For Poor Venezuelans, a Box of Food May Sway Vote for Maduro

A bag of rice on a hungry family’s kitchen table could be the key to Nicolas Maduro retaining the support of poor Venezuelans in May’s presidential election.

For millions of Venezuelans suffering an unprecedented economic crisis, a monthly handout of a box of heavily-subsidized basic food supplies by Maduro’s unpopular government has offered a tenuous lifeline in their once-prosperous OPEC nation.

The 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez introduced the so-called CLAP boxes in 2016 in a signature policy of his rule, continuing the socialist government’s strategy of seeking public support with cash bonuses and other giveaways.

Now, running for re-election on May 20, Maduro says the CLAPs are his “most powerful weapon” to combat an “economic war” being waged by Washington, which brands him a “dictator” and has imposed sanctions.

Mariana, a single mother who lives in the poor hillside neighborhood of Petare in the capital Caracas, says the handouts will decide her vote.

“I and other women I know are going to vote for Maduro because he’s promising to keep giving CLAPs, which at least help fix some problems,” said the 30-year-old cook, who asked not to give her surname for fear of losing the benefit.

“When you earn minimum wage, which doesn’t cover exorbitant prices, the box helps.”

Maduro’s rule since 2013 has coincided with a deep recession caused by a plunge in global oil prices and failed state-led economic policies.

Yet the worse the economy gets, the more dependent some poor Venezuelans become on the state.

Life in the South American country’s poor ‘barrios’ revolves around the CLAP boxes. According to the government, six million families receive the benefit, from a population of around 30 million people.

Venezuelans, many of whom are undernourished, anxiously wait for their monthly delivery, and a thriving black market has sprung up to sell CLAP products.

The government sources almost all the CLAP goods from abroad, especially from Mexico, since Venezuela’s food production has shriveled and currency controls restrict private imports.

Critics, including Maduro’s main challenger for the May 20 vote, Henri Falcon, say the CLAPs are a cynical form of political patronage and are rife with corruption.

Erratic supply and control of distribution by government-affiliated groups have sown resentment among others.

“I can’t count on it. Sometimes it comes, sometimes not,” said Viviana Colmenares, 24, an unemployed mother of six struggling to get by in Petare.

“Instrument of the Revolution”

Stamped with the faces of Maduro and Chavez, the CLAP boxes usually contain rice, pasta, grains, cooking oil, powdered milk, canned tuna and other basic goods. Recipients pay 25,000 bolivars per box, or about $0.12 at the black market rate.

That is a godsend in a country where the minimum monthly wage is less than $2 at that rate – and would be swallowed up by two boxes of eggs or a small tin of powdered milk.

Inflation, at more than 4,000 percent annually according to opposition data, is pulverizing household income.

The administration of the CLAP — the Local Supply and Production Committees — does not hide its political motivation.

“The CLAPs are here to stay. They are an instrument of the revolution,” said Freddy Bernal, CLAP chief administrator.

“It has helped us stop a social explosion and enabled us to win elections and to keep winning them,” he told Reuters, referring to government victories in 2017 local polls.

Sometimes, though, the tactic backfires, as it did when promised free pork failed to arrive over Christmas, prompting street protests.

Maduro’s inability to halt rising hunger has jarred with the experience of many under Chavez, who won the presidency in 1998 and improved Venezuela’s social indicators with oil-fueled welfare policies.

Even though Maduro’s approval rating is only around 26 percent, according to one recent poll, his re-election looks likely as Venezuela’s opposition coalition is boycotting the vote on accusations it is rigged.

His most popular rivals are banned from standing and the election board favors the government.

Former state governor Falcon has broken with the coalition to stand. One survey by pollster Datanalisis in February showed that in a two-way race, he would defeat Maduro by 45.8 percent to 32.2 percent of likely voters.

Falcon’s critics counter that those numbers mean nothing in the face of electoral irregularities that could arbitrarily tip the balance in favor of Maduro.

Several other minor figures have registered for the single-round election, but have little chance of making an impact.

‘Can’t Depend on the Box’

Juan Luis Hernandez, a food specialist at the Central University of Venezuela, estimates the country generates just 44 percent of the basic food supplies it produced in 2008.

Meanwhile, food imports fell 67 percent between the start of 2016 and the end of 2017 as the crisis bit, he said.

Almost two-thirds of Venezuelans surveyed in a university study published in February said they had lost on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) in body weight last year. Eighty-seven percent were assessed to live in poverty.

The same study found that seven out of 10 Venezuelans had received CLAPs.

“They (the government) don’t care about the food issue, just about getting people something to eat while they get through the elections,” said Susana Raffalli, a consultant with charity Caritas.

Some Venezuelans fear they would be found out should they vote against Maduro and be punished by no longer receiving food bags.

Already handouts are far from guaranteed.

A dozen recipients told Reuters that often they arrived half-full and would only come every few months. Outside of the capital Caracas, delivery was even more sporadic.

“I can’t depend on the box, otherwise I would die from hunger,” said Yuni Perez, a 48-year-old rubbish collector and mother of three.

Perez, who lives in a ramshackle house made from breeze blocks and corrugated steel at the top of Petare, said a CLAP box provided her family with food for a week. Often they would receive one every two months.

When her family is short of food, she hunts for leftovers dumped on the side of Petare’s winding streets. She said she had found several newborn babies discarded in the gutter, which she attributed to mothers unable to face providing food for another child.

Another Petare resident, mother-of-three Yaneidy Guzman said she dropped from 68kg to 48kg last year, despite receiving the CLAP.

“At least for 10 days you don’t have to think about finding food,” the 32-year-old said of the handouts, her cheekbones protruding from her face.

Growing Food at -30, The Chef on an Arctic Self-sufficiency Mission

In one of the planet’s most northerly settlements, in a tiny Arctic town of about 2,000 people, Benjamin Vidmar’s domed greenhouse stands out like an alien structure in the snow-cloaked landscape.

This is where in summer the American chef grows tomatoes, onions, chilies and other vegetables, taking advantage of the season’s 24 hours of daily sunlight.

During winter’s four months of darkness, when temperatures can reach -30 Celsius (-22°F), Vidmar tends to microgreens – the leaves and shoots of young salad plants – and dozens of quails in two rooms beneath his home.

He is the sole supplier of locally-grown food in the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen in the Svalbard archipelago. The North Pole is about 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) to the north; mainland Norway is about as far south.

Growing food in such conditions can be “mission impossible” but it is necessary, Vidmar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He hopes to set an example for other remote towns in the region.

“We are so dependent on imports. Everything is by boat and plane,” said Vidmar, who comes from Cleveland, Ohio, and who has lived here for nearly a decade.

That makes the town vulnerable, he said. In 2010, stores in Longyearbyen stood empty after an Icelandic volcano erupted, bringing air transport to a halt. And the cost of imported food and its quality “is often disappointing.”

His company, Polar Permaculture, aims to produce enough food for the town and process all its organic and biological waste.

It sounds ambitious, but the firm, which received support from a government-funded body that helps startups, broke even last year, just two years in.

It was helped by the fact that he and his teenage son do not draw salaries, and Vidmar still cooks full-time at a school.

‘Crazy’ to Try

Vidmar’s produce now appears on many of Longyearbyen’s menus, including at Huset restaurant where intricate, multi-course Nordic tasting menus are served in stately surroundings.

Alongside reindeer steak and tartare of bearded seal is a delicate dish of quail egg with dill, red onions and anchovies on flatbread.

“We would not use quail eggs unless they were local so we designed a dish as soon as we got the opportunity to try them,” said Filip Gemzell, Huset’s head chef.

Vidmar first stepped foot in Svalbard in 2007 while working as a chef on a cruise ship. One of his first thoughts was, “How can people live here?,” but he was also intrigued.

“The sad part (in America) is you work so hard and you still have to worry about money. Then you come here and you have all this nature. No distraction, no huge shopping centers, no billboards saying, ‘buy, buy, buy.'”

A year later, he moved to the island and started working at restaurants and bars in Longyearbyen, a coal mining town turned tourist-and-research attraction.

He decided to grow his own food after becoming frustrated with the absence of fresh produce and the fact that a lack of treatment sites meant organic waste was dumped into the sea.

People thought he was “crazy” trying to grow food in the Arctic.

Initially he experimented with hydroponics – farming in water instead of soil – but that meant using fertilizer, which comes from the mainland. Eventually the city authorities gave him permission to bring in worms from Florida to do the job.

Now, whenever he or his son deliver a tray of microgreens to restaurants, they collect the previous tray and feed the soil to the worms, which break it down to produce natural fertilizer for bigger plants.

His next aim is to heat the greenhouse during winter using a biodigester – which generates energy from organic material – so he can use it all-year-round.

Sustainability

Vidmar also helps fourth- and ninth-grade students at Longyearbyen school to learn farming and sustainability. That has led older students to query the island’s supply chain, said teacher Lisa Dymbe Djonne.

“They question the transportation of food from the mainland to here and how expensive that is,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

“They’re going to interview some of the leaders … to figure out how much it costs for the island and if it is possible to grow our own food,” she added. “It’s a question a lot of people up here have.”

Eivind Uleberg, a scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research in Tromso in northern Norway, said that fitted a pattern of rising interest in locally produced food and sustainability in agriculture.

In a phone interview, Uleberg said that, although he was unaware of Vidmar’s undertaking, efforts to produce food locally in Norway were positive.

A short growing season and low temperatures are the main barriers to producing food in such latitudes, he said, but higher temperatures caused by climate change could help.

“There is definitely the potential to produce more vegetables and berries,” he said.

But there are also challenges, Uleberg added, including more rain in the autumn during harvest, and changing conditions in winter that could kill grasses crucial for animal feed.

For Vidmar, such obstacles and the unique conditions are the reason he is determined to produce “the freshest food possible.”

“We’re on a mission … to make this town very sustainable. Because if we can do it here, then what’s everybody else’s excuse?”

Mystery of Texas Parcel Bombs Breeds Fear, Speculation

If police in Austin, Texas, see a pattern in the three package bombs that have struck fear in the state’s capital this month, they are not revealing it, insisting they do not know the motive or see a common thread among the victims.

As a consequence, residents of the three neighborhoods where the bombs exploded quickly filled the vacuum with theories of their own.

The first bombing on March 2 killed Anthony Stephan House, 39, a black man. A bomb Monday morning killed Draylen Mason, 17, also black, and injured his mother. A few hours later, a third bombing injured a 75-year-old Hispanic woman.

The demographics of the victims have fueled speculation that the attacks were racially motivated, but police say they do not know why the victims were targeted.

Perhaps local political rivalries, someone displaced by Austin’s gentrification or even a Unabomber-type attacker angry at city’s emergence as a technology center may be responsible for the attacks, some residents have wondered aloud.

‘Random maliciousness’

“You would think there would be a note, or a reason. At this point, it is just random maliciousness,” said Ryan Jones, 39, who runs the lunch program at a local charter school.

Jones lives with his wife and two children a few doors down from the 75-year-old woman who was injured, in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood of small homes with sporadic petty crime.

The Jones children used to run to the door when a package was delivered, but their parents have warned them to stop.

“Our children are very aware now. And they are scared as well,” said his wife Janet, 39, and a business owner.

The bombings have targeted three different neighborhoods of Austin so far, both affluent and not so much. Each of them is miles away from the others.

Police said the powerful devices were similar to one another, all of them packed in parcels that were delivered at night, but not by the U.S. Postal Service or any commercial package delivery company.

“We need to put a stop to this before anybody else in our community is seriously injured or killed,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told a news conference on Tuesday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. agencies are helping local police link the bombs to a suspect.

“It reminded me of the Unabomber,” said Brandon Rendon, 27, a contractor who lives a few houses down from the 75-year-old woman.

Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, was convicted in 1998 of killing three people and injuring 23 others in a mail bombing campaign against modern technology that was waged for almost two decades.

South by Southwest

Two of the bombings in Austin took place during the South by Southwest festival of movies, innovation and music that draws about half a million people to the city, many to celebrate the latest technology developments.

Police have said there is no link between the parcel bombing and the festival, but urged visitors to be vigilant.

“We need to be aware because [the festival] could be a target for something similar,” said Trent Koch, 22, a Colorado State University student who is taking part.

Jay Brewer, 52, an African-American security guard, lives a few doors down from the 17-year-old boy who was killed. The block of stone ranch houses with manicured lawns is home to several black families, and he believes race could have been a motivating factor in the attacks.

“For most people of color and Hispanics … this is par for the course. Sadly, you have insane people out there who target you, and in their minds, your only crime is how you were born,” he said.

Can Pop-Ups Pave the Way to Thriving Public Space in World’s Cities?

On a patch of gravel that was once a nondescript bus stop in Kuala Lumpur’s old city, passersby can now find brightly-painted wooden pallets that double as seating and shelves stocked with free books for the taking. At least, for the time being.

The transformation is temporary, a monthlong demonstration to judge the public’s reaction to the idea of turning a slice of the sprawling Malaysian capital no bigger than a small hotel room into a permanent public space.

This try-it-before-you-buy-it approach is known as a pop-up.

Pop-ups have become popular in many cities, often the brainchild of local residents in an effort to improve their neighborhoods or turn derelict spaces into community hubs.

They include cycling activists who paint bike lanes without government approval to push for safer streets, retailers who launch temporary shops in repurposed shipping containers to revitalize flagging high streets or food trucks gathered in empty parking lots.

“We’ve found by working with cities sometimes they are a little bit wary about having to put a lot of investment into public spaces,” said Cecilia Anderson, who leads the public space program at UN-Habitat, the U.N.’s lead agency on urban issues.

“Sometimes it helps to do a small pop-up public space just to showcase on a temporary level what kinds of benefits it has for the city, the citizens, and that neighborhood.”

Public space has been shrinking in the world’s fast-growing cities, where almost 70 percent of the population is expected to live by 2050, compared to just over half today, according to U.N. estimates.

Experts say, however, it should be a paramount goal for city leaders as research shows inadequate, poorly designed or privatized public spaces generate exclusion and marginalization.

“Public space is really the backbone or the skeleton of the city,” Anderson told Reuters.

Highlighting its importance for social inclusion and well-being, public space was included as a target in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim to provide universal access to “safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces” by 2030.

‘Ultimate irony’

In Kuala Lumpur’s bustling historic center, local urban regeneration agency Think City installed a pop-up plaza along Petaling Street and three small green spaces, known as parklets.

They form a cluster of benches, plants, and overhead canvas for shade taking up the size of a parking spot along the busy street, as well as a mock microhousing unit in an existing park.

It also spruced up a laneway next to the agency’s headquarters with a mural and a chalkboard inviting ideas on how else to improve the neglected alley.

For Think City director Neil Khor, the pop-ups are an attempt to reignite flagging interest in public space among residents in the city of 6.5 million people.

“This is the ultimate irony — when I was growing up, we had more public space,” said Khor, whose organization works on community-based urban regeneration.

“Some time in the 1980s, we had this mall culture from the United States. Suddenly the public space is exactly inside the mall.”

What people want

While Kuala Lumpur’s extravagant malls never seem to lack for visitors, the pop-ups garnered mixed reviews, if they were noticed at all.

On two recent visits to the temporary public spaces, some of the parklets were empty, though one equipped with mobile phone chargers proved popular with a quartet of teenagers.

A parklet adorned with a chessboard sat vacant while next door, Bangladeshi migrants conducted a vibrant trade in fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk, their produce truck blocking a freshly painted bike lane.

The plaza bedecked with bookshelves drew several curious onlookers, who were invited to leave comments on what they would like to see in the space, and whether it should be made permanent.

Visitors asked for more seating, a drinking fountain, shade and a playground for children. Most respondents declared their enthusiasm for a permanent plaza.

“It’s wonderful, it looks good, it makes the place beautiful and lively. No complaints,” said paralegal John Ng, who stopped by after work.

“There should be more public spaces instead of tall buildings and cars,” he said, standing in the middle of the plaza.

Retiree Emily Tan, taking a break from a shopping trip in Chinatown, preferred to sit on permanent benches next to the pop-up and take in the view.

“This one they should develop as a park,” she said. “More plants, flowers, and let people sit down.”

Universal design

While officially-sanctioned pop-up public spaces can be found in cities around the world, the trend started in the developed world.

A San Francisco design firm invented the parklet, and New York City became a model for carving out small plazas from unused odds and ends on the city’s streets.

“These temporary approaches in the global north were meant to bring informality to cities that didn’t have them,” said Ethan Kent from New York-based non-profit Project for Public Spaces. “These were solutions meant to bring back that life to the streets.”

But as the concept and the designs that go with them have become universal, critics question whether pop-ups can work just everywhere.

“On the one hand, it looks like a free street library, where you’re encouraged to take a book you like,” said Emily Silverman, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“But the black base, cheerful colors, and especially the position in the middle of a street during an international conference, signal ‘don’t touch,'” said Silverman, referring to the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur last month.

She said in Jerusalem, free street libraries worked well in secular and middle-class professional areas, but they got vandalized in ultra-Orthodox areas, for fear they would help distribute otherwise forbidden books.

“The [pop-up’s] lure of ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’ can encourage artificial importing, ignoring local context to just get stuff done,” she said.

Khor defended the overall initiative in Kuala Lumpur as a valuable social experiment.

He noted an impromptu badminton game in the alleyway, chess matches between migrants in the parklet, a tea shop that regularly waters the plants in the parklet, and crowds eager to explore a micro-housing prototype.

“I’m not saying these projects are perfect,” he said. “We wanted to show that urban regeneration is a process.”

Чийгоз у ПАРЄ розповів про посилення репресій проти кримських татар на окупованому півострові

Заступник голови Меджлісу кримськотатарського народу Ахтем Чийгоз, а також інші члени української делегації розповіли на засіданні моніторингового комітету ПАРЄ про посилення репресій проти кримських татар в анексованому Криму. Про це віце-президент парламентської асамблеї Володимир Ар’єв повідомив 13 березня у Facebook.

«На моніторинговому комітеті ПАРЄ ми разом з Ахтемом Чийгозом та Олександрою Романцовою (керівниця проектів Центру громадянських свобод – ред.) поінформували про стан справ із посиленням репресій проти кримських татар в анексованому Криму, про масові «судові» розправи з одиночними пікетами, про атмосферу страху і примусу до участі в незаконних «виборах» президента в Криму. Я також ознайомив комітет з ухваленим Верховною Радою України зверненням до міжнародної спільноти щодо цих так званих «виборів». Дискусія показала повне розуміння делегатів ПАРЄ, що саме влаштували російські окупанти на анексованій території», – вказав Ар’єв.

Крім того, за словами Ар’єва, моніторинговий комітет одноголосно вирішив підтримати підготовку спеціальної доповіді та резолюції щодо ситуації з кримськими татарами.

Міжнародні організації визнали окупацію та анексію Криму незаконними й засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили ряд економічних санкцій. Росія заперечує окупацію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості». Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила датою початку тимчасової окупації Криму і Севастополя Росією 20 лютого 2014 року.

Речниця СБУ заявила, що «не володіє» інформацією про візит голови ЦРУ Помпео на Донбас

Речниця Служби безпеки України Олена Гітлянська заявила Радіо Свобода, що «не володіє» інформацією про візит голови Центрального розвідувального управління США Майка Помпео на Донбас.

«Я не володію такою інформацією. Єдине, що знаю, – 8 березня голова СБУ Василь Грицак був у Києві», – сказала Гітлянська.

13 березня «Дзеркало тижня» з посиланням на свої джерела написало, що 8 березня Помпео відвідав Україну за запрошенням Грицака. За інформацією видання, голова ЦРУ побував у прикордонних з окупованими територіями районах Донбасу, зокрема, у Краматорську, який відвідав разом з Грицаком.

13 березня президент США Дональд Трамп повідомив, що Тіллерсон звільнений із посади державного секретаря США. Президент зазначив, що американське зовнішньополітичне відомство очолить Майк Помпео, а головою ЦРУ стане його заступниця Джина Геспел.

Trump Ousts Tillerson, Replaces Him With Pompeo

President Donald Trump has ousted his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and is replacing him with CIA director Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo is to be replaced at CIA by Gina Haspel, Pompeo’s deputy at CIA. 

“Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!,” Trump said on Twitter Tuesday.

“The President wanted to make sure to have his new team in place in advance of the upcoming talks with North Korea and various ongoing trade negotiations,” said a senior White House official, regarding the timing of the announcement.

President Trump announced last week he had agreed to meet in person with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.  Details have yet to be worked out.

VOA White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report

 

Клімкін назвав небезпечною пропозицію Собчак провести повторний референдум у Криму

Міністр закордонних справ України Павло Клімкін назвав небезпечною пропозицію кандидата в президенти Росії Ксенії Собчак провести в анексованому Криму повторний референдум. Міністр заявив про це перед щорічною зустріччю керівництва Меджлісу кримськотатарського народу з іноземними дипломатами, в Києві 13 березня, повідомляє кореспондент проекту Радіо Свобода Крим.Реалії.

«У 2014-му році вона (Ксенія Собчак – ред.) називала окупацію «блискуче проведеною військовою операцією». Сьогодні ж, визнаючи факт порушення міжнародного права, вона не пропонує це виправити, а пропонує провести якийсь міфічний референдум тільки на території окупованого Криму. Хто, за визначенням, повірить у чесність цього референдуму? Такі пропозиції з боку Собчак – небезпечні. Якщо це її щира позиція – будемо розмовляти. Але на подібні трюки, які легітимізують окупацію Криму Росією, ми не підемо. Будь-який референдум, якщо він проводиться, то на всій території України», – зазначив Клімкін.

У Києві 13 березня відбулася традиційна щорічна зустріч лідерів Меджлісу кримськотатарського народу і послів іноземних держав, на якій лідери Меджлісу мали намір донести до дипломатів своє бачення кроків із деокупації Криму і подальшої реінгеграції півострова як кримськотатарської автономії.

Раніше кандидат у президенти Росії Ксенія Собчак заявляла, що Києву і Москві необхідно провести спільний референдум про статус анексованого Криму.

Міжнародні організації визнали окупацію і анексію Криму незаконними і засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили низку економічних санкцій. Росія заперечує окупацію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості». Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила датою початку тимчасової окупації Криму і Севастополя Росією 20 лютого 2014 року.

Аваков: під час обшуків у наметовому містечку під Радою затримали 117 людей

Під час обшуків у наметовому містечку біля будівлі Верховної Ради в Києві затримали 117 людей, повідомив міністр внутрішніх справ Арсен Аваков, відповідаючи на запитання Радіо Свобода. Раніше була інформація, що до відділів поліції доставили 111 людей.

Він зазначив, що затримали людей, які здійснювали супротив поліції, з них близько 11 осіб були учасниками АТО.

«Протягом чотирьох годин після встановлення особистості цих людей відпустили, щодо двох осіб відкрили відповідні провадження, одна особа перебувала в розшуку, її передали до Святошинського відділу поліції», – сказав Аваков.

За його словами, у спецоперації брали участь близько 500 поліцейських, з них більше 200 осіб – учасники АТО.

«Я попросив уточнити, скільки учасників АТО було серед тих, хто брав участь в операції з боку Національної гвардії та поліції. Більше 200, з них понад 100 осіб нагороджені не медальками «учасник АТО», а бойовими орденами та медалями. Це до питання справжності персонажів», – Аваков.

Поліція 3 березня демонтувала наметове містечко біля Верховної Ради, яке було встановлене активістами в жовтні минулого року і яке заблокувало й вулицю Грушевського, одну з важливих транспортних магістралей Києва. Поліцейських звинуватили у надмірно жорстокій поведінці, зокрема в перешкоджанні роботі журналістів і в тому, що частина їх була без розпізнавальних знаків.

Загалом після подій під Верховною Радою 3 березня, як повідомили в поліції, до лікарень звернулися 13 людей з числа тих, що були в наметовому містечку, і семеро працівників поліції.

Збірна України з біатлону не братиме участь у Кубку світу в Росії – Жданов

Збірна України з біатлону не братиме участь в етапі Кубку світу в Росії, повідомив міністр молоді та спорту України Ігор Жданов у Facebook.

Він заявив, що зустрівся з президентом Федерації біатлону України Володимиром Бринзаком.

«Держава не має права втручатися у діяльність спортивних федерацій як окремих громадських організацій. Але всі правила мають виняток. Бо йдеться про країну-агресора, країну, яка систематично нехтує міжнародним законодавством, у тому числі у спорті, не дотримується антидопінгових правил», – написав Жданов.

Президент Федерації біатлону України Володимир Бринзак заявляв, що рішення про те, чи поїде збірна України з біатлону на етап Кубка світу в Тюмені, має ухвалювати Міністерство молоді і спорту. 

Наприкінці лютого Асоціації біатлону США й Чехії оголосили про бойкот етапу Кубка світу сезону 2017–2018 років, який пройде в російській Тюмені в березні. У заяві американської асоціації, зокрема, зазначається, що Росія, як і раніше, не відповідає кодексу Всесвітнього антидопінгового агентства, а спортсменам, які приїжджають в країну, загрожує небезпека.

У кінці минулого року про бойкот змагань у Тюмені повідомила Асоціація біатлону Канади. Своє рішення біатлоністи пояснили недовірою до російської антидопінгової системи.

Summit Raises Hope North Korea Will Release 3 US Detainees

Hopes for the release of three American citizens imprisoned in North Korea got a big boost by the news of a possible summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Freeing the prisoners would be relatively low-hanging fruit and a sign of goodwill by Kim. It would also mark something of a personal success for Trump, who has highlighted the issue since last June, when University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier died days after North Korea turned him over to American authorities.

 

Trump banned Americans from traveling to the North in response and featured Warmbier’s father prominently in his State of the Union speech in January.

 

A look at who the current American prisoners are and what a prison sentence in North Korea can entail:

 

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The prisoners

 

All three Americans now doing time in the North are men, and all three are ethnic Koreans.

 

Two of them – Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song – were instructors at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology prior to their arrest and conviction. They are accused of anti-state activities and trying to overthrow the government. The university, which has not been linked to their arrests, is the only privately funded college in the North, founded in 2010 on donations from Christian groups.

 

Tony Kim, who taught accounting, has been in custody since April last year and is serving a 15-year sentence. Kim Hak Song, an agriculture specialist and evangelical minister who resided with his wife in China, was taken into custody about a month later. He remains in custody, but it’s not clear whether he has been sentenced or what his current status is.

 

The third and longest-serving prisoner, Kim Dong Chul, is a former Virginia resident who reportedly claims to have been the president of a trade and hotel services company in Rason, a special economic zone on the North Korean border with Russia. He was sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor after being convicted of espionage.

 

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How they are tried

 

Suspects are often arrested when they try to leave North Korea. Warmbier, who was charged with anti-state crimes and the attempted theft of a propaganda banner, and Tony Kim were taken into custody at Pyongyang’s international airport. Kim Hak Song was taken while on a train on his way home to China.

 

Before being put on trial, detainees are often held in a house-arrest-type situation at their hotel, and some say they were expected to pay the hotel bill for the extra days. They may also be moved to guesthouses or places where they are less likely to be seen by others while the investigation is underway.

 

Suspects are pushed hard to sign a confession, which many recant after they leave the country, and guilt is generally assumed by the time the case reaches a judge, or a panel of three judges. With little doubt about the outcome, rarely do the proceedings take more than one day _ or even a few hours _ to complete.

 

Foreigners charged with serious crimes such as espionage generally have their cases sent directly to the Supreme Court.

 

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Life in prison

 

Americans aren’t thrown into the same prison system as North Koreans.

 

Kenneth Bae, a missionary from Washington state who spent two years in prison, said he was kept for the most part in a foreigners-only work camp. It’s possible it was, in fact, meant only for him – he never saw another prisoner there.

 

In an interview in Pyongyang, the capital, just before his 2016 release, Bae told The Associated Press that he was moved from the work camp to a hospital because of failing health and weight loss. He said he was then sent back to the work camp, which he believed was located not far outside Pyongyang. He said he did a lot of digging and farm-related labor.

 

Bae, who was also accused of trying to overthrow the government, said after his release that his cell was small and barren and he was frequently interrogated early on. But he said he was never beaten and was allowed to keep his Bible and pray openly.

 

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How they are freed

 

The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang acts as a go-between when an American is detained.

 

North Korea claims that releasing American prisoners before they have completed their sentences is a “humanitarian” decision that must be made by Kim Jong Un himself. So, without any U.S. diplomats or legal advocates on the ground, getting a release often requires a trip by a senior U.S. statesman.

 

Former President Bill Clinton went to North Korea in 2009 to get two journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who had crossed into the country illegally from China and were given 12-year sentences. Former CIA director James Clapper visited in November 2014 to bring home Bae and tourist Matthew Miller, who was charged with espionage.

 

Former President Jimmy Carter – who since leaving office has traveled to North Korea three times and even met with Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather – brought home Christian missionary Aijalon Gomes in 2010. Gomes had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegal entry and hostile acts against the government.

 

Joseph Yun, the top U.S. negotiator with North Korea at the time, was the official who went to get Warmbier.

 

US Defense Chief Makes Unannounced Visit to Kabul

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made an unannounced visit to Kabul Tuesday, in the first trip by a Trump administration official to Afghanistan since President Ashraf Ghani offered to hold peace talks with the Taliban.

Ghani, in a conference late last month called the Kabul Process, involving representatives of 25 countries along with the United States and NATO, offered the Taliban political recognition, help in removing their names from international sanctions lists, passports, jobs, and a political office in Kabul if they renounce violence and come to the table.

 

The Taliban have not yet officially responded to that offer.

But while traveling to Kabul, Mattis told reporters there were signs elements of the Taliban were interested in negotiations.  He acknowledged that these were small groups, not the main Taliban faction led by Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.

 

“It may not be that the whole Taliban comes over in one fell swoop. That may be a bridge too far to expect. But there are elements of the Taliban clearly interested in talking to the Afghan government,” he said.

 

Monday, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told a bi-weekly meeting attended by the ministers and their deputies that the government has not received a positive response from the militant group.

 

The Taliban have also not yet applied to attend an end of March meeting in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, the Uzbek foreign ministry said according to Reuters. Participants in the meeting are expected to put their weight behind calls for direct negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

 

The Taliban have said they will only talk to the United States and not what they call its puppet regime in Kabul.  

 

Mattis, who is expected to meet NATO and Afghan leadership, arrived a day after the Taliban briefly overran a western Afghan district, a battlefield success the insurgents failed to achieve in 2017.

Amid Trump Visit, it’s Business As Usual for Border Towns

The daily commute from Mexico to California farms is the same as it was before Donald Trump became president. Hundreds of Mexicans cross the border and line the sidewalks of Calexico’s tiny downtown by 4 a.m., napping on cardboard sheets and blankets or sipping coffee from a 24-hour doughnut shop until buses leave for the fields.

For decades, cross-border commuters have picked lettuce, carrots, broccoli, onions, cauliflower and other vegetables that make California’s Imperial Valley “America’s Salad Bowl” from December through March. As Trump visits the border Tuesday, the harvest is a reminder of how little has changed despite heated immigration rhetoric in Washington.

Trump will inspect eight prototypes for a future 30-foot border wall that were built in San Diego last fall. He made a “big, beautiful wall” a centerpiece of his campaign and said Mexico would pay for it.

But border barriers extend the same 654 miles (1,046 kilometers) they did under President Barack Obama and so far Trump hasn’t gotten Mexico or Congress to pay for a new wall.

Trump also pledged to expand the Border Patrol by 5,000 agents, but staffing fell during his first year in office farther below a congressional mandate because the government has been unable to keep pace with attrition and retirements. There were 19,437 agents at the end of September, down from 19,828 a year earlier.

In Tijuana, tens of thousands of commuters still line up weekday mornings for San Diego at the nation’s busiest border crossing, some for jobs in landscaping, housekeeping, hotel maids and shipyard maintenance. The vast majority are U.S. citizens and legal residents or holders of “border crossing cards” that are given to millions of Mexicans in border areas for short visits. The border crossing cards do not include work authorization but some break the rules.

Even concern about Trump’s threat to end the North American Free Trade Agreement is tempered by awareness that border economies have been integrated for decades. Mexican “maquiladora” plants, which assemble duty-free raw materials for export to the U.S., have made televisions, medical supplies and other goods since the 1960s.

“How do you separate twins that are joined at the hip?” said Paola Avila, chairwoman of the Border Trade Alliance, a group that includes local governments and business chambers. “Our business relationships will continue to grow regardless of what happens with NAFTA.”

Workers in the Mexicali area rise about 1 a.m., carpool to the border crossing and wait about an hour to reach Calexico’s portico-covered sidewalks by 4 a.m. Some beat the border bottleneck by crossing at midnight to sleep in their cars in Calexico, a city of 40,000 about 120 miles (192 kilometers) east of San Diego. 

Fewer workers make the trek now than 20 and 30 years ago. But not because of Trump. 

Steve Scaroni, one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors, blames the drop on lack of interest among younger Mexicans, which has forced him to rely increasingly on short-term farmworker visas known as H-2As. 

“We have a saying that no one is raising their kids to be farmworkers,” said Scaroni, 55, a third-generation grower and one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors. Last week, he had two or three buses of workers leaving Calexico before dawn, compared to 15 to 20 buses during the 1980s and 1990s.

Crop pickers at Scaroni’s Fresh Harvest Inc. make $13.18 an hour but H-2As bring his cost to $20 to $30 an hour because he must pay for round-trip transportation, sometimes to southern Mexico, and housing. The daily border commuters from Mexicali cost only $16 to $18 after overhead.

Scaroni’s main objective is to expand the H-2A visa program, which covered about 165,000 workers in 2016. On his annual visit to Washington in February to meet members of Congress and other officials, he decided within two hours that nothing changed under Trump. 

“Washington is not going to fix anything,” he said. “You’ve got too many people – lobbyists, politicians, attorneys – who make money off the dysfunction. They make money off of not solving problems. They just keep talking about it.”

Jose Angel Valenzuela, who owns a house in Mexicali and is working his second harvest in Imperial Valley, earns more picking cabbage in an hour than he did in a day at a factory in Mexico. He doesn’t pay much attention to news and isn’t following developments on the border wall.

“We’re doing very well,” he said as workers passed around beef tacos during a break. “We haven’t seen any noticeable change.”

Jack Vessey, whose family farms about 10,000 acres in Imperial Valley, relies on border commuters for about half of his workforce. Imperial has only 175,000 people and Mexicali has about 1 million, making Mexico an obvious labor pool.

Vessey, 42, said he has seen no change on the border and doesn’t expect much. He figures 10 percent of Congress embraces open immigration policies, another 10 percent oppose them and the other 80 percent don’t want to touch it because their voters are too divided.

“It’s like banging your head against the wall,” he said. 

Chilean Financial Minister: Pinera to Impose Austerity But Not ‘Mega-adjustments’

Chile’s new government is preparing belt-tightening measures after inheriting a larger-than-anticipated fiscal deficit from its predecessor, but the measures will stop short of “mega-adjustments,” Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said on Monday.

Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera took office on Sunday vowing to combat economic “stagnation” and calling for a return to “fiscal equilibrium” as he seeks to transform Chile into a developed nation within a decade.

“We’re in a period of tight budgets, with levels of public debt that have doubled, which means we must begin with austerity measures, followed by a reassigning resources, in order to finance the president’s program,” Larrain told reporters as he entered the finance ministry for his first day on the job.

Shortly before leaving office, outgoing President Michelle Bachelet’s government reported it had left a fiscal deficit of 2.1 percent of gross domestic product, instead of 1.7 percent as targeted.

Chile’s Congress this year authorized an increase in public spending of 3.9 percent, which Pinera had previously criticized as “high.”

“These austerity measures, and the wise use of resources, are always welcome and are necessary. But we’re not talking about mega-adjustments, we’re talking about austerity measures,” Larrain said.

During his campaign, Pinera, who also governed from 2010 to 2014, said he hoped to guide the country to fiscal equilibrium within six to eight years.

Trump Blocks Broadcom Takeover of Qualcomm

U.S. President Donald Trump is blocking Singapore-based Broadcom, maker of computer and smartphone chips, from taking over U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm.

Trump cited national security grounds in stopping the takeover, following the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The committee reviews national security implications when foreign entities purchase U.S. corporations.

The president’s order said there is “credible evidence” that the takeover “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”

Broadcom made an unsolicited bid last year to take over Qualcomm for $117 billion.

The company has been in the process of moving its legal headquarters from Singapore to the United States to help it win approval for the takeover.

Qualcomm, which is based in San Diego, has emerged as one of the biggest competitors to Chinese companies, such as Huawei Technologies, making it an attractive asset for potential buyers in the semiconductor industry.

Companies in the industry are racing against each other to develop 5G wireless technology to transmit data at faster speeds.

A Look at What’s Ahead in a Landmark Trump-Kim Summit

After a year of threats and diatribes, U.S. President Donald Trump and third-generation North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have agreed to meet face-to-face for talks about the North’s nuclear program.

It remains to be seen whether a summit, if it takes place, could lead to any meaningful breakthrough after an unusually provocative year. North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and test-launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

Will there be a breakthrough? Failure? Or merely the start of another long and difficult process meant to remove the North’s nuclear capabilities?

Here’s a look at what may lie ahead and the challenges that remain:

Why now?

Analysts say Trump’s decision to accept Kim’s invitation for a summit and to do it by May could be linked in part to a desire to claim a significant achievement in his most difficult foreign policy challenge before the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Kim, on the other hand, seems desperate to save a sanctions-battered North Korean economy.

Both leaders have interests in striking a big deal, said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute. Should it happen, the May summit between Trump and Kim will come shortly after a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

It’s likely that North Korea will also push for summits with China, Russia and Japan later in the year to further break out of its isolation, Cheong said.

Trump will likely try to achieve something dramatic in his meeting with Kim, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, including a possible exchange of verbal commitments on the denuclearization of North Korea and a peace treaty between the two countries.

 

Where to meet?

The United States and North Korea will likely be talking quite a bit in coming months and maybe even exchanging high-level delegations to set up the logistics of the summit.

One of the biggest questions is where it will take place.

The United States would prefer Washington, while North Korea will want Trump to come to Pyongyang, its capital.

Unless the countries agree to a third-country location, which would likely be South Korea, experts see it as more likely that Trump will fly to Pyongyang.

While no incumbent U.S. president has ever set foot in North Korea, Trump might be willing to become the first because it would fit the strong-willed, in-your-face type of leadership he tries to project, Hong said.

It’s hard to imagine Kim going to Washington because he is much less diplomatically experienced; the planned meeting with Moon in April will be his first with any state leader since he took power in 2011.

They could also meet in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone between the rival Koreas or, Hong said, the southern South Korean resort island of Jeju.

What will North Korea want?

A big question will be whether Trump can accept a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program rather than its elimination, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University.

Kim will likely want to keep some nukes as a deterrent, but that might be hard for Trump to tolerate when he spent so much time harshly criticizing his predecessor, Barack Obama, for allegedly standing by and watching as North Korea became a nuclear threat.

Still, Kim might express a firmer commitment to denuclearization to Trump, including giving a full report on the North’s current nuclear weapons arsenal and allowing thorough international verification once the denuclearization process takes hold, said Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

While some experts speculate that North Korea might ask for a halt of annual military drills between the United States and South Korea or even the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, Choi said it’s meaningful that Kim, at least according to South Korean presidential official Chung Eui-yong, said he understands that the joint military exercises between the allies “must continue.” This signals an important departure from the past when the North thoroughly rejected the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Kim might even free several American citizens currently detained in the North to brighten the atmosphere of his summit with Trump, Choi said.

Have we seen this before?

The whirlwind events of the past months might be compared to 1994, when former U.S. President Bill Clinton concluded a major nuclear agreement between Washington and Pyongyang.

Under the “Agreed Framework,” North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 annual metric tons of fuel oil for the North.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Pyongyang in 2000, and there were talks of a summit between Clinton and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un. But there was no arrangement before George W. Bush’s election. The Agreed Framework broke down after U.S. intelligence agencies said North Korea was pursuing a second way to make bombs, using enriched uranium.

North Korea is clearly a different country than it was two decades ago, holding a legitimate nuclear program as a bargaining chip. But Trump, in just his second year in office and facing a similarly strong-willed leader eager to directly break a diplomatic deadlock, could be in a better position to cut a meaningful deal with North Korea than Clinton was at the end of his presidency.

“Chemistry wise, Trump and Kim might get along; they both strive to be bold and could be eager to strike a deal,” said Choi. “After years of diplomatic stalemate over the North’s nuclear program, we could use an injection of top-down decision making.”

Сума позову «Нафтогазу» до Росії через активи в Криму сягає 8 мільярдів доларів – Вітренко

Сума позову, поданого НАК «Нафтогаз України» і її шістьма дочірніми компаніями в суд при Постійній палаті Третейського суду в Гаазі в зв’язку з захопленням Росією активів в Криму, з урахуванням відсотків сягає восьми мільярдів доларів США, повідомив комерційний директор «Нафтогазу» Юрій Вітренко, відповідаючи на запитання читачів своєї сторінки у Facebook.

«Уже в 2018 році можемо виграти до 8 мільярдів доларів. Але потім постане питання, як забрати. 5 мільярдів було без відсотків, 8 мільярдів – з очікуваними відсотками», – вказав Вітренко.

Розгляд позову «Нафтогазу» до Росії щодо захоплених у Криму активів заплановано на травень, додав представник НАК.

«Нафтогаз України» 20 вересня 2017 року повідомив, що подав до Міжнародного трибуналу при Постійній палаті Третейського суду в Гаазі (Нідерланди) позов проти Росії з вимогою відшкодувати 5 мільярдів доларів збитків, яких компанія зазнала в результаті захоплення Росією активів «Нафтогазу» в анексованому Криму.

28 лютого 2018 року компанія НАК «Нафтогаз України» повідомила про перемогу в Стокгольмському арбітражі над російським газовим монополістом, компанією «Газпром» в суперечці про компенсацію на суму 4,63 мільярда доларів за недопоставлені «Газпромом» обсяги газу для транзиту. У російській компанії заявили, що не згодні з рішенням.

Trump Jr., Donor Have Longtime Undisclosed Ties

Donald Trump Jr. has a previously undisclosed business relationship with a longtime hunting buddy who helped raise millions of dollars for his father’s 2016 presidential campaign and has had special access to top government officials since the election, records obtained by The Associated Press show.

The president’s oldest son and Texas hedge fund manager Gentry Beach have been involved in business deals together dating back to the mid-2000s and recently formed a company, Future Venture LLC, despite past claims by both men that they were just friends, according to previously unreported court records and other documents obtained by AP.

Beach last year met with top National Security Council officials to push a plan that would curb U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and open up business for U.S. companies in the oil-rich nation.

Ethics experts said their financial entanglements raised questions about whether Beach’s access to government officials and advocacy for policy changes were made possible by the president’s son’s influence — and could also benefit the Trump family’s bottom line.

“This feeds into the same concerns that we’ve had all along: The really fuzzy line between the presidency and the Trumps’ companies,” said Noah Bookbinder, who leads Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a public policy group. “Donald Trump Jr. sort of straddles that line all the time.”

Last February, just as Trump Sr. was settling into office, Beach and an Iraqi-American businessman met with top officials at the National Security Council to present their plan for lightening U.S. sanctions in Venezuela in exchange for opening business opportunities for U.S. companies, according to a former U.S. official with direct knowledge of the proposal.

Career foreign policy experts were instructed to take the meetings, first reported last April by the website Mic.com, at the direction of the West Wing because Beach and the businessman were friends of Trump Jr., the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive government work, said that inside the NSC lawyers raised red flags about the appropriateness of the meeting.

The U.S. didn’t act on the pitch, which would have gone against the president’s hard-line stance on the South American nation and its president, Nicolas Maduro.

Seven months after the Venezuela meetings, Beach attended a private lunch in Dallas between Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Republican donors, including businessmen with petroleum interests, according to a copy of Zinke’s schedule.

The Interior Department didn’t respond to a request for comment about the meetings. A White House official said Trump Jr. didn’t arrange Beach’s visit to the NSC and his proposal was dismissed.

In a statement, the Trump Organization said Trump Jr. has never played a role arranging meetings “with anyone at the White House or any other government agency.”

Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, acknowledged that Trump Jr. had invested with Beach in the past, but referred AP to a statement released by the company in April, which said their relationship was “strictly personal.”

In a statement provided by a friend, Beach said it was “absolutely not true” that he’d ever “used my longtime personal friendship with Donald Trump Jr.” to influence government decision making.

According to his friends, Beach, who has known Trump Jr. since they attended the University of Pennsylvania together in the late 1990s, developed his own relationships during the campaign and inauguration and doesn’t need Trump Jr. to broker introductions.

Beach was an avid fundraiser and campaigner for President Trump, particularly in Texas, where Trump Jr. told donors last March that Beach and another longtime hunting pal, Tom Hicks Jr., raised millions for his father’s campaign, according to the Dallas Morning News.

After the election, Beach served as a finance vice chairman for the inaugural committee and faced scrutiny after a nonprofit he started at the time advertised hunting and fishing trips with Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric, to million-dollar donors.

Last October, Beach incorporated a business called Future Venture LLC in Delaware without listing any Trump connection, signing himself as the entity’s agent.

But a disclosure report filed with New York City officials and obtained by AP via a public records request shows Trump Jr. is named as the president, secretary and treasurer of the company.

The purpose of the limited liability company could not be determined from the filings. The Trump Organization said it was set up to pursue technology investments.

Previously unreported court documents show that the two men, each a godfather to one of the other’s sons, did business together well before they formed Future Venture.

In a 2010 deposition, Trump Jr. testified that he had twice made investments in ventures that Beach had an interest in: $200,000 in a dry Texas oil well managed by Beach’s father and an undisclosed amount in a failed mining stock affiliated with Beach’s uncle.

In August 2008, while the two men were golfing together in New York, Beach suggested Trump Jr. sell his shares in the tanking stock “if you need the tax loss,” according to a copy of his testimony filed in a long running civil lawsuit between Beach and a former employer, hedge funder Paul Touradji.

Beach’s father, Gary Beach, was convicted last month of federal bankruptcy fraud after a seven-day trial in Dallas.

Trump Jr. testified that he had other business discussions with Beach — but not all of them came to fruition, including a plan to buy a hunting preserve in Mexico with Beach.

Trump Jr. also referred Beach to someone he knew from Saudi Arabia when Beach was working on a potential oil purchase and invested $50,000 along with his sister Ivanka in an Argentine resort developed by one of Beach’s friends, he testified.

Trump Jr. estimated he exchanged roughly 500 emails with Beach at the time of his 2010 deposition.

Pressed for details about the oil well deal in his deposition, Trump Jr. indicated he wasn’t well versed in the oil-and-gas business.

“You know, I put some money with a friend,” he testified.

MLK’s Daughter, Bernice, Has Private Audience With Pope

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s surviving daughter had a private audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday.

The Rev. Bernice King presented the pontiff with the sixth volume of the civil rights leader’s published papers, subtitled “Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948-March 1963.”

The Vatican made public a video of the meeting. King spoke briefly through a translator, but no audio was provided. She tweeted after that the meeting was “#lifechanging.”

The 54-year-old King is the youngest child of Martin and Coretta Scott King. She was 5 years old when her father was assassinated. Her brothers, Martin Luther King III and Dexter Scott King are also still living, but their sister, Yolanda King, died in 2007. Now she is the chief executive officer of the King Center in Atlanta.

King was in Italy to receive an international prize recognizing women involved in nonviolence and peace initiatives. The award was organized by the Gandhi Center in Pisa and Italian pacifist Rocco Altieri.

Events are being planned in the United States to mark next month’s 50th anniversary of King’s assassination. He was shot on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

The King Center will hold six days of events. They include a cross-cultural act of kindness campaign, a peace prize award ceremony and a global bell ringing, starting at the King Center and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Порошенко підписав закон, який змінює правила роботи ТОВ, встановлені в 1991 році

Президент України Петро Порошенко підписав закон «Про товариства з обмеженою та додатковою відповідальністю», повідомляє прес-служба Адміністрації президента.

Порошенко зазначив, що наразі діяльність товариств з обмеженою та додатковою відповідальністю в Україні регулюється законом про господарські товариства, ухваленим ще у 1991 році.

«І от, на сьогоднішній день парламент проголосував. І вже припиняється така юридична форма, яка працювала в нас з 1991 року», – цитує Порошенка прес-служба АП.

Згідно з повідомленням, закон запроваджує нові принципи регулювання, створення і ведення бізнесу.

«Ці процедури стануть простішими, зрозумілішими. Закон має забезпечити учасникам товариства комфортний правовий простір для врегулювання своїх відносин. Зменшити ризики захоплення контролю за товариством, фактично знищити ризики рейдерських атак. Знімаються обмеження щодо формування статутного капіталу, спрощується процедура реєстрації, успадкування частки в статутному капіталі товариства, право отримання кредиту чи фінансування під заставу частки товариства, що полегшить залучення додаткових коштів», – сказав Порошенко.

За його словами, «стає неможливим виключення міноритарного учасника за так зване систематичне невиконання або неналежне виконання обов’язків, що було вивчено і «від зубів відскакувало» певними рейдерами».

Верховна Рада підтримала проект закону про товариства з додатковою та обмеженою відповідальністю 6 лютого. «За» проголосували 285 народних депутатів.

Порошенко: немає прогресу в переговорах щодо звільнення Сенцова та інших заручників

Президент України Петро Порошенко закликав європейських дипломатів посилити участь у питанні звільнення українських патріотів, які перебувають у полоні бойовиків і незаконно утримуються в Росії.

«Вважаю, що необхідно зробити більш значущою роль європейської дипломатії в справі звільнення заручників на Донбасі», – передає прес-служба президента слова Порошенка і вказує, що питання заручників обговорювалося 12 березня з верховним представником ЄС із закордонних справ та безпекової політики Федерікою Моґеріні.

«Ми бачимо, що після очевидного успіху, який ми спостерігали в грудні, коли вдалося звільнити 74 українських заручників, ми знову, більш ніж два з половиною місяці, не маємо прогресу, незважаючи на абсолютно конкретні пропозиції, які були надані російській стороні», – зазначив президент України.

«Це стосується як заручників, яких вони незаконно утримують на окупованій території, так і політичних в’язнів, політичних заручників, що перебувають у в’язницях Росії, включаючи Романа Сущенка, Олега Сенцова, кримських татар і багатьох інших», – додав він.

Верховна Рада України 1 березня закликала міжнародне співтовариство засудити політичні репресії Росії щодо українських політичних в’язнів.

За даними правозахисників, сьогодні близько 60 громадян України позбавлені волі за політичними мотивами на території Росії і в окупованому нею Криму. Міністерство закордонних справ України направило вже близько 300 нот до Росії з вимогою звільнити українців.

Станом на кінець січня в СБУ повідомляли, що в заручниках на непідконтрольних уряду територіях Донбасу перебувають 108 осіб.

Збройний конфлікт на сході України почався навесні 2014 року після анексії Росією Криму. За даними ООН, за час конфлікту загинули понад 10 тисяч людей. Україна і Захід звинувачують Росію в підтримці сепаратистів на Донбасі, Москва ці звинувачення відкидає і заявляє, що на непідконтрольних Києву територіях можуть бути хіба що російські «добровольці».

Trump Says US to Discuss European Tariffs That Hurt American Economy

President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. will be talking with European officials about eliminating tariffs it believes hurt the American economy.

Trump, in a Twitter remark, said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross plans to talk with European Union officials about what the president described as “large Tariffs and Barriers they use against the U.S.A.”

He said the levies are “not fair to our farmers and manufacturers.”

His tweet echoed comments this past weekend, when he said Europe has “wonderful countries who treat the U.S. very badly on trade.”

Trump, representing the world’s single largest economy, and officials of the 28-nation EU, collectively the biggest economy, have sparred over Trump’s imposition of a new 25 percent tariff on steel imports to the U.S. and 10 percent on aluminum imports.

In response, EU officials have threatened to add taxes to an array of signature U.S. exports, including Harley Davidson motorcycles, blue jeans, bourbon, cranberries and orange juice.

Trump in turn has suggested that if the Europeans boost tariffs on U.S. products he would impose new levies on popular German cars exported to the U.S.

Europe’s top trade official, Cecilia Malmstroem, said trade is being used “as a weapon to threaten and intimidate us.”

“But we are not afraid, we will stand up to the bullies,” she said.

Top U.S. and EU trade officials met Saturday in Brussels, but failed to iron out their differences. Malmstroem said talks would continue this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EU Extends $1.2 Billion Loan to Ukraine

The European Union’s foreign policy chief says the EU will extend a 1 billion-euro ($1.2 billion) loan to struggling Ukraine.

 

Federica Mogherini, who was visiting the capital Kyiv on Monday, told reporters the loan should “support Ukraine’s economic stability and structural reforms.”

 

Ukraine is trying to improve its economy after years of inefficiency and corruption under the previous president, Viktor Yanukovych, and has been hit hard by the separatist conflict in the east.

 

While confirming the EU’s support for the Ukrainian government, Mogherini also signaled Europe’s growing wariness over the slow pace of much-touted reforms. She called on Kiev to set up an anti-corruption court as promised.

 

She also urged the government to comply with 2015 peace accords that called for a truce between government forces and Russia-backed separatists.

 

 

 

Eggs, Embryos Possibly Damaged at California Clinic

A San Francisco fertility clinic says thousands of frozen eggs and embryos may have been damaged after a liquid nitrogen failure in a storage tank.

Dr. Carl Herbert, president of Pacific Fertility Clinic, told the Washington Post on Sunday that officials have informed some 400 patients of the failure that occurred March 4.

Herbert says the clinic’s staff thawed a few eggs and found they remain viable. He says they have not checked any of the embryos.

A call to the clinic from The Associated Press seeking further details was not immediately returned Sunday.

It’s the second such failure at a U.S. clinic in a matter of days. Last week, an Ohio hospital said more than 2,000 frozen eggs and embryos may have been damaged due to a refrigerator malfunction.

Kenyan Conservationists Lament US Lifting Trophy Ban as Tillerson Visits

Wildlife protection in Kenya has improved dramatically in recent years, thanks to widespread anti-poaching efforts, including some help from the United States. But as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Kenya, conservationists there say the U.S. lifting a ban on imports of some African animal trophies sends the wrong message.

Tillerson praised Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials Sunday as he toured a U.S.-supported forensics laboratory just outside of Nairobi National Park.

The laboratory, opened in 2015 with help from USAID and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, performs DNA analysis of illicit wildlife products and weapons used in animal poaching. 

Tillerson told reporters with him on his first trip to Africa that the U.S. considered wildlife conservation vitally important.

“You know Kenya’s really a leader in preventing trafficking in particular, and illegal poaching,” said Tillerson. “This is very interesting in terms of what this lab now allows them to do, and to also track outside Kenya where the trafficking networks are going. That’s really the key is to shut it all down out there as well so people are not going to — just because you get it out of Kenya doesn’t mean you’re safe. And so, extremely important.”

 

Laboratory officials told Tillerson their work led to fifty prosecutions in their first two years of operation.

Much of the poached and smuggled animal parts throughout Africa make their way to Kenya’s port in Mombasa, known as the world’s hub for ivory smuggling. But, Kenya has made fast progress cracking down on domestic poaching.

Elephant poaching for ivory in Kenya has been reduced from a recent high of 103 killed in 2012 to eight killed last year, says Tom Lalampaa with the Northern Rangeland’s Trust, a USAID-supported program.

Lalampaa credits stepped-up community policing, rangers, and mobile response teams for cracking down on poachers.

 

“And then also the legislation, the current wildlife law, is quite strong in terms of penalties-unlike before, which is good,” said Lalampaa. “I think Kenya Wildlife Services has also sort of geared up their efforts, improved their efforts. So, things are working. But, it’s not yet time to celebrate.”

 

Just ahead of Tillerson’s arrival on the continent, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service overturned Obama-era restrictions on imports of some African hunting trophies-including parts of lions and elephants such as ivory.

 

The agency was acting on a court’s ruling on a lawsuit brought by Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in December found the Obama administration did not follow proper procedure when implementing its ban.

The decision lifts a blanket ban on imports of lion and elephant trophies from six African nations-Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Imports of the endangered animal parts will be decided instead on a case-by-case basis.

 

Kenya has banned trophy hunting since 1977 and many conservationists, like Lalampaa, oppose the U.S. decision.

 

“That sends a very wrong signal in this country. Because the communities are working tirelessly to try and stop poaching from the source. To try and ensure that there’s no poaching,” said Lalampaa. “And, then all of a sudden when such a policy announcement is made, it really hurts, it really discourages those communities who are taking care of this wildlife 24 hours a day.”

 

The U.S. move on wildlife imports expands a November decision to lift the ban on elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe, which U.S. President Donald Trump had indicated he planned to reverse.

Trump at the time tweeted it would be very hard to change his mind that trophy hunting – what he called a “horror show” – in any way helps conservation of elephants or any other animal.

Paula Kahumbu, a Kenyan conservationist with Wildlife Direct, notes the U.S. was instrumental in pushing China to ban the trade in ivory. But the U.S., she says, is sending confusing messages that started when it expanded the ivory trade with Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 

“These two countries are renowned for corruption. They’re renowned for their ivory disappearing from their national stockpiles and ending up in China and Thailand and other countries,” said Kahumbu. “So, that’s one big problem-they’ve created a loophole. But, secondly, the idea that it’s okay to hunt these animals, and that you’re helping those countries through hunting, is an idea that should be questioned rigorously.”

 

Big game trophy hunting advocates argue the high fees they pay – up to $100,000 per safari – directly benefit conservation efforts.

But critics of trophy hunting like Kahumbu say most of that money goes to organizers of the hunts while little reaches the local level.

 

Digital ads, Social Media Hide Political Campaign Messaging

The main events in a political campaign used to happen in the open: a debate, the release of a major TV ad or a public event where candidates tried to earn a spot on the evening news or the next day’s front page.

That was before the explosion of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as political platforms. Now some of a campaign’s most pivotal efforts happen in the often-murky world of social media, where ads can be targeted to ever-narrower slices of the electorate and run continuously with no disclosure of who is paying for them. Reporters cannot easily discern what voters are seeing, and hoaxes and forgeries spread instantaneously.

Journalists trying to hold candidates accountable have a hard time keeping up.

“There’s a whole dark area of campaigns out there when, if you’re not part of the target group, you don’t know anything about them,” said Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, which seeks greater transparency in political spending. “And if reporters don’t know about it, they can’t ask questions about it.”

The problem came to widespread attention during the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump’s campaign invested heavily in digital advertising, and the term “fake news” emerged to describe pro-Trump propaganda masquerading as online news. Russian interference in the campaign included covert ads on social media and phony Facebook groups pumping out falsehoods.

The misinformation shows no sign of abating. The U.S. Senate election in Alabama in December was rife with fake online reports in support of Republican Roy Moore, who eventually lost to Democrat Doug Jones amid allegations that Moore had sexual contact with teenagers when he was a prosecutor in his 30s. Moore denied the accusations.

Politicians also try to create their own news operations. U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes’ campaign funded a purported news site called The California Republican, and the executive director of Maine’s Republican party last month acknowledged that he runs an anonymous website that is critical of Democrats.

Phony allegations are nothing new in politics. But they used to circulate in automated phone calls, mailers that were often tossed in the trash or, as far back as the 1800s, in partisan newspapers that published just once a day, noted Garlin Gilchrist, executive director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan.

The difference now is how quickly false information spreads.

“The problem is something that’s always existed … but social media is a different animal than news distribution in the past,” Gilchrist said.

A study released this past week found that false information spreads faster and wider on Twitter than real news stories. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology traced the path of more than 126,000 stories on Twitter and found that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 users compared with about 60 hours for real ones. On average, false information reaches 35 percent more people than true news.

A data analysis by Buzzfeed’s news site after the 2016 election found that the most popular fake stories generated greater engagement on Facebook than the top real stories in the three months before Election Day.

Because it’s increasingly easy to fabricate videos, which are viewed as the most reliable evidence available online, reporters “need stronger tools” to weed out frauds, Gilchrist said.

Social media also upends campaign advertising practices. Federal regulations require a record of every political advertisement that is broadcast on television and radio. But online ads have no comparable requirements.

Earlier this month, Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey announced that the platform would take new steps to try to stop harassment and false information. Facebook has partnered with media organizations, including The Associated Press, to flag false information on its platform. It recently announced plans to reform its political advertising, including making all ads on a page visible to all viewers, regardless of whether they were intended to see the spots. It also will require a line identifying the buyer on every political ad and create a four-year archive.

Still, because there are so many candidates for office in the U.S., Facebook is limiting itself to federal races at first.

“Facebook is moving faster than regulators are around the world toward some better stuff,” said Sam Jeffers of the UK-based group Who Targets You, which pushes for better online campaign disclosure.

He cited three recent elections in which underdog campaigns invested heavily in online ads and beat the polling expectations to win: the 2015 parliamentary races and the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential race the following year.

Who Targets You designed an online tool that will collect Facebook political ads and deposit them in a database.

In the U.S., the nonprofit investigative outlet ProPublica has a similar project underway with a widget called Political Ad Tracker, which can be downloaded by readers to build a database of online ads. Other organizations, including the AP, have begun publishing stories specifically intended to knock down false information circulating on social media.

Some efforts are more local. In Seattle’s municipal election last year, online ad spending increased 5,000 percent over the previous cycle in 2013. Eli Sanders, a reporter for the alternative weekly The Stranger, unearthed a city ordinance that requires any outlet that distributes a political ad to make copies available for public inspection. His reporting inspired the city’s ethics and elections commission to demand the data from online outlets.

Google and Facebook have shared some fragmentary information with the Seattle commission, and through them Sanders is getting his own window into the online political marketplace. One outside group that supported the candidate who won the mayoral election, Jenny A. Durkan, spent $20,000 on one ad on a Google platform that the company displayed between 1 million and 5 million times.

“Just like at the national level, locally there is this whole segment of political advertising that is not transparent,” Sanders said.