українські і світові новини
Українська тенісистка Еліна Світоліна перемогла іспанку Карлу Суарес-Наварро в чвертьфіналі турніру Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
Поєдинок завершився перемогою українки з результатом – 6:2, 6:3.
За право зіграти у фіналі Світоліна позмагається зі швейцаркою Беліндою Бенчич, яка 21 лютого в трьох сетах переграла колишню першу ракетку світу румунку Сімону Халеп.
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У Запоріжжі з 21 лютого по 14 березня триватиме мовний марафон «Дій Словом», присвячений Міжнародному дню рідної мови. Його організатори закликають городян не боятися переходити в повсякденному спілкуванні на українську мову.
Ініціатором акції виступили волонтери-викладачі та слухачі Безкоштовних курсів української мови у Запоріжжі.
«Долучитися до марафону може будь-хто охочий у Запоріжжі. Як це виникало? Один зі слухачів у тій групі курсів, де я викладаю, запропонував таку річ: «Давайте зробимо флешмоб на підтримку мови. Підтримаємо тих, хто вже говорить українською вільно, тих, хто тільки починає говорити, і тих, хто давно-давно вже хоче говорити українською, але ніяк не зважиться, бо боїться власних помилок чи якихось не таких поглядів», – розповіла викладач Безкоштовних курсів української мови у Запоріжжі Наталія Ігнатьєва.
Читайте також: День рідної мови в Україні: факти і цифри
Долучитися до марафону можуть як запорожці, так і жителі інших міст. Для цього необхідно зробити допис у соцмережах з хештегом #ДіяСловом, де розповісти про власний досвід переходу на українську, або ж записати і викласти у соцмережу відео з відповідним тегом, в якому учасник акції читає вірші українською.
21 лютого у Запорізькій обласній бібліотеці для юнацтва, яка підтримує мовний марафон, відбулося перше зібрання учасників акції. Вони записали перші відео та зробили фото для марафону.
Під час заходу представники Безкоштовних курсів української мови у Запоріжжі також повідомили, що їхню ініціативу вже підтримали координатори курсів з інших міст, і вони також планують долучитися до акції.
21 лютого у світі відзначають Міжнародний день рідної мови.
Слідом за невдачею в одиночній змішаній естафеті українська збірна провалила і класичну змішану естафету на чемпіонаті Європи, що триває в білоруських Раубичах.
Після жіночих етапів у виконанні Анастасії Меркушиної та Віти Семеренко українці разом із білорусами очолювали естафету, але Сергію Семенову та Артему Примі і не їхалося, і не стрілялося. У підсумку збірна України стала сьомою.
Перемогу здобули шведи, другими стали німці, третіми – білоруси.
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Police in Chicago say a U.S. actor who claimed he was attacked and beaten by two masked men shouting racist and homophobic slurs staged the incident because he was because he was dissatisfied with his salary and wanted to promote his career.
Chicago police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi issued a statement announcing the arrest of actor Jussie Smollett, charging him with felony disorderly conduct for making a false police report.
Police say he turned himself into police around 5 am local time.
The 36-year-old black openly gay actor on the U.S. television drama “Empire” created a social media storm last month when he told police on Jan. 29 that two apparent supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump had struck him, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach over him after he visited a Chicago sandwich shop.
Smollet received an outpouring of support from celebrities and even lawmakers, but police immediately found inconsistences in the actor’s story.
As part of an three-week investigation, police say they examined security cameras located throughout the area where the alleged attack occurred. Police brought in two brothers for questioning but they were released after two days, with police saying they were no longer suspects. Police said Smollett paid the brothers $3,500 to stage the attack.
At a news conference Thursday Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters its believed Smollet faked the attack as a publicity stunt because he was dissatisfied with his salary.
Johnson did not hide his contempt for Smollet’s alleged actions:
“This announcement today recognizes that Empire actor Jussie Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career. I’m left hanging my head and asking Why?’ Why would anyone, especially an African American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations? How could someone look at the hate and suffering associated with that symbol and see and opportunity to manipulate that symbol to further his own profile? How can an individual who’s been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false claims?,” he said.
Johnson called the actor’s “publicity stunt” a scar that Chicago didn’t deserve.He said absolute justice would be for Smollet to admit what he did and apologize the city of Chicago.
Smollet has not yet entered a plea. The charge against him carries a penalty of up to three years in prison, though Former Cook County prosecutor Andrew Weisberg told the Associated press news agency judges rarely throw defendants in prison for making false reports, opting instead to place them on probation.
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Last week’s shocking detention of one of Russia’s most renowned and publicly visible American entrepreneurs not only caught fellow foreign investors off guard, it may have prompted a moment of national reckoning about how Moscow handles investor relations, say both Kremlin-aligned and international trade groups.
Baring Vostok founder Michael Calvey’s arrest Feb. 15 on charges of fraud stemming from a lengthy legal dispute with Russia’s Orient Express Bank sparked widespread speculation about whether the days of unbridled “reiderstvo” — aggressive Kremlin-backed asset raids and corporate takeovers synonymous with Yukos, Russneft, Bashneft, Stolichnaya Vodka and VKontakte — were a thing of the past, or whether, perhaps, Calvey had actually committed a crime.
A recent Moscow court decision to extend Calvey’s detention without trial for a minimum of two months on the grounds that his release poses a flight risk, along with indications that he’s been denied consular access in violation of the 1966 Vienna Convention, doesn’t bode well for professionals such as Aleksander Khurudzhi, who has been tasked by the state with rehabilitating Russia’s image as a secure place to invest.
‘This is a shock’
“From my point of view, what happened is in complete contradiction with statements of a Russian president who, from all rostrums, has expressed the same unchanging viewpoint: that Russia is open for investments and that Russia will do its best to attract and safeguard both Russian and foreign investments,” Khurudzhi, deputy ombudsman for the Kremlin office of business ethics, told VOA.
“This is a shock,” he added. “It undermines all the work being conducted by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. All the work that has been done for the last seven to eight years aimed at improving the investment climate. It undermines trust in the system as such … (and our entire) team isn’t sleeping at night. Without any exaggeration, the work is being carried out for 24 hours. This is a challenge for all of us, for our whole team.”
Indeed, during his annual State of the Nation address before Russia’s Federal Assembly on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin, who has been faced with record-low approval ratings, even made a fairly explicit reference to Calvey’s detention.
“To achieve … great (economic) objectives, we must get rid of everything that limits the freedom and initiative of enterprise,” Putin said. “Honest businesses should not live in fear of being prosecuted of criminal or even administrative punishment.”
Putin, who met Calvey multiple times since the American arrived in Russia in the mid-1990s, has said he had no foreknowledge of Calvey’s arrest, and that despite his repeated calls to keep commercial disputes and litigation from culminating in spurious charges against foreign investors, he has no direct influence over how Russian courts render their verdicts.
Vocal Kremlin critics, such as Hermitage Capital co-founder Bill Browder, are deeply skeptical of these claims.
“The arrest of Mike Calvey in Moscow should be the final straw that Russia is an entirely corrupt and (uninvestable) country,” Browder said in a tweet Friday. “Of all the people I knew in Moscow, Mike played by their rules, kept his head down and never criticized the government.”
Browder was denied entry into Russia in 2005 after his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, began investigating governmental misconduct and corruption in response to suspicious tax evasion charges brought against Hermitage by Russia’s Interior Ministry.
Magnitsky died under suspicious circumstances in Russian custody in 2009.
Seen as a ploy
For someone like Browder, it would seem Putin’s claim of political impotence in the face of a fully independent judiciary, despite copious historical evidence to the contrary, is nothing more than a cynical public relations ploy meant to portray Russia as a nation of procedural law, while denying justice and consular access to the very foreigners who fastidiously try to abide it.
Even prominent Putin allies, such as Russia’s ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin, have sounded the alarm, calling Calvey’s arrest an “economic emergency.”
For U.S. citizen Alexis O. Rodzianko, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a longtime Moscow resident, the initial shock of Calvey’s detention might, however ironically, reveal a longer-term opportunity to recalibrate Russia’s ties with foreign investors.
“Sure, at this point it’s damaging. It certainly makes every one of us who were here thinking about, ‘Well, you know, how far is it from me to his prison cell?’” he told VOA. “But I think it could be a defining issue for the business climate here. It could be the beginning of a bad streak, or it could be the signal for Russia to actually take some positive action.”
Rodzianko, who’s convinced the charges against Calvey are without legal merit, said he’s personally convinced the arrest stemmed from “a commercial dispute in the usual sense,” and that “people who set it up were not expecting the resonance that it (has) received.”
Asked if he thought Calvey’s arrest could be in any way politically motivated, he said he was convinced it was not.
“But then I think, in the circumstances, it can’t but be political, just because of the current state of affairs, because of the current state of relations,” Rodzianko said. “It’s just too easy to make that connection, which I don’t think is a proper connection, but I don’t see how it can be avoided.
Two possible outcomes
“I think it’s a symptom of a problem that Russia has, and Russia has to deal with,” he added. “It could (have one of) two outcomes.”
One, he said, is that Calvey’s arrest will come to signify a continuation of a malevolently corrupt practice that Russian and foreign investors have come to “face on an endemic basis.”
Or, “it might actually be a mistake which leads to significant reform, which might improve the situation for both foreigners and Russians investing in Russia,” Rodzianko said.
A spokeswoman for the Moscow district court said that Calvey, who was detained along with other members of the firm on suspicion of stealing $37.5 million (2.5 billion rubles), faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Pete Cobus is VOA’s acting Moscow correspondent.
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Pope Francis warned church leaders summoned Thursday to a landmark sex abuse prevention summit that the Catholic faithful are demanding more than just condemnation of the crimes of priests but concrete action to respond to the scandal.
Francis opened the four-day summit by telling the Catholic hierarchy that their own responsibility to deal effectively with priests who rape and molest children weighed on the proceedings.
“Listen to the cry of the young, who want justice,” and seize the opportunity to “transform this evil into a chance for understanding and purification,” Francis told the 190 leaders of bishops conferences and religious orders.
“The holy people of God are watching and expect not just simple and obvious condemnations, but efficient and concrete measures to be established,” he warned.
More than 30 years of scandal
More than 30 years after the scandal first erupted in Ireland and Australia and 20 years after it hit the U.S., bishops and Catholic officials in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia still either deny that clergy sex abuse exists in their regions or downplay the problem.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, called the summit after himself botching a well-known sex abuse cover-up case in Chile last year. Realizing he had erred, he has vowed to chart a new course and is bringing the rest of the church leadership along with him.
The summit is meant as a tutorial for church leaders to learn the importance of preventing sex abuse in their churches, tending to victims and investigating the crimes when they occur.
Survivors flock to Rome, seek justice
In the keynote speech, Manila Cardinal Luis Tagle choked up several times as he told the bishops that the wounds the scandal has caused among the faithful recalled the wounds of Christ on the cross. He demanded they longer run in fear or turn a blind eye to the harm caused by clergy sex abuse and their own inaction to halt the problem.
“Faith that would like to close its eyes to people’s suffering is just an illusion,” he said.
Abuse survivors have turned out in droves, coming to Rome to demand accountability and transparency from church leaders, saying the time of cover-ups is over.
Phil Saviano, who helped expose the U.S. abuse scandal by priests two decades ago, demanded that the Vatican release the names of abusers and their files.
“Do it to break the code of silence,” he told the organizing committee on the eve of the summit. “Do it out of respect for the victims of these men, and do it to help prevent these creeps from abusing any more children.”
Lowered expectations
The Vatican isn’t expecting any miracles or even a final document to come out of the summit, and the pope himself has tried to lower expectations.
But organizers say the meeting marks a turning point in the way the Catholic Church has dealt with the problem, with Francis’ own acknowledgment of his mistakes in handling the Chile abuse case a key point of departure.
“Our lack of response to the suffering of victims, yes even to the point of rejecting them and covering up the scandal to protect perpetrators and the institution has injured our people,” Tagle said in his speech. The result, he said, had left a “deep wound in our relationship with those we are sent to serve.”
Statue pulled down
Before the Vatican summit opened, activists in Poland pulled down a statue of a priest early Thursday after increasing allegations that he sexually abused minors. They said the stunt was to protest the failure of the Polish Catholic Church in resolving the problem of clergy sex abuse.
Video footage showed three men attaching a rope around the statue of the late Monsignor Henryk Jankowski in the northern city of Gdansk and pulling it to the ground in the dark. They then placed children’s underwear in one of the statue’s hands and a white lace church vestment worn by altar boys on the statue’s body.
The private broadcaster TVN24 reported the three men were arrested.
Jankowski, who died in 2010, rose to prominence in the 1980s through his support for the pro-democracy Solidarity movement against Poland’s communist regime. World leaders including President George H.W. Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited his church in recognition of his anti-communist activity.
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Scenes from the Oscar-nominated film Green Book depict post-World War II America as a land of wide prosperity, big cars, nation-spanning highways, and easy travel. But this was the Jim Crow era, before civil rights reforms, and discriminatory laws of the time made it challenging, even dangerous, for black motorists to move around the country. They simply weren’t welcome in most restaurants, hotels or other businesses.
So, enterprising New York City mail carrier Victor Green began publishing a travel guide, listing businesses where black motorists were welcome. He called it The Negro Motorist Green Book. It was published annually, from 1936 until 1966. At first just listing restaurants, lodgings, night clubs, grocery stores and gas stations in the New York area, it gradually expanded to include as many as 10,000 sites in nearly every U.S. state and parts of Canada, Mexico and Bermuda.
“Usually segregation is thought of as a Southern thing, a Southern problem,” said Ginna Cannon, a historian with the Rutherford County, Tennessee, Chamber of Commerce. “Really it was a national issue, and one that we all need to understand and come to terms with and do better in the future.”
The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, made the Green Book unnecessary almost overnight. Candacy Taylor, an author, photographer and cultural documentarian who has been researching Green Book sites, estimates that 20 percent are still standing, and about 3 percent are still in business.
Renewed interest in The Green Book and African-American history has prompted historians across the country to try to document the remaining sites in their states.
WATCH: Green Book Mapped a Safe Route Through Era of Discrimination
Documenting relics of discriminatory era
Working with architectural historians in Nashville and Chattanooga, the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University recently surveyed Green Book sites statewide.
Ginna Cannon was part of the research team.
“Places matter,” she said. “To have a story not associated with a property, it loses some of its resonance and that is really important for us to remember as we go forward as a country,” she said.
Tiffany Momon, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Middle Tennessee State, agrees.
“So much of African-American history is about place-making,” she said. Claiming a land and a space of their own after emancipation, and if we lose these buildings we lose these stories.”
Standing on Jefferson Street in downtown Nashville, where most of the city’s Green Book listings were once located, Momon said, “Think about what that life meant that you needed to have a guidebook to tell you how to get around a country where you were supposed to be equal … to tell you which establishments were friendly to you, and just imagine what it was like to stop in a town that wasn’t in the Green Book.”
Jefferson Street remains at the heart of the city’s African-American community. But many Green Book sites were lost in 1957 when a federal highway was built through the heart of North Nashville. Others were lost to the gentrification of historically black neighborhoods. A handful have found new life. For example, a motel that once catered to black motorists is now a nail salon and day spa.
One of the few Nashville Green Book sites still in business is Jefferson Street’s R&R Liquor. Owner Kenneth Christman says he is pleased to be part of the Green Book heritage and legacy.
“R&R serves as one of the last bastions of black business in this area, particularly now that gentrification is taking place,” he said. “We (African-American business owners) as a group have not had the privilege of having as many businesses survive, so it’s of particular importance in the community.”
Persevering and surviving
Tiffany Momon says documenting Green Book sites in Tennessee and elsewhere is about more than locations on a map.
“Black businesses that through the Jim Crow era, through the era when the Green Book was published, persevered and survived and paved the way. So the preservation of these sites is important so that we can continue to tell those types of stories,” she said.
Especially when those stories come at a time when the country is again wrestling with racial discord.
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The film “Green Book,” starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen is nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. The story, set in the early 1960s, centers on an interracial friendship. But it also shows the discrimination African-Americans faced while traveling across the country during the Jim Crow era, before civil rights reforms. Reporter Mike Osborne reports on an effort underway to document businesses that welcomed those travelers.
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Delivering his annual speech to Russian parliament Feb. 20, President Vladimir Putin promised an “asymmetric” response to the West and specifically to the United States, should Washington decide to deploy its intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. The Russian leader said his country would target “decision-making centers” in the West, if the US doesn’t give credence to Moscow’s concerns. Responding to Putin’s remarks, NATO said such threats are “unacceptable. Igor Tsikhanenka has more.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated 8 movies in the category of Best Picture. What are the elements that make a movie the best picture of the year? VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with award winning playwright and director Murray Horwitz about the chances of some of this year’s nominees making history at the 91st Academy Awards.
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У чвертьфіналі престижного турніру Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships перша ракетка України Еліна Світоліна зустрінеться з 26-ю ракеткою світу іспанкою Карлою Суарес Наварро.
Поєдинок відбудеться 21 лютого не раніше 18:30 за київським часом (початок залежить від терміну завершення інших поєдинків цієї стадії).
20 лютого в третьому колі Світоліна за годину розгромила екс-першу ракетку світу іспанку Ґарбінє Мугурузу (6:1, 6:2), а Суарес Наварро була сильнішою за француженку Крістіну Младенович – 7:5, 7:5.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow plans to target the United States with new hypersonic weapons if Washington deploys intermediate-range missiles in Europe.
“Russia will be forced to create and deploy weapons that can both be used on the territories from which the direct threat to us originates, as well as the territories where the centers of decision-making are located,” Putin said during his 15th State of the Nation address before the federal assembly in Moscow on Wednesday.
Putin’s frequent references to the moribund 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty came amid record-low approval ratings for the fourth-term Russian leader.
Putin rejected U.S. assertions that Washington’s decision to withdraw from the landmark arms control pact was triggered by Russian violations of the agreement. He charged that the U.S. made false accusations against Russia to justify its decision to opt out of the deal.
“The U.S. directly and crudely violated the rules of the [INF] agreement; they have had launchers in Romania for a long time,” he said, repeating a well-worn Kremlin talking point that refers to a Romania-based U.S. anti-ballistic missile system capable of firing Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles.
The United States has long said that system is designed to defend against “rogue” states such as Iran and provides no protection against Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
“Russia doesn’t intend to deploy new missiles in Europe first,” Putin added. “If the U.S. really is going to deploy missiles on the European continent, it will exacerbate the international situation and create a genuine danger for Russia, as there will be missiles with a 10-12 minute flight time to Moscow.”
He then seemed to taunt the U.S., calling on leaders to calculate the range and speed of Russia’s most advanced weapons.
“It’s their right to think how they want,” he said about U.S. leaders. “But can they count? I’m sure they can. Let them count the speed and the range of the weapons systems we are developing.
“The tests of Poseidon, an unmanned submarine with unlimited range, are going well… This hasn’t previously been said, but today I can say that by the spring of this year, the first atomic submarine will have been launched into the water.
“We are ready for disarmament talks, but we are no longer going to knock on a closed door,” he later said.
Russia began voicing skepticism about the value of a sustained bilateral arms treaty more than 10 years ago, when Kremlin officials asked the administration of then-President George W. Bush to consider expanding the treaty to bring rising nuclear powers such as China into compliance.
The majority of China’s nuclear arsenal is classified as intermediate range, meaning Chinese compliance with the INF would be tantamount to a wholesale forfeiture of its arsenal.
In December, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced U.S. plans to withdraw from the INF, he gave Russia 60 days to come back into compliance with the terms of the nuclear weapons pact, leaving the door open to reverse the withdrawal process.
“Russia has not taken the necessary steps to return to compliance over the last 60 days,” Pompeo said in a prepared statement on February 1. “It remains in material breach of its obligations not to produce, possess, or flight-test a ground-launched, intermediate-range cruise missile system with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
“The United States has gone to tremendous lengths to preserve the INF Treaty, engaging with Russian officials more than 30 times in nearly six years to discuss Russia’s violation, including at the highest levels of government,” he added.
According to terms of the original INF agreement, Moscow and Washington are obligated to six months of negotiations over differences, which, if unresolved, constitute full withdrawal from the treaty.
If the U.S. puts additional weapons in European host countries, Putin warned that Russia would not only target those nations, but field new weapons that will target “U.S. decision-making centers.”
Some information for this report is from AP and Reuters.
У Дніпрі у вівторок ввечері на площі Героїв Майдану провели акцію з вшанування пам’яті Героїв Небесної сотні: світлинами загиблих учасників Революції Гідності, кадрами тих подій, а також запаленими лампадками, дніпряни виклали напис «Герої не вмирають». Як передає кореспондент Радіо Свобода, напис зайняв майже всю центральну площу міста.
«Ми хотіли зробити цю акцію так, щоб усі присутні відчули те, що тоді відбувалось на Майдані. На піддонах виклали портрети всіх загиблих. Сьогодні не буде урочистих промов, не будуть виступати чиновники, ми хочемо, щоб молодь, жителі міста прийшли сюди і, дивлячись на портрети, згадали, якою ціною досягається воля, незалежність», – розповів заступник міського голови Олександр Шикуленко.
Священики різних конфесій – ПЦУ, УГКЦ, Вірменської Апостольської церкви – разом помолились за упокій загиблих. Представник єврейської громади зачитав іудейську поминальну молитву.
«Ми молитовно вшановуємо Героїв Небесної сотні й дякуємо їм за їхній подвиг. В ці дні ми маємо згадати цей дух, цю любов, цю самопожертву і самовіддачу, яка була п’ять років тому на Майдані», – сказав представник Дніпровської єпархії Православної церкви України Віталій Лопушанський.
Загиблих вшанували хвилиною мовчання.
На моніторі транслювали список загиблих майданівців, кадри Революції Гідності, а також відео з одним із перших загиблих на Майдані, уродженцем краю Сергієм Нігояном.
Зі сцени учасники акції розповіли про кожного із загиблих майданівців: жінок і чоловіків, молодих і пенсіонерів, підприємців, робітників, студентів. Також працював «вільний» мікрофон: слово брали дніпряни – учасники Революції Гідності.
Акція в центрі міста відбувалась як «тиха»: упродовж дня міська влада заборонила вмикати звук на ковзанці й екранах торгівельного центру поряд.
Сьогодні минає п’ять років від найкривавішого дня протистоянь серед усіх подій Майдану – 20 лютого. Тоді у центрі Києва загинули десятки людей. У період з 21 листопада 2013 року по 21 лютого 2014 року під час сутичок протестувальників із силовиками в центрі Києва загинули понад сто людей. Згодом загиблих учасників акцій протесту почали називати «Небесною сотнею».
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Michael Calvey, an American businessman who was detained in Moscow five days ago on fraud charges, has not yet had consular access, according to the head of a US-Russian trade organization.
“I’ve spoken to [Calvey’s] colleagues, but not him, since the detention,” said U.S. national Alexis O. Rodzianko, president of the Moscow-based American Chamber of Commerce in Russia. Calvey is the founding partner of the Moscow-based private equity firm Baring Vostok.
Speaking with VOA Tuesday evening in a Moscow hotel, Rodzianko, who had just left discussions about Calvey’s detention with various Russian, American and European members of Moscow’s financial community, said: “I understand [Calvey] has met with his lawyers; I understand that he has not yet had consular contact — that’s as of lunchtime today.”
According to terms of the Vienna Convention, consular access must be provided within a 72-hour window from the time of arrest, meaning that a member of the U.S. government should have visited Calvey in detention by now.
A State Department spokesman declined to confirm Rodzianko’s assertion, citing privacy concerns, but seemed to indicate that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow is still seeking access to the businessman.
“We are aware that a U.S. citizen was arrested on February 14, 2019, in Russia,” said the spokesperson, who spoke on condition of not being identified. “The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is aware of the case and will be following it closely, and will provide all appropriate consular assistance. We have no higher priority than the protection of U.S. citizens abroad.”
Calvey is the second American citizen to face prosecution in Russia since Dec. 31, when Paul Whelan, a former Marine, was jailed on accusations of spying. Russia announced Whelan’s detention on Dec. 31, some 24 hours after his arrest.
Whelan’s family sharply criticized Russia’s handling of the announcement, noting that security officials divulged his arrest hours into the start of New Year’s Eve, which in Russia marks the start of a week-long national holiday. Delaying the announcement, they said, drastically decreased Whelan’s chances of securing access to legal and consular resources within the mandated 72-hour window.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman Jr. was finally permitted to meet with Whelan six days after his arrest.
Fraud charges
Calvey is facing fraud charges stemming from a protracted dispute with shareholders of Vostochny Bank, of which Baring Vostok owns 52.5 percent. He was detained along with five others, including three Baring Vostok employees, according to the Russian state news agency, RIA Novosty.
A coalition of lobby groups representing European businesses active in Russia has issued a joint statement expressing concerns about the arrest of Calvey and his colleagues.
“The detention of Baring Vostok’s top management has sent shock waves through the country’s business community and can potentially seriously damage the investment climate and attractiveness of Russia for foreign direct investments,” it said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to make a passing reference to Calvey’s case during his annual State of the Nation address to the federal assembly on Wednesday.
“Good-faith business shouldn’t feel threatened by the law or constantly feel the risk of criminal or even administrative punishment,” Putin said.
If convicted, Calvey faces up to 10 years in a Moscow prison.
Pete Cobus is VOA’s acting Moscow correspondent.
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Українська біатлоністка Юлія Журавок принесла першу нагороду до скарбнички збірної України на чемпіонаті Європи, який 20 лютого стартував у білоруських Раубичах. В індивідуальній гонці Юлія стала срібною призеркою.
Завдяки майже ідеальній стрільбі (лише один промах) Журавок змогла випередити більшість суперниць. Єдиним винятком стала олімпійська чемпіонка в цій дисципліні шведка Ханна Еберґ, яка попри три промахи, випередила українку на фініші. Ще після четвертої стрільби Юлія мала перевагу 11 секунд, але швидке останнє коло дозволило шведській біатлоністці перемогти, випередивши конкурентку на 32,3 секунди.
Третьою стала білоруска Ірина Кривко.
Решту українок підвела стрільба. Валя Семеренко з чотирма промахами стала 11-ю, Анастасія Меркушина з п’ятьма невлучними пострілами – 18-ю, Ольга Абрамова з п’ятьма промахами фінішувала 47-ю. Провальну гонку провела Віта Семеренко – сім промахів, 51-ше місце.
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Meghan Markle has been spotted at several swanky venues in New York City, cradling her baby bump as she visited friends for what is rumored to be a baby shower. .
Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, was seen Tuesday entering The Mark hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, at a restaurant on the ground floor of The Met Breuer and at The Surrey Hotel.
The Duchess, who’s 37, wore sunglasses, a dark gray coat and neutral high heels with a matching bag.
As photographers waited outside the Mark, a high-end boxed crib and pink flowers were delivered.
Abigail Spencer, a co-star on Markle’s former TV show “Suits,” was spotted at one of the Markle gatherings.
Markle and her husband Prince Harry announced the pregnancy in October.
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Українські тенісистки Еліна Світоліна та Леся Цуренко сьогодні зіграють матчі третього кола на турнірі Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
За вихід до чвертьфіналу Світоліна побореться з іспанкою Гарбінє Мугурусою, а Цуренко зустрінеться з другою ракеткою світу, румункою Сімоною Халеп.
Матчі українок проходитимуть на центральному корті, де ігровий день почався о 9:00 за Києвом. Цуренко гратиме другим запуском, а Світоліна відкриє вечірню сесію (не раніше 17:00 за київським часом).
У третє коло Світоліна пройшла після відмови представниці Тунісу Онс Жабер за рахунку 7:6, 4:0, а Цуренко здобула перемогу у трисетовому протистоянні з китаянкою Чжу Лінь.
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Активісти громадської організації «Україна без сміття» відзвітували, що у 2018 році зібрали й передали на переробку понад 200 тонн сміття.
«Зібрали цінні вторинні ресурси і передали на переробку: 96 тонн паперу, 108 тонн скла, 48 тонн різних пластиків, до 10 тонн металевої тари. Одягу і взуття – понад 10 тонн, понад 3 тонн батарейок», – розповіли активісти.
Водночас в організації розповіли про фінансові проблеми: за рік їм вдалося залучити 3,1 мільйона гривень, при цьому витрати сягнули майже 4,2 мільйона гривень. У зв’язку з цим активісти започаткували кампанію зі збору коштів.
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Environmentalists urged EU policymakers on Tuesday to take a tougher stance on air pollution from coal power plants in the Western Balkans, blaming the fumes for 3,900 deaths across Europe each year.
The 16 Communist-era plants with 8 gigawatts (GW) capacity emitted the same amount of sulphur dioxide in 2016 as 250 coal-fired plants with 30 times more capacity in the rest of the European Union, five environmentalist groups said in a report.
Lignite, the most polluting coal, is widely available in the region, providing a cheap energy resource and the major source of energy for Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
The countries are members of the Energy Community, which had a commitment to implement EU rules to curb pollution by 2018.
But investments in new power plants or technology to cut emissions have largely been delayed, the report said.
“Air pollution knows no borders and is still an invisible killer in Europe,” said Vlatka Matkovic Puljic, senior health and energy officer at HEAL and the report’s lead author.
“It is high time that EU policymakers step up efforts to clean up the air and decarbonize the power sector,” she said.
The report said the West Balkan power plants caused pollution across the EU and beyond that caused health care costs of up to 11.5 billion euros ($13.02 billion) a year.
The region plans to add 2.7 GW of new coal plant capacity in the next decade, mainly financed by Chinese banks, the report said, adding that most plants would not meet the EU’s pollution control rules.
Governments in the region say they need to expand coal power generation to meet rising demand and ensure energy security and say that new coal plants would emit less greenhouse gases.
The report called for stricter rules to be imposed on the Energy Community and said the European Commission should make meeting those regulations a requirement for joining the EU.
For now, the countries in the Energy Community do not face any penalties if targets are not met.
“Rather than investing in yet more outdated coal power plants, Western Balkan leaders need to … increase the share of sustainable forms of renewable energy,” said Ioana Ciuta, Energy Coordinator at CEE Bankwatch, one of the five groups behind the report.
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The party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban should leave the mainstream European center-right grouping, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, comparing Orban to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
The unusually sharp comments, made at a public meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, came after the Hungarian government unveiled a new poster campaign accusing Juncker and philanthropist George Soros of wanting to flood Hungary with migrants.
“Against lies there’s not much you can do,” Juncker replied, adding that Manfred Weber, the European Peoples Party’s lead candidate for the upcoming European elections, would certainly be asking himself “if I need this voice” in the EPP.
Calls have been growing for Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP, which groups Christian Democratic and center-right parties in the European Parliament, because of Fidesz’s stridently anti-immigration campaigns.
Fidesz’s domestic strength, however, means it has a large delegation in the European legislature, and its removal from the EPP umbrella could erode the center-right’s current dominance of the Strasbourg parliament.
Juncker, previously the longtime center-right prime minister of Luxembourg, said he had called for Fidesz’s exclusion from the EPP.
“They didn’t vote for me in the European Parliament,” he said. “The far right didn’t either. I remember Ms. Le Pen, she said ‘I’m not voting for you.’ I said: ‘I don’t want your vote.’ There are certain votes you just don’t want.”
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Keira Knightley said her new film The Aftermath, set in the bombed-out ruins of Hamburg just after the end of World War II, had important lessons on building bridges that were very relevant for today’s divided societies.
The romantic drama sees Knightley play Rachael Morgan, who moves to Germany to be with her husband, a British colonel who has a leading role in the reconstruction effort in Hamburg. They move in with a German widower and his troubled daughter.
Her co-stars — Australian Jason Clarke who plays her husband Lewis, and Swedish Alexander Skarsgard who plays a German architect — also attended the world premiere Monday at London’s Picturehouse Central.
“It’s very relevant for now. It’s about building bridges, it’s about how we see each other as human beings and we don’t demonize each other and that’s obviously something that we need to do right now,” Knightley said.
The port city of Hamburg suffered a devastating bombing raid by the Allied forces in July 1943, known as “Operation Gomorrah,” that killed some 40,000 people and caused the destruction of swathes of the city.
“I knew nothing about the rebuilding of Germany … I haven’t thought about how unbelievably difficult it must have been to not only physically rebuild these places but also mentally for English and German people … who had been enemies, who had literally killed each other for six years, to suddenly forgive and move forward,” Knightley said.
Clarke said: “We’ve benefited so much from the Lewis Morgans who put Europe together … guys like him built it up and made Germany and Europe what it is today, we all stand on the threshold of wanting to tear it down.”
The Aftermath opens in cinemas in Britain on March 1, and in the United States on March 15.
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Thousands of people rallied across France after a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in recent weeks that culminated on Tuesday with vandals daubing swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery.
Political leaders from all parties, including former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Paris filling the Place de la Republique, a symbol of the nation, to decry anti-Semitic acts with one common slogan: “Enough!” People also lined the streets of cities from Lille in the north to Toulouse and Marseille in the south.
President Emmanuel Macron paid respects at one of the 96 desecrated graves in the village of Quatzenheim, near the eastern city of Strasbourg.
“Whoever did this is not worthy of the French republic and will be punished… We’ll take action, we’ll apply the law and we’ll punish them,” he said, walking through a gate scarred with a swastika as he entered the graveyard.
Macron later visited the national Holocaust memorial in Paris with the heads of the Senate and National Assembly.
France is home to the biggest Jewish community in Europe – around 550,000 – a population that has grown by about half since World War II, but anti-Semitic attacks remain common.
Government statistics released last week showed there were more than 500 anti-Semitic attacks in the country last year, a 74 percent increase from 2017.
“Some people are provoking the authority of the state. It needs to be dealt with now and extremely firmly,” Sarkozy told reporters. “It’s a real question of authority. Violence is spreading and it needs to stop now.”
Among incidents in recent days, “yellow vest” protesters were filmed hurling abuse on Saturday at Alain Finkielkraut, a well-known Jewish writer and son of a Holocaust survivor.
Artwork on two Paris post boxes showing the image of Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former magistrate, was defaced with swastikas, while a bagel shop was sprayed with the word “Juden”, German for Jews, in yellow letters. A tree in a Paris suburb in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 2006, was cut in two.
The series of attacks has alarmed politicians and prompted calls for action against what some commentators describe as a new form of anti-Semitism among the far-left and Islamist preachers.
“I call on all French and European leaders to take a strong stand against anti-Semitism,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message recorded in Hebrew. “It is an epidemic that endangers everyone, not just us.”
A rabbi and three children were killed at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 by an Islamist gunman, and in 2015 four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris were among 17 people killed by Islamist militants.
У жителів Землі 19 лютого (в українців орієнтовно з 18:00 за Києвом), випала нагода спостерігати супермісяць.
Таке астрономічне явище виникає, коли повний місяць збігається з проходом природного супутника планети через найближчу до Землі точку орбіти.
Тоді місяць виглядає значно більшим, ніж зазвичай, – сьогодні більший приблизно на 8%.
Раніше астрономи припустили, що сьогоднішній супермісяць стане «найбільшим» повним місяцем року.
В ніч з 20 на 21 січня жителі Землі спостерігали «кривавий вовчий супермісяць». Це явище відбувався одночасно з місячним затемненням, коли Земля опиняється між Місяцем і Сонцем, таким чином закривши супутник від зірки своєю тінню.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday for a second time declined to take up a case related to sexual misconduct allegations against Bill Cosby, refusing to consider reviving a defamation lawsuit against the comedian filed by a woman who said he falsely called her a liar after she accused him of raping her in 1974.
The justices turned away an appeal by Kathrine McKee, an actress and former Las Vegas showgirl, of a lower court ruling in Massachusetts that threw out her lawsuit. Separately, Cosby was sentenced last September to three to 10 years in prison in Pennsylvania for sexually assaulting another woman in 2004.
The Supreme Court last October snubbed an appeal by Cosby in another defamation case, allowing a lawsuit brought by former model Janice Dickinson to go forward against the entertainer best known for his starring role in the 1980s hit television series “The Cosby Show.”
McKee went public with her rape accusation against Cosby in a 2014 interview with the New York Daily News. She is one of more than 50 women who in recent years have accused Cosby of sexual assault dating back to the 1960s by using drugs to incapacitate them.
An attorney for Cosby then sent a letter to the newspaper, suggesting McKee was a liar and calling her an unreliable source. In the letter, Cosby’s lawyer said McKee had admitted lying to get hired as a showgirl.
McKee sued Cosby for defamation in 2015 in federal court in Boston, saying the letter made false statements and harmed her reputation.
A trial judge in Springfield, Massachusetts in 2017 dismissed her claims, saying the lawsuit was barred by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.
The appeals court said that by deliberately wading into the controversy, McKee had become a public figure, requiring her to prove Cosby acted with malice — meaning he knew his statements were false — to win a defamation claim.
McKee told the justices that she “should not be victimized twice over” by making it harder for her to prove defamation merely because she went public as an alleged victim.
Cosby, 81, was found guilty in April 2018 of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for the drugging and sexual assault of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University administrator, at his Philadelphia home in 2004. He was sentenced in that case on Sept. 25.
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Karl Lagerfeld, the iconic couturier whose designs at Chanel and Fendi had an unprecedented impact on the entire fashion industry, died Tuesday in Paris, prompting an outpouring of love and admiration for the man whose career spanned six decades.
Although he spent virtually his entire career at luxury labels catering to the very wealthy — including 20 years at Chloe — Lagerfeld’s designs quickly trickled down to low-end retailers, giving him global influence.
Former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who credits Lagerfeld as her mentor, called him her “magic dust.”
“What [Andy] Warhol was to art, he was to fashion; he is irreplaceable,” she said.
The German-born designer may have spent much of his life in the public eye — his trademark white ponytail, high starched collar and dark glasses are instantly recognizable — but he remained a largely elusive figure.
Such was the enigma surrounding the octogenarian Lagerfeld that even his age was a point of mystery for decades, with reports he had two birth certificates, one dated 1933 and the other 1938.
In 2013, Lagerfeld told the French magazine “Paris Match” he was born in September of 1935 — which would make him 83 today — but in 2019 his assistant still didn’t know the truth — telling The Associated Press he liked “to scramble the tracks on his year of birth — that’s part of the character.”
Chanel confirmed that Lagerfeld, who had looked increasingly frail in recent seasons, died early Tuesday in Paris. Last month, he did not come out to take a bow at the house’s couture show in Paris — a rare absence that the company attributed to him being “tired.”
“An extraordinary creative individual, Lagerfeld reinvented the brand’s codes created by Gabrielle Chanel: the Chanel jacket and suit, the little black dress, the precious tweeds, the two-tone shoes, the quilted handbags, the pearls and costume jewelry,” Chanel said.
The brand’s CEO Alain Wertheimer praised Lagerfeld for an “exceptional intuition” that was ahead of his time and contributed to Chanel’s global success.
“Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand,” he said.
Chanel said Virginie Viard, his longtime head of studio, will create the house’s upcoming collections, but did not say whether her appointment was permanent.
Tributes from fellow designers, Hollywood celebrities, models and politicians quickly poured in. Donatella Versace thanked Lagerfeld for the way he inspired her and her late brother Gianni Versace.
Lagerfeld was one of the most hardworking figures in the fashion world, joining luxury Italian fashion house Fendi in 1965 and later becoming its longtime womenswear design chief in 1977, as well as leading designs at Paris’ family-owned power-house Chanel since 1983.
While at Fendi, Lagerfeld helped create the notion of fun fur, lending an ease to a formal wardrobe topper by adding stylized touches.
At Chanel, he served up youthful designs that were always of the moment and sent out almost infinite variations on the house’s classic skirt suit, ratcheting up the hemlines or smothering it in golden chains, stings of pearls or pricey accessories.
Wit was never far behind any collection.
“Each season, they tell me [the Chanel designs] look younger. One day we’ll all turn up like babies,” he once told The Associated Press.
His outspoken and often stinging remarks on topics as diverse as French politics and celebrity waistlines won him the nickname “Kaiser Karl” in the fashion media. Among the most acid comments included calling former French President Francois Hollande an “imbecile” who would be “disastrous” for France in Marie-Claire, and telling The Sun British tabloid that he didn’t like the face of Pippa Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister.
“She should only show her back,” he advised.
Lagerfeld was also heavily criticized for sending out a negative message to women when he told France’s Metro newspaper that British singer Adele was “a little too fat.”
Despite this, he was very kind to his staff at Chanel, generous with his time with journalists and shared his Parisian mansion with a Siamese cat called Choupette.
“She is spoilt, much more than a child could be,” he told the AP in 2013.
Lagerfeld had little use for nostalgia and kept his gaze firmly on the future. Well into his 70s, he was quick to embrace new technology: He famously had a collection of hundreds of iPods. A photographer who shot ad campaigns for Chanel and his own eponymous label, Lagerfeld also collected art books and had a massive library and a bookstore as well as his own publishing house.
He was also an impressive linguist, switching between perfect French, English, Italian and his native German during interviews at fashion shows.
Even as he courted the spotlight, he made a deliberate effort to hide what was going on behind his trademark dark shades.
“I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that,” British Vogue quoted Lagerfeld as saying. “It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long.”
After cutting his teeth at Paris-based label Chloe, Lagerfeld helped revive the flagging fortunes of the storied Paris haute couture label Chanel in the `80s. There, he helped launch the careers of supermodels including Schiffer, Ines de la Fressange and Stella Tennant.
In a move that helped make him a household name, Lagerfeld designed a capsule collection for Swedish fast-fashion company H&M in 2004 and released a CD of his favorite music shortly after.
A weight-loss book he published in 2005 — “The Karl Lagerfeld Diet” — consolidated his status as a pop culture icon. In the book, Lagerfeld said it was his desire to fit into slim-cut Dior suits that had motivated his dramatic transformation.
The son of an industrialist who made a fortune in condensed milk and his violinist wife, Lagerfeld was born into an affluent family in Hamburg, Germany. He had artistic ambitions early on. In interviews, he variously said he wanted to become a cartoonist, a portraitist, an illustrator or a musician.
“My mother tried to instruct me on the piano. One day, she slammed the piano cover closed on my fingers and said, `draw, it makes less noise,” he was quoted as saying in the book “The World According to Karl.”
At 14, Lagerfeld came to Paris with his parents and went to school in the City of Light. His fashion career got off to a precocious start when, in 1954, a coat he designed won a contest by the International Wool Secretariat. His rival, Yves Saint Laurent, won that year’s contest in the dress category.
Lagerfeld apprenticed at Balmain and in 1959 was hired at another Paris-based house, Patou, where he spent four years as artistic director. After a series of jobs with labels including Rome-based Fendi, Lagerfeld took over the reins at Chloe, known for its romantic Parisian style.
Lagerfeld also started his own label, Karl Lagerfeld, which though less commercially successful than his other ventures, was widely seen as a sketchpad where the designer worked through his ideas.
In 1983, he took over at Chanel, which had been dormant since the death of its founder, Coco Chanel, more than a decade earlier.
“When I took on Chanel, it was a sleeping beauty — not even a beautiful one,” he said in the 2007 documentary “Lagerfeld Confidential.” “She snored.”
For his debut collection for the house, Lagerfeld injected a dose of raciness, sending out a translucent navy chiffon number that prompted scandalized headlines.
He never ceased to shake up the storied house, sending out a logo-emblazoned bikini so small the top looked like pasties on a string and another collection that dispensed entirely with bottoms, with the models wearing little jackets over opaque tights instead.
Lagerfeld was open about his homosexuality — he once said he announced it to his parents at 13 — but kept his private life under wraps. Following his relationship with a French aristocrat who died of AIDS in 1989, Lagerfeld insisted he prized his solitude above all.
“I hate when people say I’m `solitaire’ [or solitary.] Yes, I’m solitaire in the sense of a stone from Cartier, a big solitaire,” Lagerfeld told The New York Times. “I have to be alone to do what I do. I like to be alone. I’m happy to be with people, but I’m sorry to say I like to be alone, because there’s so much to do, to read, to think.”
As much as he loved the spotlight, Lagerfeld was careful to obscure his real self.
“It’s not that I lie, it’s that I don’t owe the truth to anyone,” he told French Vogue.
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Levitating objects and plastic boxes may not seem to have anything to do with landscape painting, but they are the contemporary take on an ancient Chinese art style called “shan shui hua” or mountain water painting.
Dating back more than 1,000 years, this style of landscape painting, which uses brush and ink, has evolved over time. The art form is evolving once again in an exhibit called “Lightscapes: Re-envisioning the Shanshuihua” at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles.
The goal of Nick Dong and Chi-Tsung Wu, the two artists in the exhibit, is to connect the new, digital generation to this traditional type of art and to capture its essence in a new way through modern technology.
The exhibit forces the viewer to slow down and experience a different world. That’s one of the objectives of the ancient masters of Chinese shan shui paintings.
Escape from reality
“Actually, it was for all these artists to create a world which they want to hide, avoid, escape from reality. So, they create a mountain (and) imagine they could live there,” said Dong, an artist born in Taiwan who now lives in Northern California.
Trained in both Chinese and Western art styles, Dong and Wu use experimental materials and light in the various art pieces in the exhibit.
In a contemporary approach to what’s real and what is not, one installation involves a slowly moving light directed at clear plastic boxes attached to a wall.
“If we see this through the light, through the different perspective, we could see there’s another world behind that,” Wu said about his installation called Crystal City.
That other world Wu referenced are shadows that look more real and solid than the actual plastic boxes. Wu said the art installation is symbolic of the modern digital age.
“We spend most of our time in our daily life, no matter to work or to our social life or our entertainment, all on this cyberspace,” he said.
That space is an escape for many people similar to the landscape paintings.
Philosophy and the spiritual
To capture the philosophical elements of the landscape painting, magnets are used to levitate objects to show that there is a force between everything in nature.
Another art piece in the exhibit is a take on one’s relationship with the universe. To view Dong’s representation of heaven, one has to step into a room filled with mirrors from ceiling to floor. There is a stool in the middle of the room.
“We’re all searching. We’re all longing for growth, become better and, ultimately, good enough to go to heaven. So, in my mind, heaven is a place of selfless, so eventually once you’ve entered the installation, at first you’ll see a lot of your reflection. But once you sit down, you trigger the mechanism of the room. The mirror actually starts to reflect, and you yourself will disappear within the space. You vanish. All you have is this empty, wide-open space. For me, it’s the ultimate evolution,” Dong explained.
The art pieces in the exhibit are ways the artists hope the modern-day viewer will be able to experience what the ancient artists of the landscape paintings were trying to achieve.
“They (ancient scholars) were able to say, ‘We’re seeking a spiritual outlet. We’re seeking a way to refine the spirit and refine the soul.’ This work, today, it’s hard to have that experience with the traditional artwork because they’re such a contained device. You see them in a museum under glass, and they’re hard to approach,” said Justin Hoover curator of the Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles.
Contemporary artists hope their use of lighting and experimental materials will make an ancient art form more tangible and real in the 21st century.
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