World News Random, Random

[Owendonovan]

Well, that answers my question about whether the confessions were voluntary. Do we have any reason to believe that these people were actually involved in the attack?

Absolutely not. Tajikistan will be annexed next.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?

[skatingfan]

Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?

They've been at war for decades.

[Suliso]

Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?

It's mostly proxy war from Iranian side. I'd not expect a major direct war due to distance and possible American intervention.

[ti-amie]

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico shot and gravely injured
Fico was transported to a hospital by helicopter. His office said the “next few hours” would be decisive.

By Emily Rauhala and Ladka Bauerova
Updated May 15, 2024 at 2:24 p.m. EDT|Published May 15, 2024 at 9:44 a.m. EDT


Security officers move Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico into a car after a shooting in Handlova, Slovakia, on Wednesday. (Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters)

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, was in “critical condition” and still undergoing surgery hours after being shot, government officials said at a hospital news conference on Wednesday evening.

Doctors are still “fighting for Robert Fico’s life,” Defense Minister Robert Kalinak said.

“He has multiple injuries and his condition is extremely serious,” Kalinak said. “We are still praying for good news, but we don’t have that news yet. He’s been in the operating room for 3.5 hours. His condition is very complicated.”

The shooting took place in the central town of Handlova, where the prime minister had attended a government meeting at the Palace of Culture. News video showed him striding with his entourage toward members of the public who were standing outside. He was shaking hands with people, reaching across a chest-high metal barrier, when a man in a button-down shirt appears to start shooting at close range. The attacker can be heard firing five shots before being tackled by security officers in dark suits.

Slovakia’s outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, said police detained the presumed shooter.

“An attack on the prime minister is first and foremost an attack on a human being. But it’s also an attack on democracy,” she said. She urged people to refrain from “hasty judgments” before more information is known.

The president-elect, Peter Pellegrini, who takes power next month, said the attack represented “a threat to everything that up till now adorned Slovak democracy.”

“If we express different political opinions with guns in the squares, and not in polling stations, we endanger everything we have built together in 31 years of Slovak sovereignty,” he said.

The lack of information about the shooter’s motives did not stop Fico allies from casting blame.

“This assassination attempt was politically motivated and the motivation was born immediately after the elections,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said at the hospital.

At an earlier news conference, Lubos Blaha, deputy chairman of Fico’s party, Smer, turned to opposition deputies and said, “This is your work.”

Andrej Danko, a coalition partner, blamed journalists. “Are you happy?” he shouted at reporters.

Leaders across Europe and around the world expressed shock and outrage at the attack.

“We condemn this horrific act of violence,” President Biden said in a statement. “Our embassy is in close touch with the government of Slovakia and ready to assist.”

Fico has served multiple stints as Slovakia’s prime minister, most recently returning to power after winning an election in the fall.

He was forced out in 2018 amid public outrage over the killing of a journalist who had been investigating ties between his associates and the Italian mafia. But he staged a comeback by capitalizing on growing skepticism about the war in Ukraine and frustration with a cost-of-living crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was among those who condemned the shooting. “There can be no justification for this monstrous crime,” he wrote to Čaputová, as reported by Reuters. “I know Robert Fico as a courageous and strong-minded man. I very much hope that these qualities will help him to survive this difficult situation.”

Pavol Hardos, a political scientist at Comenius University in Bratislava, said the shooting spotlighted political polarization in Slovakia — and could deepen it.

“It’s too early to say what the ramifications will be, but some government politicians already said that this amounts to a declaration of war,” he said.

He said he worried that Fico’s party would use the attack as an argument to continue its effort to exert control over radio and television, for instance. “This will be a useful excuse for doing all the things they wanted to do,” he said. “They will be able to make the necessary steps even faster than they planned.”

Slovakia’s major opposition parties, Progressive Slovakia and Freedom and Solidarity, announced after the shooting that they had canceled a planned demonstration against the government’s proposed overhaul of public broadcasting.

Progressive Slovakia rejected any connection between the attacker and its party or movement, adding in a statement, “We are concerned about the further escalation of tension in society.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -slovakia/

[ti-amie]

Video from the scene. The actual shooting is blacked out.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... 42f56c4728

[ti-amie]

What do we know about Robert Fico's alleged shooter?


Copyright Radovan Stoklasa/Tlacova agentura SR

By Tamsin Paternoster & Euronews
Published on 15/05/2024 - 20:18

Slovakian media has described the shooter as a 71-year-old man who wrote poems and previously worked as a security guard.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is currently in hospital following a shooting that occurred following his cabinet's away-from-home session in the town of Handlova.

Slovakian media has named the shooter as Juraj Cintula from the small western town of Levice.

According to Slovak daily newspaper Dennik N, the suspected perpetrator is 71 years old, a writer and a founding member of the DÚHA Literary Club.

He has written three collections of poetry and published two novels titled 'The Message of Sacrifice' in 2010 and 'Efata' in 2015, according to the literary club's Facebook page. The latter is a novel about Slovakia's Roma community.

The Slovak Writers' Association (SSS) has registered Cintula as a member since 2015 however, have since tried to distance themselves from his association posting in a statement, "We express our indignation at such a brutal act, which has no parallel in the history of Slovakia."

Cintula reportedly owned a gun license, and previously worked as a security guard for a private security firm where he himself was the target of an attack in a shopping centre.

Markíza TV station reported on a brief video showing the suspect, which was released shortly after his arrest. In the video, he says, "I don't agree with the government's policies. Why are the media being targeted? Why is RTVS under attack? Why was Mazák dismissed from his position?"

The assassination attempt is the first on a senior politician in the history of modern Slovakia, which gained independence in 1993.


Rescue workers take Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024.Jan Kroslak/Tlacova agentura SR

Slovakia's General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka has vowed that the attacker would face "uncompromising" punishment from law enforcement.

Allies of Fico have blamed 'liberal media' for the attack, accusing journalists of creating an environment that promoted hatred for Robert Fico and his populist policies.

Lubos Blaha, Slovakia's deputy parliament speaker and deputy chairman of Fico's Smer party has said, "For Smer, I want to sharply condemn what happened today in Handlova and at the same time express heavy disgust over what you have committed here in the past years".

"You, liberal media and political opposition. What hatred you spread against Robert Fico."

Slovakia's largest opposition party Progressive Slovakia has called off a planned protest against a controversial reform of Slovakia's public broadcasting services planned by Fico's government. The leader of the party, Michal Simecka, said the move was done to avoid an "escalation of tension".

https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/15/wha ... obert-fico

[Owendonovan]

"You, liberal media and political opposition. What hatred you spread against Robert Fico."

Well, I suppose if Fico didn't spread and legislate autocratic, xenophobic, right-wing drek, the liberals wouldn't dislike him so much.

[ponchi101]

Totally uninformed about Slovakia. I will read your posts.

[ti-amie]

From The Guardian:

From 4h ago
19.16 BST
Crashed helicopter found by search teams, state TV reports
The helicopter that crashed has been found by search teams, Iranian state TV reported. There is no update yet on the condition of those onboard.

1h ago
21.34 BST
Patrick Wintour

The Iranian helicopter crash comes at a time when the country, faced by unprecedented external challenges, was already bracing itself for a change in regime with the expected demise in the next few years of its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In the country’s hydra-headed leadership where power is spread in often opaque ways between clerics, politicians and army, it is the supreme leader, and not the president, that is ultimately decisive.

Indeed, in some ways the posts of president, and prime minister – originally based on a model of the French constitution – became overwhelmed in the drafting of Iran’s constitution in 1979, leading to advocates of a more powerful presidency to claim the role was being subsumed in a form of autocracy created in the name of religion.

[Suliso]

I'd expect no real change while Khamenei is alive. After maybe...

[ponchi101]

Norway, Ireland and Spain say they will recognize a Palestinian state, deepening Israel's isolation

Wow.

[ti-amie]

This didn't take long...