DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Togolese asylum-seeker who fought deportation lands in Italy The man has arrived in Milan one day after authorities denied his appeal to stay in Germany. The case sparked major national attention when other migrants prevented authoritiesʼ first attempt to deport him. A 23-year-old refugee from Togo, who made headlines with the attempts to block his deportation order has landed in Italy, authorities confirmed on Tuesday. The news came just one day after Germanyʼs highest courtrejected his final plea not to be removedfrom the country. "The rule of law cannot be stopped," said Thomas Strobl, interior minister of the state of BadenWürttemberg, where the young man lived in a new arrivals home in the village of Ellwangen.
110/2018 • 17 MAY, 2018
George Soros — selfless philanthropist or liberal demagogue? George Sorosʼ Open Society Foundations to move from Hungary to Germany
Chinese pilot sucked halfway out of airplane
For some, Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is the soul of generosity. For others, heʼs the devil in disguise. In any case, the octogenarian emigre to the US is one of the worldʼs most controversial figures.
"I saw that the co-pilot was already halfway out of the window," said the pilot who landed the airplane after a cockpit window shattered in mid-flight. The co-pilot suffered scratches and a sprained wrist. A Chinese pilot was hailed a hero on social media on Tuesday for successfully landing a commercial aircraft after his co-pilot was sucked "halfway" out of the cockpit in midflight. The incident occurred while the Sichuan Airlines Airbus A-319 was flying at 800-900 kilometers per hour (500-560 miles) at cruising altitude on its way from the central province of Chongqing to the city of Lhasa in Tibet. "The windshield burst suddenly and a loud noise was heard, and when I looked to the side, I saw that the co-pilot was already halfway out of the window," Liu Chuanjian told Chinese newspaper Chengdu Business Daily. "Luckily his seatbelt was tied."
George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930 as Gyorgy Schwartz to a secular upper-middle class family who changed their name to the less Jewish-sounding Soros in response to rising Hungarian anti-Semitism. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, the family procured fake documents indicating that they were Christians, saving themselves from possible murder in the Holocaust. Sorosʼ father is also credited with saving the lives of a number of other Hungarian Jews. Soros enrolled in the London School of Economics in 1947, studying under renowned Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, who was a tenacious advocate of liberal democracy and a critic of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Popper also promoted the principle of reflexivity, which holds that the act of observing alters the object of observation and which Soros applied to economics. Soros reversed the traditional logic that prices reflect economic
fundamentals, arguing instead that prices themselves drove economic development. In his book Soros on Soros from 2005, he wrote: "The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. " Soros became an investor during the 1960s, making millions with hedge funds. During the 1990s, he earned billions short selling British pounds, for which he was nicknamed "the man who broke the Bank of England." As his wealth grew so did his activities as a philanthropist — and the controversy they generated. In 2017 his net worth was estimated at around $25 billion (€21 billion), putting him among the 30 richest people in the world. But he gave away some 80 percent of that money ($18 billion) to charity, chiefly his own Open Society Foundations (OSF).
Former Taiwan president gets jail time for information leak Taiwanʼs High Court has overturned a previous not-guilty verdict and charged former Taiwanese President Ma Yingjeou. Ma plans to appeal his sentence but can also avoid prison by paying a fine of €3,370. Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday for leaking classified information. Taiwanʼs High Court found that "Ma Yingjeou violated the Communication and Surveillance Act," when he leaked information relating to national security and opposition lawmaker Ker Chienming, which should have been confidential. Ma told local media he planned to appeal the High Court sentence, but he could also skip prison if he pays a fine of T$120,000 ($4,020, €3,370), the court said. A former stalwart of major opposition party Kuomintang of China, Ma was Taiwanʼs president from 2008 to 2016 and encouraged closer ties with China. He also served as the justice minister and mayor of Taipei.
Russia-Crimea bridge to be opened by Vladimir Putin The controversial Crimean Bridge has been finished six months early and will link Russiaʼs southern Krasnodar region with the Crimean city of Kerch. The massive bridge will help reduce Crimeaʼs reliance on sea transport. Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to open a 19-kilometer bridge connecting southern Russia to the Crimean peninsula on Tuesday. The controversial Crimean Bridge links the southern Krasnodar region with the Crimean city of Kerch and spans across a stretch of water between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea.
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