You'll never guess where Vladimir Putin is going to show up this weekend

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TODAY:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to be a surprise guestat the wedding of AustrianForeign Minister Karin Kneisslon Saturday.
• Indian flood waters continue to rise, displacing hundreds of thousands as military personnel workto rescue survivors in a race against time.
• CEO salaries continue to outpace the average worker at alarmingratesin the U.S., but things aren't much better in Canada.
• Missed The National last night? Watch it here

It's a nice day for a...

Vladimir Putin will spend this next summer Saturday like millions of other people attending the wedding of a couple he barely knows.

In this case, it's the nuptials of Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl and businessman Wolfgang Meilinger.

The invitation was extended in early June, when the Russian president made a state visit to Vienna to meet with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Why Putin said yes is a bit of a mystery. Kneissl, a polyglot Middle East expert, has only been on the job since January, and doesn't appear to have met the Russian leader during her first, and so far only visit, to Moscow, in April. And there's no indication that he has a past, personal connection with either the foreign minister or her husband-to-be, a former financial services provider and not-so-successful entrepreneur.

The official explanation is that Putin is "dropping in" to offer his congratulations on his way to a Saturday summit meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at her summer retreat outside Berlin. But the wedding venue, a vineyard about an hour south of Graz, near the Slovenian border, is only vaguely on the way. Perhaps it's just that he's curious about Gasthaus Tscheppe's famous chicken schnitzel.

Kurz will be there. As will Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which enjoys warm ties with the Kremlin. Kneissl, an independent, was the party's controversial pick for the foreign minister job.

Security will be heavy, with snipers and members of Austria's elite "Cobra" police unit deployed around the idyllic, hilltop vineyard. Putin's June visit to Austria required the services of 1,500 cops and soldiers at a reported cost of more than $500,000 Cdn.

Journalists are not invited, although there will be a media availability at the German summit later in the day.

And to this point, Putin's wedding gift is a secret.

"I cannot say that," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about it in Moscow this week.

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Rising waters, rising fears

Flooding and landslides have killed at least 324 people in the southwest Indian state of Kerala, following eight days of heavy monsoon rains.

More than 223,000 people have been displaced and rescue crews are in a race against time as the waters already up to two storeys deep in places continue to rise.

"We're witnessing something that has never happened before in the history of Kerala," Pinarayi Vijayan, the state's chief minister, told reportersFriday. "Almost all dams are now opened. Most of our water treatment plants are submerged. Motors are damaged."

Hundreds of Indian military personnel are engaged in rescue operations, with helicopters plucking people off of rooftops and more than 500 boats cruising through flooded neighbourhoods. Local fishermen have also joined the efforts to ferry trapped people to safety.

The government has opened 1,568 relief camps to provide shelter to displaced residents and more than one million emergency food packets have already been distributed. Three trains filled with drinking water are due to arrive soon.

A red alert is in place for 12 of the state's 14 districts, with what the country's meteorological office terms as "vigorous" rains in the forecast for the weekend.

Roads and railways have been severely damaged by the waters, and the main international airport in Kochi is submerged and will remain closed until at least Aug. 26.

Countrywide, more than 930 people have died since India's monsoon season began in June. But Kerala has been the hardest-hit state, with the rain running 40 to 80 per cent above summer averages.

The big fear now is that overflowing reservoirs may give way, sending tidal waves down the state's 41 rivers.

The flooding has also destroyed crops in the fields, and there are worries that tourism a major part of Kerala's economy will suffer, even after the waters recede.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is travelling to the region Fridayto survey the damage.

Extremely fat cats

America's richest are getting far richer.

A new report on CEO pay finds that the heads of the 350 largest U.S.corporations saw their compensation rise 17.6 per cent in 2017, to an average of $18.9 million each.

The average worker's salary barely moved last year, edging up just 0.3 per cent.

The report from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan Washington think-tank, calculates that the big-boss-to-worker compensation ratio in America now stands at 312-to-1, five times higher than the 58-to-1 ratio in 1989 and nearing the 344-to-1 peak set during the 2000 dot-com boom. Having grown almost 72 per cent since 2009, executive pay packets now sit just 3.3 per cent below their pre-Great Recession mark.

CEO pay is rising faster than stock prices or corporate profits, the study says, increasing by 1,070 per cent between 1978 and 2017, compared to the 637 per cent hike in the S&P Index.

But even more tellingly, CEOs are doing far better than their peers with their pay growth outstripping the rest of the top 0.1 per cent by 308 per cent over the same period.

(Workers saw their wages rise just 11.2 per cent over those 39 years.)

Therefore, the study concludes, the long, upward trend in CEO pay was the driving factor in the doubling of the top one per cent's income share between 1979 and 2007.

Of course, Canada's CEOs aren't exactly starving, either.

A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, released last January, calculated that the average compensation for the country's top 100 chief executives hit $10.4 million in 2016 more than 200 times the average employee's salary of $49,738.

If you are earning minimum wage, it takes more than a month of full-time work to earn what the average corporate titan makes in an hour.

There was a range. Joseph Papa of Bausch Health the top earner took home $83 million in 2016. Louis Eccleston of TMX Group Ltd., who came in at number 100, earned a still respectable $5,178,401.

Ontario's new premier, Doug Ford, made great hay during the provincial election about the "six-million dollar man" that was running Hydro One, the electric company that is still 47 per cent owned by taxpayers. Mayo Schmidt, who has since been forced out of his job, doesn't appear on the 2016 list, but his $6.2 million pay would have slotted him in at number 80, just behind Mitel Networks head Richard McBee ($6.3 million) and just ahead of Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt ($6.18 million.)

Schmidt walked away with a lump $400,000 payment in lieu of his post-retirement benefits, and at least $9 million in stock options.

Under legislation that came into effect this week, the Ontario government will be able to control the salary of Hydro One executives through the end of 2022.

Quote of the moment

"It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien."

-Tesla CEO Elon Musk, details the "excruciating" toll of his 120-hour work weeks as he fights to right his electric car company in an emotional interview with the New York Times.

What The National is reading

• Judge lifts publication ban on details of deadly Fredericton shooting (CBC)
• Pentagon may delay Trump's costly military parade until next year (Washington Post)
• Inflation rises to 3%, Canada's highest level since 2011 (CBC)
• Last South African coelacanths threatened by oil exploration (Guardian)
• Bank robber returns to the scene of his crime, 60 years later for lunch (CBC)
• Irish in Vancouver divided amid claims of violence and rowdiness (Irish Times)
• Who updates celebrity deaths on Wikipedia? (Slate)
• 'Cursed' mummy cheese might be the world's oldest, researchers say (Live Science)

Today in history

Aug. 17, 1964: Ian Fleming, the man with the golden pen

Ian Fleming wrote most of his James Bond books in two-month bursts 2,000 words each morning, leaving the rest of the day to relax at Goldeneye, his Jamaican estate. By the time he died at age 56 of a heart attack five days before this broadcast he had produced 14 of the pulp thrillers in just 11 years, selling more than 32 million copies. The first two Sean Connery movies had been big hits, and a third, Goldfinger, was in production. Fifty-four years later, his super-spy endures. The 27th Bond flick Daniel Craig's last will premiere in October 2019.

Ian Fleming: a 1964 interview with the brain behind Bond

60 years ago

Duration 27:16

Explorations airs an intimate chat with James Bond creator Ian Fleming in his Jamaican hideaway Aired on the CBC-TV program Explorations on Aug. 17, 1964.

That's all for today.

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