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Russia

Khodorkovsky Freed, North Korea Threats, Space Robot

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was freed after spending more than 10 years in jail
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was freed after spending more than 10 years in jail
Worldcrunch

KHODORKOVSKY FREE
Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was freed from prison this morning, after Thursday’s surprise announcement by Vladimir Putin that he would sign a decree pardoning him of his convictions for fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement, Ria Novosti reports.
The international cause célèbre spent a total of 3,709 days in prison.

ROOF COLLAPSE AT LONDON’S APOLLO THEATER
At least 76 people were injured as part of the ceiling of London’s Apollo Theater collapsed in the middle of a performance Thursday evening, with more than 700 people inside, the BBC reports. An investigation was launched into the causes of the incident, which happened after a heavy rainstorm.

THREE PEACEKEEPERS KILLED IN SOUTH SUDAN
Three United Nations peacekeepers from India were killed in South Sudan, after rebels attacked their base,The Times Of India reports. Barack Obama announced Thursday the United States had sent 45 military personnel to protect American citizens in the country, saying that “South Sudan stands at the precipice.” Read more from AP.

NORTH KOREA WARNS SOUTH OF STRIKES
The President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, received threats from North Korea of “retaliatory strikes without warning” if the country didn’t stop anti-Pyongyang rallies in Seoul,The New York Times quotes officials as saying. Earlier this week, demonstrators in the South Korean capital burned posters of Kim Jong-un and described him as a “devil.”

PHILIPPINES MAYOR AMONG 4 DEAD IN MANILA AIRPORT ATTACK
The mayor of a southern Philippine town was shot dead along with his wife and two other people, including an 18-month-old baby, in an attack in the airport of Manila, The Inquirerreports. According to the chief of police, the gunmen were riding motorcycles and wearing police uniforms under black jackets. The motive for the killing is still unknown.

A WARM CHRISTMAS

While snow hits northern hemisphere, Argentinian authorities hold heatwave alert as temperatures reach 32 °C in Buenos Aires.

S&P DOWNGRADES EU
Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s stripped the European Union of its AAA rating, citing disagreements among the 28 countries and an increasingly fragile financial profile, theFinancial Times reports.

SPACE SANTA
What does a space robot wish for Christmas? Read it here.

A LOOK BACK ON THE YEAR
Revisit this year’s main events around the world, from the horsemeat and NSA scandals to a papal transition, Typhoon Haiyan and Canada’s singing astronaut: It’s our compilation of top stories from 26 countries.

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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