimini is a chain of small islands about 50 miles east of Miami.— APChaiman of Genting International Group KT Lim (right) with Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang during an April 2007 groundbreaking ceremony of the Resorts World at Sentosa construction site on Sentosa, a southern island tourist attraction off Singapore. (PHOTO: AP

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Malaysia"s Genting to upgrade Bahamas airport