Russia Today - ROTHSCHILD

It was last August, and a woman was brutally raped and sodomized by her abusive ex-boyfriend after unsuccessfully pleading with a 911 dispatcher for over 10 minutes.

“I'm not letting him in, but he's, like, tried to break down the door, and he's trying to break into one of the windows,” the woman is heard telling the operator in the calls.

“He put me in the hospital a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to keep him away,” she said.

Four times during that call, the operator told the woman that she wasn’t able to provide assistance.

“I don't have anybody to send out there,” she kept saying. “Once again, it's unfortunate you guys don't have any law enforcement up there.”

At the county jail, staffing cuts caused by a lack of funding has formed a revolving door system where inmates are released sometimes right after being arrested because there’s seldom enough money to keep facilities functioning at even the bare minimum. There are only six deputies in the Josephine Sherriff’s Office, and recently the department’s canine unit was cut to a single dog.

“You may want to consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services,” the department cautioned the county’s 80,000 or so residents last year.

Although a Wild West-like scenario has spiraled out of control in the Pacific Northwest, residents voted against a measure Tuesday that would have funded much-needed law enforcement operations at the cost of only a 3 percent tax levy.

The measure would have bumped the county government tax rate — currently the lowest in the state — to $1.48 per $1,000, in turn costing the average homeowner in Josephine around $85 a year extra.

But even after news of last year’s rape went viral, residents narrowly decided this week to halt any attempt to milk mere pennies on the dollar for an added sense of security. On Tuesday evening the decision was too close to call in Josephine, but by Wednesday afternoon the county clerk acknowledged to RT that the public safety levy was voted down by a margin of 51 to 49 percent, with barely 500 ballots deciding the fate of a county where calling 911 is no longer the way to handle an emergency.

“There isn’t a day go by that we don’t have another victim," Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilberson told Oregon Public Broadcasting last week. Speaking to OPB, Gilberson directly blamed the ongoing inability to fight crime on budget restraints.

"If you don’t pay the bill, you don’t get the service," he said.

Policing Josephine County wasn’t always a problem. In 2000, Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act and as a result began sharing revenue made off of timber grown on public land.

“Federal forests make up 60 percent of the land in many rural Oregon counties. Because federal land isn’t subject to property taxes, the federal government for decades shared timber sale revenue with the counties,” the Oregonian recently noted.

Those funds were until recently divvied up among rural counties to help line the pockets where sparsely inhabited towns were losing out on taxes brought in by more densely populated regions. The act has expired, however, and the result has been the rapid defunding of public programs in some areas, including the Josephine Sherriff’s Office. Since the expiration of the bill, the county has lost millions of dollars in revenue that for more than a decade was a routine handout.

In the case of last August’s rape, a 911 dispatcher stayed on the phone with the soon-to-be victim for over 10 minutes, instructing her to hide in her house while emergency options were considered.

“None of the sheriff's deputies in Josephine County were on duty,” explained Amelia Templeton of OPB. “So dispatch transferred the call to the Oregon State Police, but they also didn't have anyone available.”

“And four times in total, she says there isn't anyone who can help,” she said.

The expiration of the act that provided the city with timber revenue forced the Sheriff’s Office to cut its budget in half and most law enforcement operations have ended. Had voters agreed to a tax hike on Tuesday, the county expected to raise $9.5 million during the next year and slightly more annually through 2016. Those funds, the voters were told, would be used to increase inmate capacity at the county jail, provide the resources for the District Attorney’s office to prosecute more criminals and, generally, bring the force back up to snuff.

“I’m not going to vote for it,” Josephine County convenience store owner Les Monk told Templeton. “Things are no worse or better now than they were when they were fully funded."

For Monk — and presumably the 13,365 other “nay” ballots casted on Tuesday — things are just fine in Josephine. Monk told Templeton that he carried a knife for his own protection and suggested that paying money for an inefficient police force wasn’t worth his tax dollars. “People have to understand you will, and are able, to defend your property,” he said.

According to Templeton, an attorney for the rape victim said the woman felt hopeless, alone and very scared when she waited, unsuccessfully, for police assistance last year. Sheriff Gilbertson admitted that it’s a very real problem.

"It's devastated law enforcement," Sheriff Gilbertson told The Oregonian. "The criminals now act with impunity and a sense of entitlement."

"It's been a deteriorating situation for a long time," added Greg Wolf, intergovernmental affairs director for Gov. John Kitzhaber, "and we can see that we're going to hit a wall unless we come up with some dramatic solutions."

Nearby on Tuesday, voters in Curry County voters rejected a $4.5 million effort that aimed to reverse the dastardly trend there. And in Lane County, a five-year, $80 million property tax levy was approved amid similar circumstances — but only after eight previous attempts stretching all the way back to 1998 were rejected by voters.

"We've essentially eviscerated law enforcement staffing over the last 45 years," Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner told a legislative committee earlier this year. With this week’s vote, Lane County can start to pick up the pieces. In Josephine, however, residents have a long ways to go.

Speaking to OPB late Tuesday, reporter April Baer said Gov. Kitzhaber is now expected to declare a public safety emergency and likely and impose a temporary tax to keep at least some law enforcement operations functioning through the end of 2014.

The budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1 has called for $79 million for detention operations, the same as the current year. An additional $20.5 million has been requested for the office of military commissions, the military tribunals set up in 2006 for prosecuting detainees. The current price tag on the Guantanamo military commission is $12.6 million. A further $40 million is needed for a fiber optic cable and $99 million for operation and maintenance of the facilities.

The Pentagon is also mulling over a request from the Southern Command to spend about $200 million for renovating the camp, which will include the construction of a new prison building for “high value” detainees, as well as a new dining hall, barracks for prison guards, a hospital, a “legal meeting complex” and a “communications network facility” to store data.

The increased budget request comes in stark contrast to President Obama’s recent push to shutter the facility, where 103 out of the camp’s 166 detainees have been carrying out an unprecedented hunger strike for more than 100 days. Human rights advocates have placed the number of hunger strikers as high as 130.

Thirty of the hunger strikers are being force-fed through a nasal tube – a practice which the UN human rights office condemned as “torture” and a breach of international law. Three have been sent to the detainee hospital for observation. Lawyers for Guantanamo inmates have also claimed that prisoners who wish to talk to their legal representatives are being subjected to humiliating new cavity searches.

The 166 prisoners have been detained for eleven and a half years, the vast majority of them have not been charged with a crime, and 86 of them have been cleared for release.

The detention facility already ranks as one of the most expensive in the world, costing over $900,000 annually per prisoner.  With 166 detainees, Gitmo consumes over $150 million each year.

Obama moves to shutter Guantanamo?

Obama is expected to make a major speech on Thursday at National Defense University, where he will outline his latest plan to close the detention facility, as well as his administration’s drone policy, targeted killing and the war against al Qaeda.

The president’s new push to shut down Guantanamo comes after Congress blocked attempts to close Guantanamo during his first term in office, when Obama signed a 2009 executive order calling for the camp’s closure.

"Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe," the president said at a White House news conference last month. "It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."

However, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, the law that Congress passed and Obama signed in March to stem the possibility of a federal government shutdown, prohibits any additional funds for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or its territories. It further blocks any expenditures on the renovation of any US facility on American soil to house detainees, effectively making it illegal for the government to transfer the men it plans to continue holding.

It also remains unclear how Obama will win over both Republicans and members of his own party who remain staunchly opposed to transferring terror suspects to the US.

While lawmakers have cited recidivism of released terror suspects as a reason to keep the camp open, in 2009 the Pentagon was only able to “confirm” that 18 former detainees – 4 percent of the camp’s population – had participated in attacks. A spokesman at the time said evidence of someone being "confirmed" could have included fingerprints, a conclusive photograph or "well-corroborated intelligence reporting."

Another issue involves the camp’s 86 detainees who have never been charged with a crime and have already been cleared for release.

Earlier this month, Democratic Senator Carl Levin wrote a letter to the White House requesting that the White House appoint an official who will be tasked with relocating the dozens of detainees who were being held without charge.

Levin, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, said that although the defense authorization bill has restricted the administration’s ability to transfer detainees, a national security waiver provided a “clear route” to moving detainees to some third countries. Levin further urged Obama to find a way to close the camp without Congress’ blessing.

“Congress has blocked it, so he’s going to have to find a way to remove the blockages of Congress, and hopefully he’ll let us know how he’ll do that,”  Levin  told reporters Tuesday.

Levin told The Hill on Tuesday that he has yet to receive a response to his letter.

Democratic representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.) questioned in an interview if the growing international outcry surrounding the hunger strike was enough to persuade resistant lawmakers to change their position on keeping the camp open.

“It’s getting uglier and uglier at Gitmo…The level of embarrassment is growing and the cost is growing, so is that enough to persuade them that it’s time to change positions?” Smith asked.

“We’re going to have that debate.”

The mysterious illness has sickened its victims with flu-like symptoms, including a shortness of breath, fever, and coughing. Of the seven people who were hospitalized with the new disease, two have died, Alabama Department of Public Health spokeswoman Mary McIntyre told AP.

Scientists are currently studying lab specimens from the seven victims, and health officials are urging hospital staff to wear masks and gloves when coming in contact with the infected patients.

All seven patients were from Houston County, and McIntyre says there have been no out-of-state reports of this illness. The victims are all adults ranging in age from early 20s to late 80s, and have all been hospitalized in the Southeast Alabama Medical Center starting last Thursday.

“We’re only aware of the Southeast, but we don’t know – we haven’t received reports from anywhere else,” McIntyre said. “That’s why we’re trying to get the information out.”

There is currently no evidence that the victims traveled out of the country or picked up the illness outside of the US. Researchers do not currently believe that this illness is related to a deadly new coronavirus, coined the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which has infected 40 people and killed 20 who all traveled to or lived in the Middle East. The novel coronavirus has recently surfaced in France, the UK and Saudi Arabia.

Health officials also do not believe that the victims acquired the H7H9 virus, which has caused 17 deaths and 82 illnesses in China. This virus is a strain of the bird flu and spreads through person-to-person contact.

But although health officials doubt that the Alabama patients acquired either of the two foreign pathogens, McIntyre told NBC that nothing is being ruled out, since laboratory test results are not yet complete.

“At this point it’s too early to tell,” she said. “That’s why we called it a respiratory illness of unknown origin.”

One of the infected patients tested positive for H1N1 influenza A, but researchers believe this victim may have fallen ill with the unknown disease simultaneously. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appear to have no knowledge about the illness. The agency has so far directed media questions to Alabama health officials.

State health officials are urging Alabama residents to take precautionary steps to avoid getting sick.

“Be sure to cover your cough, wash your hands frequently, don’t cough on your hands and then shake somebody else’s hands, to try to prevent from spreading stuff,” McIntyre said during a Tuesday morning press conference, while trying to encourage Alabama residents not to panic.

Full story: Man beheaded in suspected terrorist attack outside army barracks in London

19:13 GMT:  London Mayor Boris Johnson said it's 'overwhelmingly likely' the South London killing was a terrorist attack.

18:55 GMT: Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) – which was set up to coordinate various bodies within  the UK government in response to national and regional crises – has agreed to tighten security around  Woolwich and other military barracks in London after attack, the BBC reports.

18:37 GMT: The suspect, a black male dressed in a grey hooded jacket and black brimless cap, apologized to people at the scene who witnessed the attack before going on to make several more political statements.  

In the video obtained by ITV News, he can be heard saying in clear English without a foreign accent:  "We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

"I apologize that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

18:30 GMT: French President Hollande, who is speaking alongside Cameron at a joint press conference in Paris, said the man killed in the London attack is a British soldier.

18:25 GMT: British Prime Minister David Cameron said the “barbaric attack” in London could be a terrorist incident, he said at a press conference in Paris after talks with French President Francois Hollande. Cameron characterized the attack as "appalling."

Cameron added: "We have had these sort of attacks before in our country, and we never buckle in the face of them."

18:20 GMT: Footage of a man carrying a meat cleaver with bloodstained hands at the scene of the attack has been broadcast on ITV News. The man made a several politically charged statements, telling the cameraman: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."

18:17 GMT: British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an emergency meeting following the suspected terror attack in London.

18:15 GMT: A British government official speaking on condition of anonymity said that the details which had emerged so far pointed towards a “terrorist motivated attack.”

Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts is facing accusations of adultery and engaging in a physical altercation with a woman that is not his wife. The 29-year veteran was the top general at Fort Jackson, S.C., where he took command in April 2012. He previously served as head of a unit training Iraqi soldiers. Roberts has been suspended pending an investigation into the allegations against him.

The Army made the announcement of Roberts’ suspension on Tuesday, but did not provide further details regarding the assault and adultery allegations.

“It was not clear whom Brig. Gen Bryan Roberts struck,” USA TODAY reported, indicating that the general may have physically harmed the woman with whom he had an altercation.  NBC News reports that the altercation involved Roberts and the woman he allegedly cheated on his wife with, and that the two were involved in a violent argument. After making up, Roberts allegedly bit the woman’s lip, which caused her to seek medical help, a US military official told the news agency.

Brig. Gen. Peggy Combs, Commandant of the US Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, will take over as interim commander while the investigation is ongoing.

The U.S. Army’s Command and Staff page on Tuesday showed a vacant spot under the position of “Commanding General”.

The suspension is the latest sex scandal involving a senior military officer. In recent months, the Pentagon has come under enormous pressure to address the number of military sexual assault allegations.

Earlier this month, Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, was arrested for drunkenly groping a woman. Krusinski was in charge of sexual abuse prevention, which made the case more disgraceful than most.

Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen, the US military soldier responsible for overseeing sexual assault prevention at Ford Hood is also under investigation for sexual assault. The man is facing allegations including the maltreatment of subordinates and running a prostitution ring.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Darin Haas, the manager of Fort Campbell’s sexual harassment prevention office, was fired from his post and arrested on charges of violating an order of protection, and stalking his ex-wife.

Although the details of Roberts’ allegations remain unclear and it is not known whether the ‘assault’ was a sexual assault, his misconduct serves as further embarrassment to the Pentagon during a month filled with news of sex scandals and shocking statistics.

Pentagon officials recently announced that sexual assault incidents have increased by 35 percent from 2010 to 2012, bringing the annual total to 26,000 last year. The Department of Veteran Affairs also found that 85,000 US veterans received medical treatment for sex abuse trauma last year, which indicates that the effects of assault have far-reaching consequences, both financially and emotionally.

ITV news reported that one of the men shot by police said to astonished bystanders who witnessed the attack: “We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

Follow RT's LIVE UPDATES on the story.

One witness told LBC radio that the two men “were hacking at this guy literally. They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him, like he was a piece of meat. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road.”

ITV has also said it has footage of one of the attackers who says “We swear by almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you”.

After the man was killed the two men dumped him on the street.

Armed police who responded to incident have reportedly shot and injured the attackers, one of them seriously.

Officers were called to the area at around 2:20 pm and the surrounding area has been cordoned off by police.

The incident happened next to Woolwhich barracks but the Ministry of Defense has not yet confirmed whether the dead man was in fact a soldier.

#Woolwich being treated as a politically motivated Islamist attack. Attackers reported to have filmed each other and shouted 'Allahu Akbar'

— RT London Bureau (@RTLondonBureau) May 22, 2013

A spokesman from Scotland Yard said, “Officers have responded to an incident in John Wilson Street at 2:20 pm today. We believe at this stage that officers were called to reports of an assault."

The London Air Ambulance also confirmed that a doctor and a paramedic were sent to the scene at 14:27 pm.

Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that he had asked the Home Secretary Theresa May to chair a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency committee and that she had requested updates from MI5 and the Metropolitan Police and the government were treating the incident as suspected terrorist attack.

The Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson have also arrived at the Cobra meeting.

Cameron said at a press conference with French President Francoise Hollande that there were "strong indications that it is a terrorist incident."

Roy Ramm, a former Scotland Yard commander of specialist operations, told the BBC News Channel that the police will be looking into the background of the two men in custody to try and determine if they were part of an organized network or acting alone.

The Spanish media has been furiously discussing the errors made by the state-owned Navantia construction company, which has spent about a third of the huge $2.2 billion budget only to produce an ‘overweight’ submarine that is not able to float.

Spain’s Ministry of Defense has confirmed that Navantia detected “deviations” in the new submarine’s design, thus delaying its March 2015 scheduled launch for one or two years.

Navantia said an excess weight of up to 100 tons has been added to the sub during construction, and the company may have to redesign the whole craft.

The excess weight may result in significant problem in the craft’s buoyancy and severely affect its ability to submerge and resurface from depth, the local media explained.

To ensure the submarine does not sink, Navantia considers lengthening its hull in order to re-balance the weight, infodefensa.com said, citing sources.

But each extra meter of the sub will reportedly cost the austerity-stricken state more than €7.5 million ($9.7 million).

Spain’s opposition party United Left has mocked the submarine development in parliament and demanded explanations.

The Ministry of Defense downplayed the clamor, saying adjustments and delays in such complex technological projects are “within normality.” The ministry is now “studying the scope of the problem to determine its impact in terms of time and money” and is considering “various alternatives.”

A delegation from the local College of Industrial Engineers in Murcia region on Tuesday visited the Navantia facilities and spoke in support of the company’s engineers “facing unprecedented technological solutions,” La Verdad said. Navantia’s “technical innovation” is an even more challenging task, given that the plant has to build “four submarines simultaneously,” said the Dean of the College Andres Ortuno.

While the Spanish state is waiting for the four S-80 class submarines to be modified and completed, it will only have two submarines in service – and may have to spend €30 million ($38.8 million) to repair the aging S-74 Tramontana.

The unexpected costs come at a time when Spain’s Ministry of Defense has seen its budget cut by some 30 per cent as part of austerity measures.

Weiner, 48, announced in a YouTube video late Tuesday that he’ll be running in the New York mayoral race this November.

The long-time member of the US House of Representatives was rumored in recent weeks to be weighing a bid for the Democratic Party’s nod in this fall’s race, which will mark the first time since 2001 that incumbent Michael Bloomberg will be ineligible to run for the office of mayor due to term restraints.

Weiner previously served as a congressional Democrat in the House for the ninth district of New York, a region composed entirely of his native Brooklyn. After a 12-year run in the House, however, Weiner walked away from office in June 2011 after admitting to sending inappropriate images to young women while married to his wife, Huma Abedin.

After conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart published lewd photos the lawmaker was alleged to have sent from cell phone, a sexting scandal dubbed “Weinergate” by the mainstream media propelled the congressman into the national spotlight. Weiner initially declined the accusations that he sent the images, only to eventually come clean and walk away from office shortly after.

In a YouTube video released this week, Weiner apologized for his past conduct and asked for another opportunity at elected office from his longtime constituents.

"I made some big mistakes, and I know I let a lot of people down, but I also learned some tough lessons," Weiner said. "I'm running for mayor because I've been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance."

“We love this city,” adds his wife Abedin. “And no one will work harder to make it better than Anthony.”

With the tossing of Weiner’s hat into the ring, the once-popular liberal lawmaker will have to compete with Comptroller John Liu, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, 2009 mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson and others for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The former chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the one-time director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs are among a handful of candidates who have confirmed they’ll seek the Republican Party’s nod. The last time a Democratic served as mayor of New York was 1993.

Rumors of Weiner’s return to politics have amounted in recent weeks following a profile in the New York Times last month. But even after appealing to New Yorkers through pleas in that paper and elsewhere, Weiner faces an uphill battle in seeking the city’s top position two years after he left the House with his tail between his legs.

The results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found Weiner grabbing only 15 percent of New York democrats to frontrunner Quinn’s 25 percent. One month earlier, a NBC New York/Marist poll determined that less than half of the city’s Democrats would even consider voting for Weiner in a mayoral race.

"I think that is going to be up to the people of the city of New York as they judge all of us," Thompson, the 2009 Democratic nominee who previously served as Comptroller, told WNYC.

"I agree with Billy," added Quinn. "That's not a question for any of us to answer, it's a question for the voters to answer. But what I think the voters are really concerned about is making sure that the next mayor isn't someone who's just going to make promises, is somebody who's got a record during their career in government or the private sector of actually delivering for New Yorkers."

According to Weiner, he’s already done as much. Despite his career being put on pause due to 2011’s scandal, he stands by his accomplishments in the House and as New York City council member from 1992 through 1998. In his campaign video, Weiner said he secured one billion dollars as congressman to hire more New York City police officers and also worked to help 9/11 first responders receive adequate health benefits.

“Anybody who underestimates Anthony Weiner’s ambition is a fool. And anybody who underestimates his ability as a candidate is a fool,” retired Hunter College political science professor Kenneth Sherrill told the Associated Press. But “we’re going to see, basically, if Weiner can take hits as well as he can dish them out.”

In kick-starting his campaign, Weiner published on Wednesday his “64 Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class,” a blueprint that calls for, among other items, bringing more jobs to the city, reversing the trend of surging housing prices and bringing affordable health care to 1.2 million New Yorkers who are currently without insurance.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s another thing that might help Weiner win the votes of New Yorkers: he currently has over $5.1 million cash in the bank that could be used towards his campaign, second only to Quinn’s $7 million.

Parliament Officials meet in Brussels to address the burden the €1 trillion tax evasion is having on the EU economy, and have again called to end fraud and ‘offshore’ zones. 

The European Parliament agreed to halve the 1 trillion figure by 2020 through an aggressive dismantling of tax loopholes and havens.  The MEP’s also approved state resources to go after and prosecute tax evaders, in hopes of recovering lost assets.

"At a time when finances are tight and taxpayers are squeezed, it's only right that we crack down on those who pursue illegal means to avoid making any contribution to public coffers, and who put smaller competitors at a disadvantage,” said Conservative MEP Martin Callanan, in a direct challenge to British PM David Cameron to make tax evasion a priority in the UK

Austria, notorious for its banking secrecy, has joined its EU partners in the quest against tax fraud, and supports the one year banking secrecy deadline. According to Tax Research UK, a blog maintained by an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert” according to the Guardian.

The blog’s owner also is involved with Tax Justice Network and is the director of Tax Research LLP.

The poverty charity Oxfam said on Tuesday that the EU has missed out on £100 billion from individual tax scammers.

Oxfam has called for a blacklist of tax havens and believes EU member states should impose sanctions on members who provide platforms for such activity.

Ireland has vehemently denied it is a tax haven and on Wednesday called for an international clampdown on multinationals, yet sits at the center of the controversy. On Monday, it became known that Apple Inc. paid just 2 percent on $74 billion overseas income, which was mostly facilitated by a loophole in Ireland’s tax code.

The ‘Irish double dip’ allows a company to file two subsidiaries in Ireland with a corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent, which is far less than the 35 percent rate in the US, for example.

This ‘legitimate tax abuse’ by high-profile corporates such as Amazon, Google, and Apple hijacked the EU summit agenda.

Martin Callanan has called for an end to tax-havens and doesn’t blame the companies, but the governing bodies which allow such a framework.

"Nobody can blame companies for wanting to look after share-holders' capital by minimizing their tax bill in a legal manner,” he said.

Getting all member states to abide by one tax code, seems near impossible.

“While companies may be using loopholes to pay as little tax as possible, the truth is it's a national issue. It's up to the relevant member states to change their tax codes and tighten the net."

The EU has already agreed to strengthen savings tax agreements with European countries widely regarded as tax havens - Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and San Marino.

Luxembourg has taken a lead and has agreed to an automatic information exchange with the United States.

Two elementary schools were destroyed in the EF-5 twister that killed at least 24 people on Monday and injured hundreds of others. Seven children were found dead in the debris of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla.

Authorities believe that everyone who was at Briarwood Elementary School survived the deadly tornado, which ravaged the building with 200 mph winds.

“You could just feel the pressure just building like you were in an airplane, just the pressurization of the cabin and your ears popping and the debris starts flying and the roof falling in,” Briarwood’s first-grade teacher Sheri Bittle told ABC. “And everything in your classroom falling in on you.”

Both of the destroyed schools lacked tornado shelters, which would have potentially prevented many of the casualties and fatalities that occurred on May 20. More than 100 Oklahoma schools currently have metal safe rooms, which can be built above ground or underground and sustain winds up to 250 mph.

These rooms may be the difference between life and death in states where the tornado risk is high, but lack of funding to build them has prevented elementary schools like Plaza Towers and Briarwood from constructing shelters of their own.

Retrofitting a school with a safe room shelter costs an estimated $600,000 to $1 million per building, Bloomberg News reports. Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency, told the news agency that his department can’t afford to provide every school with a shelter, but that he is looking into whether the two schools had ever even applied for federal funding to build safe rooms.

“You have a limited amount of funds,” he said. “You set priorities. It’s not a matter of they were being left out.”

But Oklahoma residents refer to Moore as “Tornado Alley”, since the area has been struck by devastating twisters more than any other region in the US. In May 1999, a tornado took a similar path, ravaging Moore, killing 41 people, and costing the US $1 billion in damages.

Some residents believe that safe rooms should be a priority in Oklahoma – particularly in Moore, since it has a history of falling victim to tornadoes.

“If they can afford a $5 million football stadium, they can afford a safe room,” 67-year-old John Lemmon, a Moore resident who lives near Plaza Towers Elementary School, told Bloomberg. “They should have done it right after they had the last big one.”

While both elementary schools were reduced to rubble, students at Plaza Towers Elementary School were worse off. This traditional school building was constructed with a long line of classrooms that were all under a single roof. When the tornado caused the building to crumble, students were trapped in the wreckage of the structure, and at least seven of them died. 

Briarwood Elementary School was divided into four sections, with several classrooms in each pod. Between these pods were openings that led students outside, which allowed students to escape the collapsing walls and ceilings.

No children died at Briarwood as they escaped the falling debris with backpacks over their heads. But both schools could have ensured the safety of their students if they had metal safe rooms to retreat into during natural disasters.

Now that children have died in the May 20 twister that ravaged Moore, Okla., the Federal Emergency Management Agency may reconsider providing the funding for safe rooms. The city of Moore has long been trying to acquire funds to buy them, and the city in February wrote on its website that FEMA requirements have held them back.

“If you don’t have disasters, you don’t have additional money for mitigation for safe rooms, but without disasters there’s not a set funding source just for safe rooms,” FEMA director Craig Fugate told ABC, indicating that changes may only occur when it’s too late to reverse the damage.

Tax lost in tax havens is enough to end global extreme poverty twice over according to new figures published by Oxfam, Wednesday. 

Although a deal was done earlier this month to get some of these tax havens to be more transparent and share tax information, there is still no tax deal on the table that will benefit poor countries who are struggling to reclaim billions of dollars.

In the agreement British tax havens in the Caribbean have said they will provide information on offshore bank accounts.

Tax havens take desperately needed cash from poor countries as well as from citizens at home who are being hit by austerity measures, the international agency said.

Some of the major world, EU and British tax havens are the Bahamas, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Mann, which is located under 50miles away from the UK mainland.

“These figures put the UK at the center of a global tax system that is a colossal betrayal of people here and in the poorest countries who are struggling to get by, and put the government on the side of the privileged few,” said Emma Seery, Oxfam’s head of Development Finance and Public Services, in a statement.

The $156 billion in lost tax revenue is estimated by Oxfam to be just a fraction of the total tax lost, as it only reflects the amount of tax individuals are neglecting to pay and doesn’t include tax dodged by companies that costs poor countries a further $160 billion a year.

Oxfam is part of the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign, which is calling on the G8 to make all tax havens join a multinational agreement to share tax information.

The campaign includes more than 200 UK anti-poverty organizations and calls on the British government use its presidency of the G8 to launch a Convention on Tax Transparency, where countries would commit to preventing individuals and companies from making their wealth untraceable.

“The crucial thing at G8 is that any tax deal is multilateral, which means the developing world would be able to recoup the money owed to them,” Emma Seery told RT.

The UK Prime Minister David Cameron is attending an EU summit Wednesday where European heads of state and government will be addressing the unfair global tax system. Two thirds of the world’s offshore wealth, some $12.29 trillion is sitting in European linked tax havens, including the British ones.

“Britain’s credibility is on the line; talking tough on tax, whilst continuing to usher a third of the world’s wealth into UK tax havens, risks making a mockery of David Cameron’s leadership at the G8 summit in June,” Seery said.

Oxfam says the EU is set to fail on imposing countermeasure sanctions against tax havens and those using them and that they won't come out of Brussels with a deal.

In fact the EU meeting will be about harmonizing tax across the trading bloc. Attempts for a better exchange of information on what tax multinationals are paying, which were meant to be global rather than European in scope, have been taken over by various attempts to create a consolidated EU corporate tax base.

Sociologists asked Russians about their attitude towards 20th-century leaders. Some 56 percent of respondents have positive feelings about Brezhnev, who led the USSR from 1964 till 1982. A target of countless Soviet jokes and anecdotes, he is now disliked by 29 percent of people, Levada revealed.

The first ruler of the Soviet Union, Lenin, is seen in a good light by 55 percent of Russians, while exactly one-half of Russians favor Stalin. However, over one-third of respondents do not approve of the leader, who is often described as “bloody tyrant.” 

Nikita Khruschev – who was Soviet premier during the Cuban missile crisis – is liked by 45 percent of Russians. That figure is slightly less than modern-day supporters of Tsar Nicholas II, who was overthrown in 1917; he got kind reviews from 48 percent of respondents. 

And at the bottom of the list, two-thirds of respondents gave negative evaluations to the first and only Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the first Russian President Boris, Yeltsin.

The late Yeltsin is viewed positively by only 22 percent of Russians, while his predecessor Gorbachev is seen as Russia’s worst leader ever, according to the poll. The architect of perestroika is now disliked by 66 percent of Russians, and only one-fifth of the population has warm feelings about the Soviet president.

Experts link Brezhnev’s popularity among the population to financial well-being during his epoch, which was the “peak of Soviet socialism.” Stalin is associated with victory in World War II, which explains why he is favored by modern Russians.

“No one would want to live in Stalin’s era, but he personifies what now is in shortage: Justice and equality in fear,” Professor Valery Solovei told Kommersant daily. Gorbachev and Yeltsin’s time brought “only defeats” and no material prosperity, political analyst Sergey Chernyakhovsky explained.

“Gorbachev’s rule ended up with the dissolution of the USSR, which is still considered by Russians as the 20th-century catastrophe,” said Aleksey Grazhdankin, deputy head of the Levada Center. Attitudes towards Yeltsin worsened following his 1992 reforms, which lead to inflation and the closure of many businesses, he added.

Harsh politicians are always perceived better than liberal ones, Grazhdankin said: “Freedom brings uncertainty, while people prefer certainty and clear perspectives… Rights and freedoms are too abstract, and the majority of people don’t need them. First of all, people appreciate the right to social guarantees and labor.”

The data comes from national statistics institute ISTAT, which published an annual report demonstrating, among other issues, that Italy is witnessing youth unemployment of nearly 40 percent – the highest in Europe.

A reported 23.9 percent of young Italians are neither in the job market nor receiving education, the report stressed. In southern Italy, one in three young people aged 15-29 fell into this category.

Just over half (57.2 percent) of youths who graduated were currently employed, with the Europe-wide average standing at 77.2 per cent.

Fourteen percent of Italy’s population – 8.6 million people – is living on food assistance, a number that has doubled over the past two years, according to the report.

Nine poverty indicators were taken into account while carrying out the study; if a family meets more than four, it is considered to be seriously deprived. Some 15 million people – 25 percent of Italy’s population – are living in families that meet three or more of the poverty indicators, the research found.

For instance, one poverty indicator is being unable to heat one’s home, something one in five Italians cannot afford. Also, 16.6 percent of the Italians cannot afford a protein-based meal such as meat every two days, from just 6.7 percent in 2010.

Over half of the Italian population is unable to afford a one-week vacation, including a staggering 69 percent of southern Italians, according to ISTAT.

The recession, which has now lasted almost two years, has taken a heavy toll on Italians, who are increasingly digging into their savings, ISTAT stressed. The savings rate, traditionally high in Italy, is currently far below that of France and Germany, Reuters reported.

Italians' purchasing power also fell by 4.8 percent last year, an "exceptionally steep" decline caused largely by aggressive tax hikes aimed at battling the economic crisis gripping the country. 

The study results come just a few days after thousands gathered in Rome to protest austerity measures and high unemployment. Demonstrators urged Prime Minister Enrico Letta to create jobs to pull the country out of recession. Protesters held banners reading, “We can’t wait anymore” and “We need money to live.”

According to a Friday poll conducted by the SWG institute, the government’s approval rating has dropped to 34 percent, down from 43 percent at the start of May.

The tweeting inmate is Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and a legal resident of the UK. Unable to go online himself, he is delivering his message to Twitter through his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, who is also founder of legal group Reprieve.

The May 20 tweet urging people to call the US Embassy in the UK and demand the closure of Gitmo has already been retweeted more than 300 times.

Unclassified (please retweet): Shaker Aamer would like everyone to call US Embassy 020 7499-9000 to demand action on Guantanamo Bay

— Clive Stafford Smith (@CliveSSmith) May 20, 2013

Smith said that although he is doing the tweeting, it was Aamer’s idea, despite the fact that he was imprisoned four years before Twitter even existed. "

He really does know about Twitter and all the social media, as I have sent him copies of what people have said and done for him to keep his spirits up ," Wired quoted Smith as saying.

Twitter users who called the embassy shared their experience online:

@clivessmith Think they are getting wise to what's happening. The embassy just cut me off. Such democratic souls.

— Keith Brindle (@BrindleKeith) May 20, 2013

@clivessmith I just did that I and got a lots of bullshit back, as to how Mr president has been trying to shut gitmo down, demcratically!!

— Shaheen Malik (@Sheenamal01) May 20, 2013

Aamer is one of 86 Guantanamo detainees cleared for release. He is also one of the inmates on hunger strike for the facility’s closure. The number of those on strike is 103 according to prison officials, and more than 130 according to the prisoners’ lawyers.

One-third of the striking inmates are being force-fed, including Aamer. The practice has been deemed torture and a breach of international law by the UN human rights office.

“There’s only one way to end this strike fairly, and that’s to take prisoners who’ve been cleared for release and set them free. And Shaker Aamer, the last British resident, he could come back to London tomorrow if only President Obama would show him redemption and use the National Defense Authorization Act to let people go free. That’s the only way to solve this problem,” Smith told RT.

Aamer has been held without charge since 2002, despite having been cleared for release six years ago along with the other 85 detainees. The Reprieve website said he “has been repeatedly abused and subjected to extended isolation in Guantánamo Bay.” Aamer joined the hunger strike on February 15. His lawyer is concerned with his deteriorating health, saying his client has long passed the point where he risks “irreversible cognitive impairment.”

The order comes after judges dropped one count against Manning, but are still pushing for serious charges: Disclosing classified data to WikiLeaks and aiding Al-Qaeda. Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges set against him, standing accused of leaking over 700,000 documents to Wikileaks.

Twenty-four witnesses, including several US ambassadors, will testify behind closed doors during the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, which begins on June 3.

The decision was made by US Military judge Col. Denise Lind, who heads the case. She indicated that otherwise, some sensitive information could be revealed. A censored transcript of the hearing will be published at a later date, the judge explained.

There has already been too much secrecy in the Manning case, Jesselyn Radack, national security and human rights director of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project told AP two weeks ago.

"The more they do behind closed doors and the more they do through secret codes or anything else that shields the public from information, like not providing transcripts, those things are all antithetical to the democratic idea of having a free and open trial," Radack stressed.

Last year, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a petition to order the court to grant the public and press wider access to the trial, a request an appeals court later denied.

In April, prosecutors urged journalists to “police” each other and inform judges if they notice other reporters taking notes or recordings the proceedings. The move followed the leak of a snippet of audio from the courtroom featuring Manning’s testimony about his motives in leaking the documents.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) released the audio, marking the first time the public has heard Manning's voice since his 2010 arrest. Manning justified his actions by calling for the exposure of what he saw as US government wrongdoings in order to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In the recording, he goes on to accuse the US Army of “not valu[ing] human life," and compared other soldiers to "a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass."

Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted to disclosing classified government documents and diplomatic cables to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, and now faces charges of aiding the enemy for those leaks. Part of the government’s case against Manning asserts that late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden asked one of his deputies to download documents leaked by Manning.

Among the witnesses set to testify was one of the Navy SEALs that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in May 2011. Prosecutors said the “DoD operator,” whose identity was not disclosed, would testify that terrorists had received access to some of the WikiLeaks material through an associate.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they had agreed not to pursue a charge that Manning had violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, reducing his potential 162-year prison sentence by eight years.

Just over a month ago, the judge ordered the prosecution to prove that Manning intended to harm the US by leaking the cables.

On Tuesday, judges accepted Manning’s guilty plea to one of the charges. The offense was related to a State Department cable from the US embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland, which Manning has admitted to leaking.

Manning has offered to plead guilty to 10 of the less serious charges against him, which could see him sentenced to up to 20 years. If convicted of all charges against him, he could be imprisoned for up to 150 years.

Following the announcement, the court ruled to postpone the parole hearing till May 23. “I’m declaring a hunger strike and order my defense lawyers not to take part in this court trial,” Alekhina stated.

She participated in the hearing via videoconference from the penal colony in the Perm region in Russia’s Urals, where she is serving her two-year sentence for hooliganism over the Pussy Riot’s ‘punk-prayer’ in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral. 

“Given that the Bereznikovsky city court [considering Alekhina’s parole release] is just across the road from the colony, the decision to deny her to attend the hearing can only be explained as humiliation,” tweeted Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, an association of human rights organizations.

Prosecutor Lev Tashnikov said there was no need for Alekhina’s presence in the courtroom. The judge also said that there were no grounds for her to attend the hearing, as she could talk with her defense lawyer via the video link, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.

During the Wednesday hearing, Alekhina also demanded that the judge – who refused to let her personally participate in the hearing – and the prosecutor recuse themselves from the trial. Prosecutor Tashkinov has personal enmity towards her, she argued. The court rejected both requests.

Alekhina, 24, appealed for parole in April, seven months after the court sentenced her and two other Pussy Riot members to jail. Her fellow band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova – who is also serving a two-year sentence – was denied parole last month. The third convicted activist, Ekaterina Samutsevich, was released on probation in October last year.

It is yet unclear whether Alekhina will participate in tomorrow’s court hearing.

Driving quick as the wind on a car worth over $160,000 on Moscow streets, which sees its fair share of expensive German cars, will soon cost owners much more following the Russian Parliament’s vote for a new tax on luxury vehicles.

The new legislation would double the tax on cars worth more than 5 million rubles ($160,000), and a triple the tax on those worth over 10 million rubles ($320,000).

For example, the annual payment for a BMW 760Li (544 h/p, 6.6 million rubles or about $213,000) in Moscow is now about $2,600; soon it will be around $5,250. For cars worth over $320,000 – like the Ferrari California V8 (10.4 million rubles or $335,000) – it will rise from current $2,600 to $6,600.

“Not so many people use such cars. And such restrictions lie rather in the moral than in the fiscal realm," Putin said during an annual call-in Q&A in April.

A main plank of President Putin’s election campaign 1.5 years ago was taxing hyper-consumption by Russia’s richest citizens, for land and real estate, yachts, business jets, luxury property and expensive cars.

Though rich Russian citizens are famous for their conspicuous consumption, the outcome of such a taxation scheme was not expected to be a decisive contribution to the state budget – but that was never the point. “It is the right thing to do, there should be such a [luxury] tax. And the question of social equity, the gap in incomes is a sharp and a very important question,” Putin said during the Q&A.

However, the legislation has been drastically softened compared to its original objectives.

The new amendments are not the same as a previously proposed luxury tax, as Russian owners of super-yachts and business jets prefer to register and use this kind of property abroad, so they do not pay Russian taxes on the aircrafts and vessels in Russia. Owners of vast land and real estate in Russia have similarly complicated schemes that make it difficult to prove ownership.

Still, there are several kinds of property subject to obligatory official registration. The rich prefer to sleep in remote villas at nighttime and drive in expensive cars in broad daylight, making luxury cars a prime target for the tax. So, it was therefore decided not to create the luxury tax from a scratch, but rather to increase annual payments for owning personal “objects of luxury.”

The number of expensive cars falling under the new legislation is around 20,000 to 25,000; while not contribute hugely to the budget, the sums of the new tax could amount to billions of rubles. “We’d like to stress that the new legislation rather has social than fiscal character,” Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Shatalov stated.

Proposals for additional annual real estate and land taxes have been postponed. The Ministry for Economic Development has said that much private property has previously been estimated too low, and in some regions a reevaluation of such property is needed to estimate their real market value.

The opposition supported the new legislation, though calling it a “profanation” of the original proposed luxury tax.

"This increase [in annual payments] is a profanation of the original idea of a tax on excessive consumption,” Fair Russia deputy Oksana Dmitrieva stressed. The MP believes that the tax legislation amendments will only affect a limited number of the richest taxpayers, for whom such payments are insignificant.

Authorities alleged that the grisly discovery is directly connected to Zakaria Kandahari, a notorious wartime collaborator who Afghan officials believe has US citizenship.

Kandahari reportedly led a death squad that terrorized locals in Wardak Province, using the A-Team base in Nerkh District, a one-hour drive from Kabul, as a permanent residence.

The mutilated body was discovered by ditch diggers about 200 yards from the perimeter of Nerkh base in Wardak Province, the New York Times reported. The base was previously occupied by the A-Team US Special Forces unit, which withdrew in March. Rhe Nerkh base compound is currently occupied by Afghan Special Forces.

According to district governor Mohammad Hanif Hanafi, the corpse was found packed in a military-style black body bag. The victim was identified as Sayid Mohammad, a local resident who was allegedly seen being taken to an US base in November 2012.

This is not the first time that the partial remains and clothing of a missing person have been found near Nerkh base, Afghan officials said. A dismembered body was previously found in a garbage container just outside the US base.

An anonymous Afghan investigator for the Defense Ministry told the NYT that he has a list of names of 17 people who went missing in Nerkh District in Wardak Province between November and December 2012, when Kandahari’s squad conducted operations such as detaining suspects and bringing them to the US Special Forces base.

The seized persons were reportedly never seen alive again. Nine of their bodies, including that of Sayid Mohammad, were found; the other eight remain missing.

The torture squad

The recently unearthed victim was the same man previously seen in a classified video recording made last year. US officials familiar with the matter said it depicts Mohammad being repeatedly kicked by the chief interpreter at the Nerkh base – Kandahari.

Kandahari is on Afghanistan’s most-wanted list for prisoner abuse, torture and murder. Kabul claimed the US sheltered Kandahari; the US Army has denied the accusations.

The US Army has not denied that Kandahari was previously on their payroll, but maintains that the torture video was made after he parted with the A-Team to operate a rogue Afghan unit, and that he is not a US citizen. The US Military described Kandahari as a “freelance interpreter” who joined the American Special Forces voluntarily and lived at their base out of gratitude.

Over the past year, Kandahari and his henchmen have been seen throughout Wardak Province wearing NATO uniforms while riding on quad bikes in search of alleged insurgents.

Precious hangman

Last March, hundreds of Afghans – watched by a considerable number of armed riot police – marched to parliament in Kabul, demanding the withdrawal of US Special Forces from Wardak Province. The demonstrators were infuriated by reports of civilians being tortured and killed; Kandahari’s name first went public amid these demonstrations.

Following the protests, Afghan authorities demanded the US deliver the alleged criminal to Kabul. The US refused to turn over Kandahari to Afghan authorities.

US Military authorities claimed that Kandahari had escaped, and that they knew nothing about his whereabouts. In response, an infuriated President Hamid Karzai demanded that the US Special Operations forces leave Wardak. A compromise was later reached, and only the infamous A-Team base was removed.

An unidentified Afghan investigator told the New York Times that “there is no question” that Kandahari was directly involved in torture and murder, but asks, “Who recruited him, gave him his salary, his weapons? Who kept him under their protection?”

The official also expressed doubts that Kandahari could have left the base on his own, since “He was such a criminal that he could not stay one hour outside the base by himself.”

US Military officials reported that they conducted thorough investigations into the disappearances and murders “of at least 15 people” in Wardak Province, none of which revealed evidence that American soldiers were involved in such crimes. However, the results of these investigations have not been made public.

The treatment of Afghans by US troops and their collaborators has been a perpetual stumbling block for US-Afghan relations; the ‘steal and kill’ case of Kandahari could well be the final straw in the 11-plus years of the Afghan War.

This would mean the government increasing national debt just like it was in Greece.

The slowing economic growth in Russia to 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2013 has been connected to various factors including falling investment, private consumption and weak exterior demand, Vedomosti daily reports.

However according to Ivan Chakarov, an analyst with Renaissance Capital quoted by the newspaper, the slowing pace of economic growth in Russia is mainly due to the so-called middle-income trap. 

It is common for developing economies, when a country, which attains a certain income, gets stuck at that level as it begins losing its main advantage – low costs.

The analyst claims the middle-income trap strikes a country when annual per capita GDP reaches $16,000. In Russia this figure is slightly above that at $16,016. The analysts added that Russia is the first BRICS state to enter the middle-income trap. Similar economic situations were seen in the Western Europe’s economy in the 1970s, in South Korea in 1995 and in Singapore and Hong Kong at the beginning of the 1980s.

In his comments Chakarov refers to the study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, which has come to a conclusion that countries falling into the trap lose two thirds of their growth speed. This means that Russian economic growth will slow to 1.6 percent of GDP against 4.3 percent in 2010-2011. 

The analyst says that in the upcoming decade the Russian economy won’t be able to expand faster than 2 percent per year. In his opinion this may force the Russian government to increase the national debt and make Russia “the next Greece”.

Greece has reached the annual per capita GDP mark of $16,000 in the 1980s. Over the next decade unemployment jumped two and a half times, while inflation increased one and a half times. While in the beginning of 1980s the national debt of Greece totaled 20 percent of GDP, by 2012 it has made 170 percent of GDP.

Renaissance Capital forecast the middle-income trap for Russia in November last year. Back then the company estimated the state’s chances to avoid this scenario at 60 percent, noting however that the government would have to take a series of economic reforms. 

Russia has entered the phase of economic slowdown since the beginning of last year. By the end of 2012 GDP added 3.4 percent against 4.3 percent in 2011. In the first quarter of 2013 Russian economy grew by just 1.6 percent. The slowing pace of economic growth forced the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and international organizations including the World Bank to revise their forecasts for Russia economic development in the coming years. 

In April the Russian Ministry of Economic Development said that if no urgent measures are taken by the government Russia might fall into recession by the fall. 

Russian national debt currently accounts for 10 percent of GDP.

The shooting transpired just after midnight in an apartment complex after a special agent was reportedly attacked after encountering the suspect. The FBI has not released the name of the suspect, though friends identified the man who was shot and killed as Ibragim Todashev, 27.

Kushen Taramov, a friend of the suspect, said he and Todashev were interviewed by FBI agents for nearly three hours on Tuesday in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings.

“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back,” WESH Orlando cites Taramov as saying.

Taramov said after he concluded the interview, he came back to the apartments to discover that there had been a shooting.

The FBI has not confirmed any link between Todashev and the Boston bombings, but Taramov told WKMG Local that the suspect had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died from injuries sustained in a shootout with police days after the Boston marathon bombing.

Kushen Taramov, a friend of the suspect, said he and Todashev were interviewed by FBI agents for nearly three hours on Tuesday in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings.

“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back,” WESH Orlando cites Taramov as saying.

Taramov said after he concluded the interview, he came back to the apartments to discover that there had been a shooting.

The FBI has not confirmed any link between Todashev and the Boston bombings, but Taramov told WKMG Local that the suspect had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died from injuries sustained in a shootout with police days after the Boston marathon bombing.

“Back when (Todashev) used to live in Boston, they used to hang out -- not hang out -- he knew him. They met a few times because (Todashev) was a MMA fighter and (Tsarnaev) was a boxer.  They just knew each other.  That’s it.” Taramov said.

Taramov added that Todashev had spoken with Tsarnaev via phone more than a month ago, though he insisted that his friend had no connection with the Boston bombings.

Todashev had reportedly purchased a plane ticket before the bombings occurred last month but had been strongly advised by agents not to return home.

“He had a ticket to New York.  From there, he was going to go home [to Chechnya],” Taramov said.  “(The FBI was) pushing him to stay, saying, ‘We want to interview one last time.'"

Taramov said Todashev canceled the ticket at the FBI’s insistence, adding: “we had a feeling, worst case scenario something like that was going to happen. You know what I mean.”

"He felt inside he was going to get shot," Taramov added. "I told him, 'Everything is going to be fine, don't worry about it.' He said, 'I have a really bad feeling.'"

Taramov said he was shocked to first learn that Chechens had been named as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, claiming the FBI first started surveiling Todashev after Tsarnaev was identified as a suspect.

According to records from the Orange County Sheriff Office, Taramov had been charged earlier this month with aggravated battery, which entails the inflection of great bodily harm.

An FBI spokesman confirmed that a shooting had occurred and the suspect was deceased but could not provide any more information, Central Florida News 13 reports. The agent added that they expected to have more details regarding the incident by Wednesday morning.

The brother of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was arrested in connection with the April 15 Boston bombing, which left three people dead and wounded up to 275. He is currently convalescing in a federal prison hospital in Massachusetts and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty.