X-Nico

6 unusual facts about defection


Aurora Cornu

Her fiancé in the mid-1960s, mathematician Tudor Ganea, did not succeed in getting her out of Romania, so she saw her chance to defect to the West while she was at the poetry festival in Knokke-Het Zoute, Belgium.

Jiří Granát

He defected to Switzerland in 1983 and worked for the Swiss Tennis Federation as a coach after retiring.

Mikhail Orlov

Glenn Michael Souther, American defector to the Soviet Union who changed his name to Mikhail Yevgenyevich Orlov

Richar Abril

Most Cuban boxers have defected to go professional over the past few years amid considerable fanfare for outstanding amateur careers.

Thionck Essyl

The origins of the town are connected to the kingdom of Mof-Ewi, when it was populated by defectors from Guinea-Bissau.

Winny de Jong

She defected together with Cor Eberhard from the LPF-fractie on 1 October 2002 because of dissatisfaction with the fractievoorzitter of the LPF, Harry Wijnschenk.


1841 rebellion in Guria

Dissension within the rebel ranks led to the defection of many noble allies, most importantly of Prince David Gugunava.

Alexander Gomelsky

He was the Soviet national team head coach in 1972, and was expected to coach the team at the 1972 Summer Olympic games, but the KGB confiscated his passport, fearing that, since Gomelsky was Jewish, that he would defect to Israel.

Australian regional rivalries

In the early days of the Iraq War, Wollongong Lord Mayor Alex Darling led a delegation to the Consul General of France asking them to accept Wollongong's defection to France in protest at Sydney (and Canberra's) stance.

Bobby Bright

After the defection of fellow Alabama Democrat Parker Griffith to the Republican Party in December 2009, political analyst and statistician Nate Silver suggested that Bright could follow, naming "60/40" odds that he would eventually join the Republican caucus as well.

Canada–Soviet Union relations

Igor Gouzenko was a clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa who defected to Canada with evidence of Soviet spying in the West.

Carlo Tresca

In early 1938 Tresca publicly accused the Soviets of kidnapping Juliet Stuart Poyntz to prevent her defection from the Communist Party USA underground apparatus.

Castle FM

Soon afterwards, Robinson moved away from RSL radio to concentrate on developing his Young Star Search format across Northern Ireland which successfully ran on Belfast Citybeat until his defection to Cool FM and Downtown Radio in 2010.

Dover, Virginia

Its two distinguishing features are Stoke (a prominent house where Teddy Roosevelt was a frequent guest) and the Champe Ford Memorial (an obelisk commemorating John Champe, handpicked by George Washington to re-capture Benedict Arnold after his defection to the British side.

Elizabeth Bentley

Hoover advised Sir William Stephenson, head of British Security Coordination for the Western hemisphere, of Bentley’s defection, and Stephenson duly notified London.

Eminent Victorians

In Cardinal Manning's story, the background is the creation of the Oxford Movement and the defection of an influential group of Church of England clergy to the Catholic Church.

Erika Holzer

As lawyers, the Holzers have been involved in several pro bono cases, most notably the struggle of the 12-year old defector Walter Polovchak to avoid being forcibly returned to the Soviet Union.

Fyodor Kon

Kon received a public beating for his defection but was soon assigned to lead the construction of Bely Gorod - a 10-kilometer outer ring of Moscow fortress that stood on the path of present-day Boulevard Ring.

Galina Talva

In 1953, she married Leon Volkov, a Soviet Russian Air Force colonel who defected to the US, and thereafter did little or no stage work.

Gaspare Mutolo

The stakes were high, Mutolo was probably the most important possible pentito since the defection of Francesco Marino Mannoia in 1989: he had been a cellmate and driver of Totò Riina.

Gay and Lesbian Employees at Microsoft

The bill was passed in the subsequent legislative session (2006) under the leadership of gay legislator, Rep. Ed Murray (D) of the 43rd legislative district and after the defection of Republican State Senator, Bill Finkbeiner, who subsequently retired and whose seat was captured by Democrat and Microsoft alumnus, Eric Oemig.

Geoff Hutchison

Following Liam Bartlett's defection to commercial radio in early 2006, Hutchison used Qantas back to Perth and took up the position as host of 720 ABC's Morning show.

Great Lakes Brewing Company

A short list of these include Ohio City Oatmeal Stout, an IPA named Hop Madness (which was for a short period in 2010 known as Quitness as a jab at LeBron James defection to Miami) and Moondog ESB.

Harpagus

Harpagus, also known as Harpagos or Hypargus (Ancient Greek Ἅρπαγος; Akkadian: Arbaku), was a Median general from the 6th century BC, credited by Herodotus as having put Cyrus the Great on the throne through his defection during the battle of Pasargadae.

History of Poland during World War I

The defection of Russia from the Allied coalition gave free rein to the calls of Woodrow Wilson, the American president, to transform the war into a crusade to spread democracy and liberate the Poles and other peoples from the suzerainty of the Central Powers.

Irish Independence Party

It was boosted in the late 1970s by the defection of a prominent Protestant Larne SDLP councillor, John Turnley, later the party chairman, who was killed in 1980 in Carnlough, County Antrim by an attack claimed by the Ulster Defence Association.

Italian general election, 1994

Although, the Berlusconi I Cabinet obtained a vote of confidence also in the Senate, thanks to the defection of four PPI senators (Vittorio Cecchi Gori, Stefano Cusumano, Luigi Grillo and Tomaso Zanoletti), who decided not to participate in the vote.

Jiang Wenhao

The subsequent Taiwanese evaluation of Shenyang J-6 flew by Jiang Wenhao revealed that the Chinese aircraft was equipped with an anti-defection system that was similar to an automobile anti-theft system.

Krunoslav Draganović

But perhaps the greatest mystery surrounds Draganović's later defection to Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia.

Merle Park

After Mikhail Baryshnikov's defection in 1975, he accompanied Park in performances of Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake.

Mission Priests of the Immaculate Conception

On the final defection of Félicité, however, the Bishop of Rennes transferred to Jean-Marie the superiorship of the congregation, the members of which left La Chênaie for Malestroit, laymen being now excluded.

Munir Redfa

Redfa's defection was the subject of the movie Steal the Sky.

Nasarudin Hashim

Joined by three other Pakatan Rakyat MPs, the defection gave the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional coalition the numbers to return to government.

His defection from the People's Justice Party (PKR) to the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO)—days after he had defected the other way—helped cause the collapse of the Pakatan Rakyat government of which PKR was a component party.

Okot Odhiambo

The Catholic Archbishop of Gulu, John Baptist Odama, said the defection could revive hopes of a peaceful end to the conflict.

Paul Tiensten

He was re-elected in 2007 for a second term of Parliament as Minister for National Planning and District Development, but lost his portfolio in August 2011 when a defection of MPs saw the government of Michael Somare disbanded.

Petr Klíma

After his defection was planned, Klíma ditched his Czech national teammates during a team meal at the Czech training camp in Nussdorf, West Germany, to join Wings executive vice-president Jim Lites and assistant coach Nick Polano at an undisclosed location on Aug 18, 1985.

Propaganda in North Korea

However, observation from the South suggests that the town is actually an uninhabited Potemkin village built at great expense in the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage South Korean defection and to house the DPRK soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that abut the border zone.

Raúl Chibás

Raúl Chibás Rivas (April 25, 1916 – August 25, 2002) was a Cuban politician and military officer who initially supported Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution but later defected to the United States.

Robin Faley

He was elected to the Sierra Leone House of Parliament as a member of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) from 2007 until he officially announced his defection to the ruling All People's Congress (APC) on September 27, 2012 in his hometown of Segbwema.

Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi

In March 2012, Baroness Warsi was criticised by a number of Conservative MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee for her handling of MEP Roger Helmer's defection to UKIP.

Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol

In the 1972 general election Dietl was the candidate of the hard-liners, including the Party of Independents, in the single-seat constituency of Brixen and won 20.8% of the vote, the major defection from SVP since then.

Taisho Political Crisis

Soon after taking office, Katsura was faced with a ministerial defection of his own, when the Imperial Navy sought an increased budget to fund the construction of new battleships and threatened to withhold the appointment of a Navy Minister as a negotiating tactic.

The Jamestown Foundation

The Jamestown Foundation was founded in 1984 after Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to defect when he left his position as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, defected in 1978.

TPOK Jazz

The band started to fall apart with the defection of Malage de Lugendo and Dizzy and Decca who returned to Kinshasa to pursue other opportunities.

Wang Jiaxiang

As reward for their defection, Zhang Wentian replaced Bo Gu as General Secretary of CPC, and Wang took the military command by a three-men group with Mao and Zhou.


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