Asian Entertainment Industry

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the family of Yevgeny Prigozhin on Thursday, breaking his silence after the mercenary leader’s plane crashed with no survivors two months after he led a mutiny against army chiefs.

Putin’s comments, which suggested he harboured decidedly mixed feelings about Wagner’s mercenary boss, were the most definitive yet on Prigozhin’s fate. Before he spoke, the only official statement had come from the aviation authority which said Prigozhin had been on board the downed plane.

Russian investigators have opened a probe into what happened, but have not yet said what they suspect caused the plane to suddenly fall from the sky northwest of Moscow on Wednesday evening.

Nor have they officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage.

U.S. officials told Reuters that Washington is looking at a number of theories over what brought down the plane, including a surface-to-air missile.

The U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday said there was currently no information to suggest that a surface-to-air missile took down the plane.

The presumed death of Prigozhin leaves Russian President Vladimir Putin stronger in the short term, removing a powerful figure who launched a June 23-24 mutiny against the army’s leadership and threatened to make him look weak.

But it would also deprive Putin of a forceful and astute player who had proved his utility to the Kremlin by sending his fighters into some of the bloodiest battles of the Ukraine war and by advancing Russian interests across Africa which are now likely to be re-organised.

It remains to be seen too how Wagner fighters, some of whom have already spoken of betrayal and foul play, react.

Pledging a thorough investigation which he said would take time, Putin said that “preliminary data” indicated that Prigozhin and other Wagner employees had been on the downed plane. The passenger list suggests that Wagner’s core leadership team were flying with him too and had also perished.

Putin paid generous tribute to the renegade mercenary calling him a talented businessman who knew how to look after his own interests and who could, when asked, do his bit for the common cause.

But he also described Prigozhin as a flawed character who had made some bad mistakes.

“I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims. It’s always a tragedy,” Putin said in televised remarks made during a meeting in the Kremlin with the Moscow-installed chief of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

“I had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the start of the 90s. He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life.”

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin’s most loyal allies, said that Prigozhin was his friend and he had asked the mercenary chief “to set aside his personal ambitions”.

“But lately he either did not see or did not want to see a full picture of what was going on in the country,” Kadyrov said.

‘A METALLIC BANG’

The Embraer Legacy 600 (EMBR3.SA) executive jet, which had been flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region north of Moscow.

A Reuters reporter at the crash site on Thursday morning saw men carrying away black body bags on stretchers. Part of the plane’s tail and other fragments lay on the ground near a wooded area where forensic investigators had erected a tent.

The Baza news outlet, which has good sources among law enforcement agencies, reported that investigators were focusing on a theory that one or two bombs may have been planted on board.

Residents of Kuzhenkino, the village near the crash site, said they had heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground. The plane showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.

One villager, who gave his name as Anatoly, said: “It wasn’t thunder, it was a metallic bang – let’s put it that way.”

Mourners left flowers and lit candles near Wagner’s offices in St. Petersburg and at other locations across Russia.

A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, Grey Zone, pronounced Prigozhin dead on Wednesday evening, hailing him as a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of “traitors to Russia”.

Russian militants who fight on Ukraine’s side and have carried out several attacks on Russian border regions urged the Wagner Group to avenge Prigozhin’s death and join their ranks. It was not immediately clear how members of the Wagner Group reacted to their call.

Amid the absence of verified facts, some of his supporters have pointed the finger of blame at the state, others at Ukraine, which marked its Independence Day on Thursday

Putin said in June that Prigozhin’s the mutiny against the army, which saw Wagner fighters shoot down Russian military helicopters, could have tipped Russia into civil war.

The mercenary leader had also spent months criticising the conduct of Russia’s war in Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – and had tried to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff.

The mutiny was ended by an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia.

Many Russians had wondered how he was able to get away with such brazen criticism without consequence.

Prigozhin posted a video address on Monday which he suggested was made in Africa. He turned up at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in July.

KUZHENKINO: Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his silence on Thursday (Aug 24) on the plane crash a day earlier that reportedly killed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and other senior members of the Wagner paramilitary group.

In televised comments Putin offered his “sincere condolences to the families of all the victims”, describing the crash as a “tragedy”.

As well as Prigozhin, the other nine people on board also died.

Wednesday evening’s crash took place exactly two months after Prigozhin led a rebellion against Moscow’s top military brass, considered by some observers to have been the biggest threat to Putin’s long rule.

Although Moscow opened a probe into violations of air traffic rules, investigators have been silent since, as speculation of a possible assassination has grown.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted Kyiv had nothing to do with the incident. “I think everyone knows who this concerns,” he said, in what appeared to be a reference to Putin.

“There is a court in The Hague, there is a court of God. But Russia has an alternative (court) – President Putin,” he said when asked again about the air crash later Thursday.

A “COMMON CAUSE”

When Putin broke his silence on Thursday he paid a qualified tribute to the mercenary boss and the paramilitary group he led.

“I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 90s. He was a man of complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in his life, but he achieved the right results,” Putin said.

In an address to Russians during the Wagner rebellion on Jun 23 to Jun 24 in which he warned against “civil war”, Putin had called Prigozhin – once his ally – a “traitor”.

But on Thursday, he said the Wagner members who had died in the crash had made a “significant contribution” to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

They had shared a common cause, Putin said, adding: “We remember that, we know that, and we will not forget that.”

He said the investigation into the crash would take time, but added: “It will be conducted in full and brought to a conclusion.”

“REASONABLE DOUBTS”

Some Western leaders expressed doubts that the crash had been an accident.

“There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” said US President Joe Biden, after having said he did not know what happened.

France saw “reasonable doubts” about the crash, while Germany said it followed a pattern of “unclarified” fatalities in Russia.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it was suspicious that “a disgraced former confidant of Putin suddenly, literally falls from the sky two months after he attempted a mutiny”.

Even influential pro-Kremlin figures, such as state television personality and Putin ally Margarita Simonyan, seemed to suggest that it could have been an assassination.

“Among the versions that are being discussed (about the crash) is that it was staged. But personally, I’m leaning towards the more obvious one,” she said on social media.

Russia’s aviation authority published the passenger list for the Embraer private jet late on Wednesday.

It included Prigozhin and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, a shadowy figure who managed Wagner’s operations and allegedly served in Russian military intelligence.

Russian police patrolled the crash site near the village of Kuzhenkino, some 350km north of Moscow in the Tver region.

One woman living near Kuzhenkino said her neighbour had heard a roar and saw “sparkling from the plane”, accompanied by fire.

“A neighbour ran up to me with shaking hands and when we went to the window I saw only one mushroom (cloud from the explosion), a black cloud,” she said in a video published by state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

Plant in China releases water with higher amounts of tritium, scientist says, calling into question the reason for seafood ban imposed on Japan.

As China bans all seafood from Japan after the discharge of 1m tonnes of radioactive water from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, Beijing has been accused of hypocrisy and of using the incident to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment.

Scientists have pointed out that China’s own nuclear power plants release wastewater with higher levels of tritium than that found in Fukushima’s discharge, and that the levels are all within the boundaries of levels not considered to be harmful to human health.

On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company that manages the plant, began pumping water containing radioactive tritium into the sea, starting a wastewater discharge process that is expected to take at least 30 years. The plan has been approved by the UN’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Japanese government.

China has condemned the discharge, with the customs agency saying that it risks the “radioactive contamination of food safety”. China’s foreign ministry said that it was an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act”.

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said his government had used diplomatic channels to request that China’s ban on Japanese seafood be lifted. “We strongly encourage discussion among experts based on scientific grounds,” Kishida told reporters, according to the Kyodo news agency.

China’s Fuqing power plant in Fujian province releases about three times more tritium into the Pacific Ocean than the planned Fukushima discharge. Beijing appears to be basing its distinction on Japan’s discharge having originated from a nuclear disaster.

“There is a fundamental difference between the nuclear-contaminated water that came into direct contact with the melted reactor cores in the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the water released by nuclear power plants in normal operation,” foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday. “They are different in nature, come from different sources and require different levels of sophistication to handle.”

Authorities in Hong Kong also claimed the situation was “completely different” when asked about its ban on Japanese seafood, saying other radioactive substances could also be present.

The Kori nuclear power plant in Busan in South Korea releases a similar amount to Fuqing. South Korea has also criticised the Fukushima decision, but its government recently said it accepted the IAEA’s safety report approving the plan.

Many scientists agree with the IAEA that the release will have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.

Dr David Krofcheck, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, said: “The release of currently filtered cooling water containing tritium atoms from the Fukushima plant will not cause physically detrimental effects. Tritium is produced naturally as part of our normal environmental background radiation, and it travels via rain or rivers into the world’s oceans.

“The water release is designed to have seven times less tritium per litre than is recommended for drinking water by the World Health Organization. Much more tritium has been released by normally operating nuclear power plants into the North Pacific Ocean since those plants in China, South Korea, and Taiwan, were first located on coastal sites.”

Greenpeace has said that the radiological risks from Fukushima have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90 and iodine-129 – to be released with the water – “have been ignored”.

Tepco and Japan’s government have said the filtering process will remove strontium-90 and iodine-129, while the concentration of carbon-14 in the contaminated water is far lower than its regulatory standard for discharge.

The Japan-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre is among critics who have said not enough is known about the long-term effects of pumping tritium into the sea. “Tepco, the [Japanese] government, and the IAEA have all failed to properly consider and evaluate the environmental contamination caused by the long-term release of radioactive materials and the behaviour of radioactive materials in the environment,” it said in a statement.

Chinese fishmongers are now fretting about empty shelves as they are unable to restock Japanese imports, which were previously considered to be of a higher quality than seafood from other countries.

There has been a run on salt in some Chinese supermarkets, just as there was in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, because of baseless rumours that the iodine in salt can prevent radiation poisoning.

On Thursday the China National Salt Industry Corporation, the state-owned salt monopoly, published a statement addressing the “panic buying” of salt and reassuring consumers that its salt was not tainted by Japanese nuclear pollution.

The spat has also whipped up nationalist sentiments. In one poll posted on Weibo this week, netizens were asked how they felt about the discharge. The three options given were: “It violates international conventions and international marine protection laws”, “It is abnormal behaviour that does not conform to common sense” and “It seriously damages the ecological environment”.

In the early hours of Friday morning, six of the top 10 trending topics were about Japan and Fukushima, with one topic calling for Mount Fuji to erupt. On Weibo Chinese users have begun sharing lists of Japanese cosmetics, urging people to boycott them over radiation fears.

On Thursday, China’s ministry of foreign affairs was asked why it was banning only seafood imports from Japan, given their stated scientific concerns about water contamination should also apply to the seas around Russia and South Korea. Spokesman Wang did not answer, instead repeating accusations that Japan had “turned itself into a saboteur of the ecological system and polluter of the ocean”.

Additional reporting by Helen Davidson and Justin McCurry

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin

The most significant events may be what happens far away from the Fulton county jail, as Trump continues to be the GOP frontrunner

One by one this week, they’ve made their way to 901 Rice Street, the address of the notorious Fulton county jail. Lawyers, government officials, a former state party chair and others have all surrendered to authorities after being charged as part of an alleged criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election.

On Thursday, the head of that enterprise, Donald Trump, himself surrendered, marking another historic moment for a president who has reshaped the rules of American politics. This is the closest that Trump has been to a jail cell to date and serves as a blunt reminder that no American or former president is above the law.

A Republican debate that offered no alternative to Trump
Read more
Like nearly everything Trump does, his surrender was orchestrated to be a spectacle. He deliberately timed his surrender, 7.30pm, to maximize cable news coverage. Reporters camped outside the jail all day on Thursday as temperatures reached mid-90s F and Trump supporters gathered for a demonstration. There was wall-to-wall news coverage of Trump’s motorcade and arrival at the jail. While politicians typically try and shift attention away from their criminal legal troubles, Trump has embraced it, feeding into the circuit by advertising his surrender time.

Despite Trump’s brashness, the gravity of the moment is underscored by the venue where Trump surrendered. In his other three cases, Trump has surrendered in courthouses and then quickly appeared in a courtroom for an arraignment. On Thursday, he’ll turn himself in at a jailhouse that has been so beset by horrific conditions that it’s under investigation from the Department of Justice. For the first time, he’ll have to post a cash bond – $200,000 – to guarantee his release.

In the other three instances, Trump has avoided the indignity of a mugshot. On Thursday, he got one that will be released to the public. For a man who cares deeply about perception, the image released on Thursday by the Fulton county sheriff will be inescapable, forever establishing him as the only president to ever be criminally prosecuted with a mugshot. It is also likely to be one that is forever part of America’s story – a snapshot of the president and a movement who tried to bend American institutions and tested the contours of American governance and the rule of law at every opportunity.

In a sense it marks the end of a two-year chapter of investigating Trump’s efforts to lead a coup to overturn the 2020 election results. It also marks the beginning of the next chapter – the trials to convict him.

Still, it would be a mistake to assume that the mugshot and the spectacle of Trump’s surrender at jail on Thursday will harm Trump politically. Instead, it is only likely to more deeply entrench support from those who back Trump and believe he is being persecuted.

As both a candidate and president, Trump has made the politics of grievance, the feeling of being persecuted and wronged, central to his political identity. Trump is already using his indictments to rally his supporters. When he surrendered in New York earlier this year, officials waived a mugshot. Trump’s campaign quickly released a fake one and began fundraising with it instead.

The booking, and the indictment that came before it, is also the latest step in what is likely to be a sustained and nasty battle, both in the public domain and in court, between Trump and Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney. Trump has already attacked Willis, a Democrat and the first Black woman to hold her office, saying – of all things – that she is racist. Willis has not responded to those attacks, and urged those in her office to ignore them, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” she wrote in an email earlier this month. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”

Trump allies, both in Georgia and in Washington DC, have already begun separate efforts to make Willis’s work as difficult as possible. But Willis, who has a reputation for being an aggressive prosecutor, hasn’t blinked. So far, she’s headed off last-ditch efforts by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, two of Trump’s co-defendants, to avoid surrendering.

For all the fanfare of Trump’s surrender, the most significant developments may be what happens far away from Rice Street and the Fulton county courthouse. Trump wields a commanding lead in the polls for the Republican nomination for president.

Asked during the first Republican debate on Wednesday if they would support Trump if he was the nominee, nearly all of the candidates said yes.

Aug 24 (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump returned to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post on Thursday showing his mug shot from his booking at Fulton County Jail in Georgia earlier in the day.

With his post appealing for donations, Trump reclaimed direct access to the public on the platform that banned him following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.

On Nov. 19 the San Francisco-based app reversed its position under billionaire Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who bought Twitter on Oct. 2.

Trump, who had over 88 million followers when Twitter banned him, posted a photo on Thursday of the mug shot with the words: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE! NEVER SURRENDER!” The post garnered more than 14 million views 50 minutes after going live.

Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account in January 2021, citing the risk of further incitement of violence following the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

He used Twitter and other social media platforms to claim his defeat in the 2020 election was due to widespread voter fraud and to share other conspiracy theories.

On Nov. 15 Trump launched a bid to regain the White House in 2024.

On Wednesday, Trump opted out of a Republican primary debate on Fox News (FOXA.O), attracting millions of viewers who watched – or at least scrolled by – a rival interview on X.

That 46-minute conversation with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson had drawn nearly 250 million views as of Thursday night, according to the site’s statistics.

On Thursday evening, Trump broke from a vow that he would stick exclusively with his new platform Truth Social, the app developed by his Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) startup. Trump had 6.4 million followers on Truth Social as of Thursday.

Truth Social has been Trump’s main source of direct communication with his followers since he began posting on the app regularly in May. The former president has used Truth Social to promote his allies, criticize his opponents and defend his reputation amid legal scrutiny from state, congressional and federal investigators.

A year ago, TMTG announced a deal to go public by merging with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal – which would infuse TMTG with $1.3 billion in cash – is now in doubt amid investigations by the Department of Justice and SEC, which have delayed its closing.

Trump’s company faces a crucial deadline when shareholders of DWAC have until 10 a.m., Sept. 5 to vote to extend the period of time DWAC has to complete its merger with TMTG. If DWAC does not get the votes, the SPAC will liquidate on Sept. 8.

Trump sued Twitter in 2021 over his suspension from the platform, arguing the move violated his right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A U.S. judge in California dismissed the case, and a federal appeals court in Pasadena, California, is set to take up the dispute on Oct. 4. Attorneys for Trump have said his claims are still viable, and can be ruled on by the appeals court, despite his reinstatement to the platform.

ATLANTA: Donald Trump’s mugshot was released on Thursday (Aug 24) evening after he was booked at an Atlanta jail on more than a dozen felony charges as part of a wide-ranging criminal case stemming from the former US president’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

An unsmiling Trump – inmate no. P01135809, according to Fulton County Jail records – was captured glaring at the camera in the mug shot.

The image represented yet another extraordinary moment for Trump, who did not have to submit to a photograph when making appearances in his three other criminal cases.

Trump spent only about 20 minutes at the jail before heading back to his New Jersey golf club.

Before boarding his private plane at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, he repeated his claim that the prosecution – along with the others he faces – is politically motivated.

“What has taken place here is a travesty of justice,” he told reporters. “I did nothing wrong, and everybody knows it.”

Trump, 77, already has entered uncharted territory as the first former US president to face criminal charges, even as he mounts another campaign for the White House next year.

Far from damaging his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination, however, the four cases filed against him have only bolstered his standing.

He holds a commanding polling lead in the Republican race to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 2024 election.

Dozens of supporters, waving Trump banners and American flags, jostled for a glimpse as Trump arrived at the jail.

Among the Trump backers gathered outside was Georgia US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the former president’s most loyal congressional allies.

Lyle Rayworth, 49, who is in the aviation industry in the Atlanta area, had been waiting near the jailhouse for 10 hours, since early on Thursday.

“Yeah, I’m hoping he sees me waving the flags, showing support,” Rayworth said as he awaited Trump’s arrival. “He needs us.”

The image is certain to be circulated widely by Trump’s foes and supporters alike.

“A MORE POPULAR IMAGE THAN THE MONA LISA”

“We want to put it on a T-shirt. It will go worldwide. It will be a more popular image than the Mona Lisa,” said Laura Loomer, 30, a Republican former congressional candidate who mingled with other Trump supporters outside the jail on Thursday morning.

Judge Scott McAfee set a trial date of Oct 23 for one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis proposed that date in response to Chesebro’s request for a speedy trial.

The judge’s order said the schedule does not yet apply to Trump or any of the other defendants.

Eleven of his co-defendants already have been booked, according to authorities. Some, like Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor, were stone-faced in their mug shots, while others, such as lawyer Jenna Ellis, smiled for the camera.

All 19 defendants faced a Friday deadline to surrender. Court records showed that Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, was processed at the jail on Thursday.

The jail has a reputation for grim conditions that have inspired rap songs and prompted an investigation by the US Justice Department.

Trump faces 13 felony counts in the Georgia case, including racketeering, which is typically used to target organized crime, for pressuring state officials to reverse his election loss and setting up an illegitimate slate of electors to undermine the formal congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 victory.

TRIAL DATE WRANGLING

Willis originally proposed a trial date of Mar 4 but moved it up for Chesebro after he asked that his trial start by October.

Trump’s legal team has yet to propose a date but is expected to push for a much later start. On Thursday, his newest Atlanta lawyer, Steven Sadow, asked for Trump to be tried separately from Chesebro.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the three other cases and denied wrongdoing. In the Georgia case, Willis has requested that arraignments begin the week of Sept 5, though defendants in Georgia are permitted to waive those appearances and plead not guilty via court filing.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed the first case, accusing Trump of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star who claims to have had a sexual encounter with him years ago.

Trump also faces two sets of federal charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith – one case in Washington involving election interference and one in Miami involving classified documents he retained after leaving office in 2021. He faces 91 criminal counts in total.

Trump agreed to post US$200,000 bond and accepted bail conditions that would bar him from threatening witnesses or his co-defendants in the Georgia case.

Republicans who control the US House of Representatives said on Thursday they would investigate whether Willis improperly coordinated with federal prosecutors.

They previously launched an investigation of Bragg, who accused them of a “campaign of intimidation”.

On Wednesday, Trump’s leading rivals in the race for the Republican presidential nomination met in Milwaukee for their first debate.

Trump skipped that event, instead sitting for a pre-taped interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson aimed at siphoning away viewers.

“I’ve been indicted four times – all trivial nonsense,” Trump told Carlson.

Donald Trump’s indictments have spurred incredulity and ridicule in China, and strengthened Chinese state narratives of the US in decline.

Then-US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in 2019 [Susan Walsh/AP Photo]

In the hazy maze of Chinese politics, the fastest-rising stars can quickly and inexplicably fall to earth.

That happened to China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who was removed suddenly after less than six months on the job and after weeks of being conspicuously absent from public view.

What exactly led to the minister’s removal last month is still a mystery, said Samantha Xie, who closely follows Chinese politics.

But even more baffling for Xie than a Chinese minister’s secretive removal was the inability of a political system to rid itself of a politician who was clearly involved in wrongdoing, namely former US President Donald Trump.

“How is it that a guy like Donald Trump is able to stay on as a presidential candidate in the US after everything we know he has done?” Xie asked, speaking from Wuxi city near Shanghai.

The 42-year-old sales manager told Al Jazeera that she found it inexplicable that after four criminal indictments, Trump’s popularity in the US does not appear to have suffered.

Xie is not alone in being surprised by Trump’s indictments and his continued popularity as a frontrunner in the forthcoming US presidential election.

China’s state media has spotted the anomaly too, which has been portrayed as symptomatic of broader dysfunction in the US political and legal systems.

‘Systemic dysfunction’

Following Trump’s first indictments, China’s state-run Global Times wrote in March that US “political and legal tools” were being “weaponized to attack political opponents”, a situation that the news organisation said would sow more chaos in an already polarised society.

Under the heading “systemic dysfunction”, the newspaper added that politics and law in the US had “become more like a child’s game with mounting stunts, and more dramatic twists” to be expected.

The enduring support for Trump also revealed, Global Times said, that US society had failed to learn from the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Political chaos and social disintegration in the US were themes addressed by China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency in its coverage of Trump’s legal woes in April.

Increasingly bitter partisanship revealed that the pursuit and defence of Trump was a reflection of deep divisions in US society, Xinhua reported, where “people are increasingly divided in ideas, interests, races and cultures”.

Republicans and Democrats – and their supporters – have “become increasingly irreconcilable on many issues, thus giving birth to all kinds of incredible chaos”, Xinhua added.

The apparent dysfunction observed in the very fabric of US society and exemplified in Trump’s legal woes spurred Global Times in an editorial to accuse the US of tarnishing “the word ‘democracy’”.

US party politics was responsible for everything from political violence to political polarisation, Global Times said, and from “rampant money politics” to free speech “being in name only”. All of which was the political soil out of which a figure such as Trump had grown, Global Times said.

Trump’s indictments were the cause, the symptoms and the catalyst for the political unravelling of the US, according to recent news reports, all of which play into a long-established Chinese state narrative of the US being in terminal decline.

‘Comrade Nation Builder’

On Chinese social media platforms, however, Trump’s legal troubles have inspired jokes, memes and a hilarious short video that has attracted 1.4 million views in just a few months.

Following his indictments in March and April, comments began appearing on the Weibo platform referring to Trump as “Jiangou”, a Chinese name that translates directly as “build the country/nation”.

While the name has been interpreted as a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, in China the Jiangou title has been applied as a joke to portray Trump’s antics as hurting the US and its international image and, as a result, strengthening China’s stature on the world stage.

Trump, the joke goes, is a “nation builder”, but for China, not the US.

A manipulated image of former US President Donald Trump shows him living a simple life in retirement in China after his efforts to make China great through his antics in US politics [Screengrab/Weibo]

“Comrade Nation Builder [Trump], whether in the police station or in the courts, you must endure,” one post on Weibo exclaimed.

“We are waiting for you to retire and return to watch the sunset together with us” in China, the post added.

The post on China’s Weibo platform was accompanied by a video featuring cleverly manipulated images of Trump living in retirement in China, where he is featured doing traditional tai chi exercises, shopping in markets for his groceries, eating at a local restaurant, and being hailed on a metro train by young Chinese people who are happy to see the ex-US president.

A manipulated image showing Trump retired and living in China where he enjoys popular appeal and public recognition [Screengrab/Weibo]

The video was set to the tune of a famous Chinese song, “Red Sunset” by Tong Tie Xin, in which the singer praises the beauty of the sunset – lyrics which imply that Trump can look back on a job well done – for China – as he reaches the sunset years of his life.

“He might be American, but his heart is Chinese,” one Weibo user joked in the comments under the video.

“Your last mission, come back safely [to China],” another user wrote.

Amysterious delay hit the flight in which Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is believed to have died, according to claims on Thursday.

Russia’s civil aviation agency said that Prigozhin and six top lieutenants – including deputy Dmitry Utkin Wagner -were on a business jet that crashed on Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three.

Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner private military company who confirmed his death.

US and other Western officials long expected Putin to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.

“I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” U.S. President Joe Biden said. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”

Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed and offered different theories for how.

Evidence from Flightradar suggested the business jet – linked to Prigozhin – suddenly fell from the sky at 6.19pm Moscow time after reaching a cruising altitude of 29,855ft enroute to St Petersburg.

Another account said the plane in just 22 seconds lost 8,000ft after which it ceased sending data as it plunged to the ground where it exploded in a fireball.

The speed of the aircraft lessened then sharply increased immediately before it plunged from the sky, according to separate unconfirmed reports on Telegram channels including Rybar.

Police cordoned off the field where the plane crashed as investigators studied the site. Vehicles were seen driving in to take the bodies, reportedly badly charred, for a forensic exam. The bodies were driven away after two black Russian GAZelle came to the crash site at 4.30am on Thursday.

At Wagner’s headquarters in St Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross. Prigozhin’s supporters brought flowers to the building in an improvised memorial.

While countless theories about the events swirled, most observers saw Prigozhin’s death as Putin’s punishment for the most serious challenge to his authority of his 23-year rule.

The jet is said to have crashed in the Tver region, north of Moscow. The Russian emergency services ministry said “according to preliminary information, all those on board died”.

Flight attendant Kristina Raspopova, 39, had told her relatives of an unexplained holdup before the flight. She also indicated the aircraft was being “repaired”, according to VChK-OGPU Telegram channel.

Her last picture showed her waiting at an airport cafe.

A relative of flight attendant Kristina Raspopova told the channel: “She said that she was in Moscow, she was going to fly out, today or tomorrow.

“The aircraft was under maintenance or some urgent repairs.

“They were waiting for the flight. Some kind of maintenance.”

The relative said: “She said that the flight was domestic.

“They were waiting for a call when to fly.

“Regarding the maintenance of the aircraft, she said that either it was maintenance, or it was just an aircraft repair, something like that.

“They were waiting for the order to take off…”

Meanwhile Wagner mercenary loyalists have vowed revenge on Vlidmir Putin who they blame for assassinating Prigozhin, 62, head of the private army closely backed by Russian military intelligence.

The Russian security forces tightened security in Rostov and Belgorod regions where Wagner forces remain encamped.

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said: “Obviously, Prigozhin signed his own death warrant at the moment when he believed in [Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko’s] strange ‘guarantees’ and Putin’s equally absurd ‘word of honour’.

“The defiant removal of Prigozhin and the Wagner team two months after the coup attempt is Putin’s signal to the Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections.”

The elites were being warned to be “careful” because “disloyalty equals death”, he said.

“But this is also a signal to the Russian military: there will be no “heroes of the [war]”.

“If not a Ukrainian tribunal, then it will be an FSB bullet.”

A source familiar with Prigozhin said that he had been “sure that Putin would forgive him everything and was not afraid of anything.

“He said that he knew a lot [about Putin].

“We will see if something from his archives appears now…”

Russian MP and pro-war fanatic Mikhail Delyagin claimed that he did not believe Prigozhin was dead.

“I strongly doubt the death of Utkin, and even Prigozhin,” he said.

“People [like this] sometimes use fictitious disasters to leave the public stage, where they are uncomfortable.”

Yet sources close to the Kremlin also did not rule out the possibility that Prigozhin may still be alive, said the publication.

“He’s a trickster, a troll. He has informants in various structures, so we have to wait,” one said.

The Wagner Group will take revenge for the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, masked men have declared in a chilling new video.

The head of the mercenary group is thought to have been killed after his jet crashed in the Tver region of Russia.

Foul play is heavily suspected with reports suggesting the FSB – a successor to the old Soviet KGB – was behind what could have been a shoot-down.

It is thought Putin is trying to wind up the organisation after it rebelled against his rule in June in a day-long coup.

In a new video, the masked men say: “There’s a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do. We can tell you one thing, we are getting started, get ready for us.”

Prigozhin’s death has not been confirmed but he was registered as flying aboard the plane along with another key Wagner boss, Dmitry Utkin, on Wednesday. At least five others were believed to be on board.

Previously known as “Putin’s chef” while he was the go-to caterer for the Russian leader, a massive rift developed between the president and Prigozhin during the war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin is believed to have been killed in a plane crash. Picture: Alamy

Three masked men, apparently from Wagner, suggest the mercenary group will retaliate in a social media video. Picture: Twitter

Wagner, which had enriched itself and Prigozhin via contracts in Syria and Africa, joined regular forces when the invasion launched last year.

They made sure to take the limelight in any operation they were involved in, most notably throwing their mercenaries – some recruited out of jail – into the Bakhmut meat grinder in a gruelling, months-long campaign to take the strategically unimportant town.

In the aftermath, they were targeted by the Russian military as Putin grew nervous about Prigozhin’s increasing popularity and his statements criticising the defence leadership during the war.

Wagner launched a rebellion, capturing a key headquarters in Rostov, while others marched on Moscow.

The plane came down in the Tver region. Picture: Alamy

Prigozhin is believed to have been killed in a crash. Picture: Alamy

Putin brokered a deal that would have apparently seen Prigozhin move to Belarus, Putin’s puppet state, but he continued to remain in Russia while keeping a low profile.

His ability to move around with relative freedom was a slap in the face to Putin who would have worried about looking weak.

The Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment: “Prigozhin was likely attempting to counter the Russian MoD’s [Ministry of Defence] and the Kremlin’s destruction of Wagner and Wagner’s future remains uncertain.

“Putin almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane.

“Putin’s almost certain order for the Russian MoD to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane is likely a public attempt to reassert his dominance and exact vengeance for the humiliation that the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion on June 24 caused Putin and the Russian MoD.”

Wagner still has a presence overseas, and it has long been viewed as another tool for the Kremlin to use overseas while appearing as an independent, private company.

It is unclear what will happen to its fighters now. Some are thought to have jumped ship to another PMC that is closer to the Russian MoD, Redut, while others were offered the chance to join the regular military.

Wagner is due to be designated a terrorist group by the UK.

Former President Donald Trump is, on the verge of turning himself in at a Georgia jail as he prepares to face racketeering charges.

This marks his trial for alleged involvement, in conspiring with co-defendants to overturn the 2020 election. The arrest, which has garnered attention comes after Trump declined to participate in a debate and received unwavering support from his rivals.

On Thursday, Donald Trump, the former president, is set to surrender on racketeering charges at a Georgia jail. This event marks the prelude to his fourth criminal trial next year, even as he campaigns to regain the White House. The 77-year-old ex-president will be apprehended at the notorious Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. He stands accused of collaborating with 18 co-defendants in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election outcome in the pivotal southern state.

The booking of the wealthy real estate magnate, potentially featuring his first mugshot, follows closely on the heels of his rejection of a primary debate involving eight competitors for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Although absent from the televised debate stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump remained the center of attention, with candidates vying for the Republican standard-bearer position facing questions about their support for him. In response to whether they would back Trump as the party’s nominee even if he were convicted in one of his ongoing criminal cases, all candidates except former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie raised their hands.

Instead of participating in the debate, Trump chose an interview with Tucker Carlson, a conservative former host on Fox News. During the wide-ranging pre-recorded interview, aired on X (formerly known as Twitter) simultaneously with the debate, Trump explained his decision not to partake, citing his substantial lead “by 50 to 60 points” in the polls over his rivals.

He voiced his sentiment, “Do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever it’s going to be, and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for president?” Dismissing the four criminal indictments against him as “nonsense,” Trump asserted that the Justice Department, under Democratic President Joe Biden, had been “weaponized” to undermine his White House bid.

As Trump prepares to be arrested, tight security measures have been established around his arrival at the Fulton County Jail. This facility, plagued by inmate deaths and deplorable living conditions, is under investigation by the Justice Department.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney leading the extensive racketeering case, has set a Friday noon deadline for the 19 defendants to surrender.

Although Trump’s exact arrival time remains undisclosed, he announced on his Truth Social platform that it would be Thursday afternoon, affirming, “NOBODY HAS EVER FOUGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY LIKE PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. FOR DOING SO, I WILL PROUDLY BE ARRESTED TOMORROW AFTERNOON IN GEORGIA.”

Unlike previous instances of arrest this year, Trump cannot evade having a mugshot taken, as per standard procedure in Georgia. His bond has been set at $200,000.

Notably, Trump’s surrender closely follows that of Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who served as his personal lawyer and championed baseless claims of election victory.

Also implicated in the Georgia charges are Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer accused of concocting a scheme to submit a fraudulent slate of Trump electors to Congress from Georgia.

In the upcoming year, Trump will face four criminal trials, including one beginning in January during the Republican primary season and another in November 2024, at the height of the presidential campaign.

Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a January 2024 start date for Trump’s Washington trial on charges related to the effort to overturn the 2020 election. This effort culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

In response, Trump’s legal team has countered with an April 2026 start date. A hearing on Monday presided over by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, is anticipated to set a date for what could become the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.

Furthermore, Fulton County district attorney Willis has called for the racketeering case to commence in March 2024, coinciding with Trump’s scheduled New York trial on charges of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

Additionally, a trial is slated for May in Florida, where Trump faces allegations of improperly retaining government documents upon leaving the White House.