At a glamorous Kremlin inauguration on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin took office for a fifth term, extending his six-year reign as head of state after crushing his political rivals, starting a catastrophic war in Ukraine, and consolidating all power in his own hands.

In front of an assembled group of specially chosen guests, Putin touched the Russian Constitution at the ceremony held in the opulent Grand Kremlin Palace and swore to protect it.

After taking the oath of office, Putin declared, “We are a united and great people and together we will overcome all obstacles, realize all our plans, and together we will win.”

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Putin Begins His Fifth Term As President, More In Control Of Russia Than Ever

Following President Boris Yeltsin’s death in the final hours of 1999, Putin turned Russia from a nation rising from economic ruin to a pariah state that poses a threat to international security. Russia is seeking assistance from other regimes such as China, Iran, and North Korea in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has turned into the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. Russia has been subject to severe sanctions from the West.

Putin has been in power for almost 25 years, making him the longest-serving head of state since Josef Stalin. His current term will not end until 2030 when he will be allowed to compete for office again under the constitution.

In a highly staged performance, Putin was seen going through his files in his office before making his way down the lengthy halls of the Kremlin and stopping occasionally to admire an artwork en route to his inauguration.

Putin’s guard of honor waited for hours in the rain and sleet, at temperatures just above freezing, as his Auras limousine made the short trip to the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Putin angrily denounced the West and thanked the “heroes” of his battle in Ukraine in the opening minutes of his fifth term.

He declared that Russia “does not refuse dialogue with Western states.” Instead, he declared, “the choice is theirs: do they intend to look for a path to cooperation and peace, or do they intend to continue trying to contain Russia, continue the policy of aggression, and continuous pressure on our country for years.”

He was met with cheers when he arrived in the hall with over 2,500 invited guests. Among them were prominent figures from the Russian government, such as American actor Steven Seagal.

German, British, and American diplomats were not present. According to the US Embassy, Ambassador Lynne Tracy was on “prescheduled, personal travel” when she left the nation.

A few representatives from the European Union attended the inauguration, even though top EU diplomat Josep Borrell claimed to have advised them that “the right thing to do is not to attend this inauguration” because Putin is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, which holds him accountable for the kidnappings of Ukrainian children.

According to a French official who spoke anonymously because they were not permitted to talk publicly, the French ambassador was among those present.

A 30-gun salute followed Putin’s speech. In the drizzle on Cathedral Square in front of the Kremlin, Putin inspected the presidential regiment before going nearby to Annunciation Cathedral to receive a blessing from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

During the brief ceremony, Kirill compared Putin to Prince Alexander Nevsky, the medieval tyrant who “courageously defended their people on the battlefield.”

Recalling that the head of state occasionally “has to take fateful and formidable decisions” that can result in victims, he reminded Putin that the church has backed the conflict in Ukraine that has resulted in several casualties.

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Putin Begins His Fifth Term As President, More In Control Of Russia Than Ever

The current question is what the 71-year-old Putin will do in the Kremlin during the next six years, both domestically and internationally.

Using scorched-earth tactics, Russian forces are consolidating their position in Ukraine while Kyiv struggles with a manpower and ammunition shortfall.

By using drones and missiles, Ukraine has moved the war to Russian territory, particularly in border areas. Putin promised to carry out Moscow’s objectives in Ukraine and take all necessary steps to “defend our sovereignty and security of our citizens” in a speech given in February.

Putin announced he wanted to create a buffer zone in Ukraine to safeguard his nation from cross-border attacks shortly after his planned reelection in March. He also hinted that a conflict between NATO and Russia would occur.

The Russian government has been dissolved so that Putin can choose a new prime minister and Cabinet.

A crucial domain to monitor is the Defense Ministry.

Amidst allegations of widespread corruption, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s protege, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, was arrested last month on bribery accusations. Given that the war is ongoing, it would be risky for some commentators to claim that Shoigu may fall victim to the cabinet upheaval.

Putin’s popularity at home is strongly correlated with rising living levels for common Russians.

Putin assured Russians on Tuesday that their country would grow in the future, but many have seen their standard of living increase since the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin pledged at the start of his term in 2018 that Russia’s economy would be “modern and dynamic” and that it would rank among the top five in the world. Rather, Russia’s government is spending unprecedented sums on defense, and the country’s economy has shifted to a war footing.

Now that Putin has secured a further six years in office, analysts predict the government may decide to implement controversial measures like tax increases to finance the war and increased pressure on men to enlist in the military.

Authorities have clamped down on any dissent in the years after the invasion with an intensity not seen since the Soviet era.

Putin hinted on Tuesday that he would keep critics quiet.

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Putin Begins His Fifth Term As President, More In Control Of Russia Than Ever

Recalling the “tragic cost of internal turmoil and upheaval,” he advised the audience gathered in the Grand Kremlin Palace that Russia “must be strong and absolutely resistant to any challenges and threats.”

Putin faces essentially no domestic opposition as he begins his fifth term in office.

Laws that threaten lengthy prison terms have been passed for anyone who discredits the armed forces. In addition, the Kremlin attacks rights organizations, independent media, LGBTQ+ activists, and other groups that deviate from what Putin has described as Russia’s “traditional family values.”

Opposition leader and worst political enemy, Alexei Navalny, passed away in a prison camp in the Arctic in February. Several well-known detractors have either left the nation or been imprisoned, and several of his opponents overseas are afraid for their safety.

Before the inauguration, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Navalny, declared in a video that Putin’s pledges “are not only empty, they are false.”

She declared that “a liar, a thief, and a murderer” rules Russia.

SOURCE – (AP)

Washington — After a student leader from the historic Tiananmen Square demonstrations ran for Congress in New York in 2022, a Chinese intelligence operator quickly hired a private investigator to look for any mistresses or tax issues that could jeopardize the candidate’s candidacy, according to prosecutors.

“In the end,” the operative warned his contact, “violence would be fine too.”

Tehran was listening as an Iranian journalist and activist in exile in the United States spoke out against Iran’s human rights violations. According to the Justice Department, members of an Eastern European organized crime group surveyed her Brooklyn home and planned to assassinate her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran. The attempt was disrupted, and criminal charges were filed.

The instances highlight the extraordinary efforts taken by countries such as China and Iran to intimidate, harass and even plot attacks on political opponents and activists in the United States. They demonstrate the alarming effects that geopolitical tensions may have for regular citizens, as governments that have historically been intolerant of dissent within their borders are increasingly casting a wary eye on those who cry out thousands of kilometers away.

“We’re not living in fear or paranoia, but the reality is very clear: the Islamic Republic wants us dead, and we have to look over our shoulder every day,” Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad stated in an interview.

The Justice Department has taken note of the matter, charging dozens of defendants with acts of global repression during the last five years. Senior FBI officials told The Associated Press that the tactics have become more sophisticated, including the use of proxies such as private investigators and organized crime leaders, and that countries are more willing to cross “serious red lines” ranging from harassment to violence to project power abroad and suppress dissent.

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As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

Foreign adversaries are increasingly prioritizing well-funded intimidation campaigns for their intelligence services, and more countries — including some not traditionally hostile to the United States — have targeted critics in America and elsewhere in the West, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their investigations.

The Justice Department, for example, reported last November a foiled conspiracy to assassinate a Sikh activist in New York, which officials said was ordered by an Indian government official. Rwanda kidnapped Paul Rusesabagina of “Hotel Rwanda” fame from Texas and returned him to the country before releasing him, while Saudi Arabia has persecuted dissidents online and in person, according to the FBI.

“This is a huge priority for us,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security officer, citing an “alarming rise” in government-directed harassment.

He stated that the prosecutions are intended not just to hold harassers accountable but also to convey that the actions are “unacceptable from the perspective of United States sovereignty and defending American values — values around free expression and free association.”

Other countries have witnessed a rise in incidents.

According to an April Reporters Without Borders investigation, London is a “hotspot” for Iranian attacks on Persian-language broadcasters, with British counterterrorism police probing a one-month-old attack on an Iranian television presenter outside his London home. Despite Moscow’s protestations, harassment and attacks on Russians in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, including a journalist who became ill as a result of a suspected poisoning in Germany, have long been blamed on Russian intelligence agents.

Inside the United States, the trend is exacerbated by a deteriorating relationship with Iran and tensions with China over issues ranging from trade and intellectual property theft to electoral interference. Emerging technologies such as generative AI are also expected to be used for future harassment, according to a new danger assessment from US intelligence authorities.

“Transnational repression is a manifestation of the broader conflict between authoritarian regimes and democratic countries,” Olsen added. “It’s been a consistent theme of the way the world is changing from a geopolitical standpoint over the last decade.”

According to officials and supporters, China and Iran are two primary offenders.

Emails sent to the Iranian mission at the United Nations have yet to be responded to. A representative for the Chinese Embassy in Washington denied that the country engages in the practice, stating that the government “strictly abides by international law, and fully respects the law enforcement sovereignty of other countries.”

“We resolutely oppose ‘long-arm jurisdiction,'” the statement stated.

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As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

However, US officials said China developed a campaign to do just that, starting “Operation Fox Hunt” to locate down Chinese expats targeted by Beijing to pressure them into returning to face charges.

A former Chinese city government official residing in New Jersey discovered a message in Chinese characters pinned to his front door that read: “If you are willing to return to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be fine.” According to a 2020 Justice Department case accusing a group of Chinese operatives and an American private investigator, “that’s the end of the matter!”

Though most defendants charged in transnational repression plans are based in their own country, arrests and prosecutions are rare; that particular case resulted in the conviction of a private investigator and two Chinese residents living in the United States last year.

Bob Fu, a Chinese American Christian pastor whose group, ChinaAid, promotes religious freedom in China, said he has faced extensive harassment for years. Large crowds of demonstrators have gathered for days at a time outside his West Texas house, arriving in well-coordinated operations that he says are related to the Chinese government.

Phony hotel reservations have been made in his name, as well as phony bomb threats to police claiming that he intends to detonate explosives. Flyers picturing him as the devil were given to neighbors. He stated that he has learned to take precautions when traveling, such as instructing his staff not to disclose his schedule in advance and that he has relocated from his home at the request of law authorities.

“I’m not feeling safe,” Fu told the Associated Press. When it comes to returning to China, where he was reared and fled more than 25 years ago as a religious refugee, he says: “I may be permitted to fly back, but it will be a one-way ticket. “I am sure I am on their wanted list.”

In 2020, protesters targeted Wu Jianmin, a former student leader in China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, outside his home in Irvine, California. The harassment lasted more than two months.

“They shouted slogans outside my home and made verbal abuses,” he added. “They paraded in the neighborhood, distributed all sorts of pictures and flyers, and put them in the neighbors’ mailboxes.”

Wu says that perpetrators of harassment plots include retired Communist Party members living in the United States, their offspring, members of Chinese organizations with deep ties to the Chinese government, and even fugitives seeking bargains with Beijing.

“The end goal is the same,” Wu remarked during an interview in Mandarin Chinese. “Their task, as assigned by the Communist Party, is to suppress overseas pro-democracy activists.”

Last year, the Justice Department charged approximately three dozen officers from China’s national police force with using social media to target dissidents in the United States, including the creation of fake accounts that shared harassing videos and comments, and arrested two men who it claims helped establish a secret police outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood on behalf of the Chinese government.

The year before, federal prosecutors in New York revealed several wide-ranging plans to suppress dissidents, including one to dig up dirt on a little-known and ultimately unsuccessful congressional candidate.

Other targets have included American figure skater Alysa Liu and her father, Arthur, a political refugee who, according to prosecutors, were surveilled by a man posing as an Olympics committee member and requesting passport information.

A dissident artist in California made a sculpture depicting the coronavirus with the visage of Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was similarly destroyed and burned.

“We should be under no illusion that somehow these are rogue actors or people unaffiliated with the Chinese government,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and member of a special House committee on China, said of the Chinese agents indicted.

‘Remove his head from his torso.’

In some cases, violence is organized in response to global events.

Prosecutors in 2022 charged an Iranian spy with paying $300,000 to “eliminate” Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton in retaliation for an airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful commander.

This year, the Justice Department charged an Iranian, identified as a drug trafficker and intelligence operative, as well as two Canadians, one a “full-patch” member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, in a murder-for-hire plot against two Iranians who had fled the country and were living in Maryland.

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As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

“We gotta erase his head from his torso,” one of the hired Canadians is accused of stating. Law enforcement stopped the threat.

Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, was targeted even before the Justice Department revealed the murder-for-hire scheme last year. In 2021, prosecutors prosecuted a gang of Iranians allegedly working for the country’s intelligence agencies with plotting to kidnap her.

Alinejad is still a renowned journalist and passionate opposition leader, and she says she intends to continue speaking out, including at a sentencing trial last year for a woman who prosecutors say unknowingly sponsored the kidnapping plot.

However, the story specifics are deeply ingrained in her consciousness. The criminal cases revealed the gravity of the threat she faced and the heinous preparations involved, such as researching how to whisk Alinejad out of New York on a military-style speedboat and transport her to Venezuela, as well as discussing lures for luring her from her home, such as asking for flowers from the garden outside.

One of the defendants in the murder-for-hire scheme was apprehended in 2022 after being discovered driving through Alinejad’s Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded firearm and rounds of ammunition. Another defendant was extradited from the Czech Republic in February to face criminal proceedings. Two other people have been arrested.

The FBI interrupted the plot and encouraged Alinejad to relocate, which she did. But it also meant bidding goodbye to her beloved garden, which had brought her delight as she shared homegrown cucumbers and other veggies with her neighbors.

“They didn’t kill me physically, but they killed my relationship with my garden, with my neighbors,” Alinejad added.

SOURCE – (AP)

Houston — Floodwaters stopped some Texas schools on Monday after days of severe rainfall hit the Houston area, resulting in hundreds of rescues, including individuals stranded on rooftops.

According to authorities, a 5-year-old boy died after traveling in a car that was swept away by swift floods.

Although forecasts expected storms to subside in southeastern Texas, high water continued restricting several roadways, leaving homeowners with lengthy cleanups in neighborhoods where rising river levels prompted weekend evacuation orders.

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Heavy Rains Ease Around Houston But Flooding Remains After Hundreds Of Rescues And Evacuations

Houston is one of the most flood-prone metropolitan areas in the country. Hurricane Harvey poured historic rainfall in 2017, flooding thousands of houses and requiring more than 60,000 rescues.

In one rainy region of Houston, Channelview school officials postponed classes after a survey of their employees revealed that many of them had experienced conditions that prevented them from coming to work.

“These folks have suffered much, people,” Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said during a Facebook video Sunday as he paddled a boat through a rural flooded area. Cars and street signs were partially submerged, peeking above the water around him.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jimmy Fowler reported that areas surrounding Lake Livingston, northeast of Houston, received up to 23 inches (58 cm) of rain over the past week.

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Heavy Rains Ease Around Houston But Flooding Remains After Hundreds Of Rescues And Evacuations

A 5-year-old kid died in Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, after being carried away after the vehicle he was riding in became caught in swift-moving water near the community of Lillian just before 2 a.m. Sunday, according to officials.

The child and two adults were trying to get to dry land when they were washed away. The adults were rescued and sent to a hospital about 5 a.m., while the infant was discovered dead in the water around 7:20 a.m., according to Johnson County Emergency Management Director Jamie Moore on social media.

According to National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Stalley, storms dumped 9 inches (23 cm) of rain over six to eight hours in areas from central Texas to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Since last week, storms have necessitated multiple high-water rescues in the Houston region, including some from flooded home rooftops.

Greg Moss, 68, stayed in his recreational RV on Sunday after leaving his home in Channelview, east Harris County, near the San Jacinto River. The day before, he had packed up much of his stuff and departed before the road leading to his house flooded.

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Heavy Rains Ease Around Houston But Flooding Remains After Hundreds Of Rescues And Evacuations

“I would be stuck for four days,” Moss remarked. “So now at least I can go get something to eat.”

Moss relocated his things and vehicle to a neighbor’s home, where he intended to remain until the waters receded. He said Sunday that the floodwaters had already receded by a couple of feet, and Moss was not concerned about his home flooding because it is on higher ground.

SOURCE – (AP)