Race to flee Russia
RUSSIA - Terrified Russians are scrambling to flee the country with one-way flights out of Moscow sold out, after Vladimir Putin sparked mass panic by ordering a troop mobilisation in a dramatic escalation of the Ukraine war.
Prices of the few remaining tickets sky-rocketed, driven by fears that Russia’s borders could soon close or a broader call-up might send many men of fighting age to the war’s front lines.
Tickets
Tickets to Johannesburg for a family of three were earlier fetching £44 000, while the cheapest flights from the capital to Dubai were costing more than £8 000 - about 10 times the average monthly wage, for a one-way economy fare.
Protests have also started to spring up across the country, with Putin’s feared ‘Cosmonaut’ armed police deployed to quell the unrest.
In a nationwide speech, Putin ordered the call-up of 300 000 military reserves - a first in Russia since the Second World War - and issued a chilling new threat to use nuclear weapons against the West, telling world leaders to back off Ukraine while warning: “I’m not bluffing.”
Ceasefire
The apocalyptic warnings have prompted even China to demand a ceasefire ‘through dialogue and consultation’, while Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Putin should return all occupied land, including Crimea, to its ‘rightful owners’.
LONDON - Prince Andrew secretly plotted with Princess Diana and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson to try to prevent Charles from becoming King and allow Prince William to take the throne with the Duke of York as Regent, an explosive new biography claims. Andrew is also alleged to have ‘lobbied’ the Queen and campaigned against the marriage between Charles and Camilla, now King and Queen Consort, telling his mother that she was not trustworthy.
Nasty
Diana to prevent the Queen’s eldest son from becoming King. Under Andrew’s alleged plan, William would have been lined up for the throne with Charles pushed out and Andrew made Regent if the Queen had died before William was 18.
Plotted
Citing a ‘senior insider’, Levin writes that the Duke of York ‘plotted’ with Diana to ‘push Prince Charles aside’, with the aim of Prince Andrew becoming ‘Regent to Prince William’.
“Andrew lobbied very hard with the hope that Charles would not become king when his mother died, and that William would wear the crown,” she said.
Levin added the Prince ‘lobbied very hard’ to try and prevent his older brother from taking to the throne.
A ‘senior insider’ at the palace is said to have told Levin: “When Diana was alive, through her friendship with Andrew’s wife Sarah, Duchess of York she plotted with Andrew to try to push Prince Charles aside so Prince Andrew could become Regent to Prince William, who was then a teenager.
Reality
“They were dark and strange times, where paranoia became reality, and this was a worry. His behaviour was very, very negative and extremely unpleasant to Queen Elizabeth, who disagreed. I was told it was one of the rare occasions he didn’t get his way.”