File pix by Muhd Amin Naharul/TMR Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is betting that a hot-spring resort near his ancestral home will be the right venue for a breakthrough with Russian President Vladimir Putin over a seven-decade territorial dispute. Discussions over the islands will top the agenda at the meeting in southwest Japan on Thursday afternoon, according to a Japanese government official who asked not to be named due to department protocol. Public broadcaster NHK said Putin will arrive two hours later than planned for the summit. Abe and Putin will then head to Tokyo on Friday for talks on economic …read more Source: The Malaysian...
President-elect Donald Trump plans on Tuesday to nominate Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson for U.S. secretary of state, setting off a confirmation fight that puts the oilman’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and Trump’s own — in the spotlight. The nomination is sure to spark a high-profile battle in the U.S. Senate, where three Republicans and several Democrats have already expressed public misgivings about making Tillerson the nation’s top diplomat, largely over concerns about his two decades of work with Putin. Tillerson has accepted Trump’s offer, according to a person familiar with the transition. He will reach Exxon’s mandatory …read more Source: The Malaysian...
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the one-time oil tycoon who spent a decade in President Vladimir Putin’s prisons, staked a claim to the leadership of Russia’s opposition, which staged its biggest demonstration in years. Khodorkovsky, 51, living in exile in Switzerland since his release in December, called on supporters to help influence the...
