Who doesn’t love a comie turned capitalist turned billionaire.
Mikail started off studying finance even when in the middle of a communist country. He went on to become one of the 50 richest people in the world, and bought the New Jersey Nets. So why not become president of Russia now? As the Russian streets grow uneasy against their current leader Putin, Mikhail has thrown his hat in the ring to go up against him.
The LA times writes: ”
The Russian billionaire who owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team announced he would challenge Vladimir Putin for the presidency in March, a sign of how quickly the political landscape has shifted since parliamentary elections widely criticized as having been rigged.
A public outcry against results of the Dec. 4 vote has presented Putin, long Russia’s strongest leader, with a sudden problem: The protest by tens of thousands of people in Moscow on Saturday was the largest demonstration in the city since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
Although tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov has in the past been sharply critical of the Kremlin, he had faded from the scene until Monday. Even after his announcement, there were widespread doubts whether he intended to risk Putin’s ire, or he was merely a player in an effort to prevent the discontent from jelling into an organized political movement.
In the days since the vote, Putin has distanced himself from the ruling United Russia party, which the protesters decry as a “party of swindlers and thieves.” Officials have said they are willing to review some election results. And on Monday, even as Prokhorov announced his candidacy, officials also began punishing provincial leaders who failed to deliver enough votes.
Together, the moves suggested the outlines of a plan to take the energy out of the protest movement, and ensure nothing stands in the way of Putin, who currently is prime minister, from regaining the office he left four years ago because of term limits.” You can read more here at the La Times.
An American 14 year old teenage boy gets my BAMF of the week award. He was nabbed by Al Qaeda in the Philippines, held prisonor in the jungle for 4 months, then snuck away on the pretense that he was going to take a bath in the stream, like it was a Gilligans Island Episode. Then with some fast running down stream, he was free. The whole story is at ABC News.
“An American teenage boy outsmarted the members of a suspected al Qaeda-linked militants, escaping after five months of being held hostage in a jungle in the Philippines.
Kevin Lunsmann, 14, was lost for nearly two days, roaming without shoes, before he was found by villagers, his father said.
ABC News affiliate WSET spoke to the boy’s father, Heiko Lunsmann, who said he’s so happy he’s getting his son back.
“I’m so proud of my son, he’s a hero, he wandered two days through the jungle,” Heiko Lunsmann said.
“That was a tough time, it was tough five months,” he said. “I only know he is a hero and I’m so happy he escaped.”
When he spoke to this father for the first time the boy proudly said, “I did it on my own, Dad, they didn’t release me, I did it,” family friend Jean Gowen told ABC News.
Kevin Lunsmann said he convinced his four armed captors that he was going to take a bath at a nearby stream, but then he decided to make a run for it. He followed a river down a mountain in Basilan province before being found with bruises on his arms and feet late the next day by villagers.
Police Senior Superintendant Edwin de Ocampo told The Associated Press that Lunsmann was exhausted, hungry and still stunned when he was found. He initially feared the villagers and fled from them as well.”
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