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North Face Founder Douglas Tompkins Dies In Kayak Accident In Chile

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La Tercera, Dec. 9, 2015

"Environmentalist entrepreneur Douglas Tompkins dies," writes Santiago-based daily La Tercera on its front page Wednesday, after U.S. conservationist and North Face Inc. founder Douglas Tompkins died in a kayaking accident, in his adopted country of Chile.

Tompkins, 72, was kayaking with five others on General Carrera Lake in far southern Chile when strong waves caused their kayaks to capsize. He was then flown via helicopter to a hospital in nearby Coyhaique, where he died from severe hypothermia.

In addition to outdoor gear maker The North Face, Tompkins also co-founded the clothing brand Esprit in the 1960s. He sold both companies and, with his wife Kris McDivitt Tompkins, acquired huge tracts of land — more than 2 million acres in total — in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia for preservation purposes. His 715,000-acre Pumalín Park in Chile is one of the world's largest private nature reserves.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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