Putin returns to Kremlin under protest shadow

Putin returns to Kremlin under protest shadow

louis vuitton uk shop Police turned huge areas of central Moscow into no-go areas on Monday in a bid to head off protests as Vladimir Putin was sworn in a for a third term as president.Mr Putin was sworn in inside the Kremlin's tsarist-era throne room as 2,000 dignitaries and guests, including former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, applauded his every step down the red carpet in the vast hall.Outside, riot police in full "cosmonaut" gear - so called because of their astronaut-like helmets - stalked the city at potential protest meeting points.More than 300 protesters were arrested, including men and women in cafes who wore white ribbons symbolising their opposition to Mr Putin.One of Mr Putin's first acts at the start of his six-year term was to officially nominate the man he replaced, Dmitry Medvedev, to be the country's next prime minister.Russia's parliament, the Duma, is expected to approve the choice. Mr Putin also issued a wide-ranging foreign policy decree, focusing on relations with the United States, and criticising what he said was the use of human rights concerns to interfere in Russia's internal affairs.

louis vuitton london store In a brief speech delivered just after being sworn in Mr Putin declared that Russia was now "reborn" and vowed to take it to a "new stage" of development."The coming years will be decisive for Russia's fate for decades to come," he said.Committing to a strong foreign policy, Mr Putin said Moscow would be a "reliable, open, honest and predictable partner" but also "the centre of gravity for the entire Eurasia."And he said he hoped to strengthen democratic freedoms.Despite the efforts of police to keep the public well clear of the Kremlin, several protests against the inauguration took place in the city.Activists accuse Mr Putin of systematically sacrificing rights in the pursuit of stability and lacking legitimacy after his knockout 63.6 per cent victory in a March election which was marred by allegations of fraud and vote-rigging.The inauguration was sharply choreographed, with Mr Putin driven from the government headquarters through eerily deserted Moscow streets blocked off by police and then into the Kremlin itself.In a hugely popular Live Journal entry, blogger Makhk posted pictures of the vast, deserted Moscow streets with the sarcastic title: "The joyful crowds of Muscovites greet the new cleanly elected president!"

replica louis Vuitton Bags uk Minutes after the Kremlin ceremony, Mr Medvedev passed Mr Putin the black "nuclear suitcase" with the codes that control the country's vast nuclear arsenal, official images showed.The new president also took part in an ice hockey match and scored a goal, Russian news agencies reported, adding that Mr Berlusconi was on hand for the event.Mr Putin also embraced his rarely seen wife Lyudmila and attended a church service with her led by Orthodox Patriarch Kirill.Mr Medvedev, expected to remain largely in the shadows after his four-year presidency failed to deliver promises of political and economic modernisation, thanked his allies for their support moments ahead of Mr Putin's swearing-in."I thank you for the huge confidence you had in me, your help, your empathy," he said in an emotional speech. "Thank you for being together with me."WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that it would not negotiate with Al-Qaeda over the fate of an elderly U.S. aid worker seized in Pakistan, after he made an emotional video plea to President Barack Obama.“We cannot and will not negotiate with Al-Qaeda,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that officials were greatly concerned for the safety of the aid worker Warren Weinstein, and were working to find him.

replica louis vuitton Loafers uk On Sunday, Weinstein appeared in an Al-Qaeda video for the first time since he was kidnapped in Pakistan just days before he meant to return home in August.The two-minute, 40-second video was posted on jihadist forums by Al-Qaeda’s media arm as-Sahab, according to the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE.“We can’t even right now say for certain that… it’s a credible video of him,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, adding that experts were trying to determine when the video was taken and whether it was authentic.Dressed in a traditional Pakistani tunic and speaking impassively in English, Weinstein urged U.S. President Barack Obama to respond to his kidnappers’ demands.“If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die,” he told Obama in the video.Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has demanded that Washington end air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as release the 1993 World Trade Center bombers along with relatives of Osama bin Laden.Weinstein, 70, suffers from asthma, heart problems and high blood pressure.“We obviously remain very, very concerned about the safety and well-being of Mr. Weinstein,” Toner added. “And we’re obviously also in close contact with Mr Weinstein’s family, offering appropriate consular assistance, as they request it.”

replica louis vuitton Wallets uk Toner said the United States and Pakistan are cooperating in the investigation into Weinstein’s case, despite the trouble in relations since NATO forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year.“We’re actually assisting in the investigation,” Toner said.The spokesman said the United States believes that Weinstein is “most likely” being held in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, but cannot confirm it. Senior al Qaeda operative killed by airstrike in Yemen.The government of Yemen has been fighting AQAP for years, with mixed results.On Sunday, a senior AQAP operative wanted for his role in the USS Cole bombing was killed by an airstrike in Yemen, officials said.Fahd al Quso, 37, was killed while riding in a vehicle in the Rafdh district in Shabwa province. He was hit by a CIA drone strike, U.S. officials told CNN.The weekend attack plus the foiled airline plot delivered a "one-two punch" against AQAP, said the senior administration official."This was a key victory for us. It also reminds us, though, that this war is not going to end in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has metastasized and morphed. And they are constantly attempting to find new ways to get at us," said King.

replica louis vuitton travel bags uk "AQAP is the responsible group here," said a different senior U.S. official."While similar, a preliminary review of this device shows that it has some significant differences from the device used in the Christmas Day attack. It is clear that AQAP is revamping its bomb techniques to try to avoid the causes of the failure of the 2009 device," the official said, referring to the Detroit incident.U.S. officials believe AQAP has more than 1,000 members in Yemen and connections to al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.The Yemen affiliate has been behind two of the most audacious attempts to target the United States in recent years: the attempted 2009 bombing and the printer bombs loaded onto cargo planes in 2010 and destined for an address in Chicago.In both cases, U.S. authorities believe the bombs were built by Ibrahim al-Asiri. Both devices contained a main charge of PETN, a white powdery explosive that conventional "single beam" X-ray machines are rarely able to detect.In 2009, al-Asiri fitted out his own brother, Abdullah al-Asiri, with a PETN-based underwear bomb to kill Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a top Saudi security official. The device killed his brother instantly but failed to kill its target.