Сполучені Штати найближчого понеділка можуть оголосити рішення про видворення декількох десятків російських дипломатів на знак солідарності з Великобританією у зв’язку зі справою про отруєння російського екс-шпигуна Сергія Скрипаля.
Як повідомило 24 березня агентство Bloomberg з посиланням на свої джерела, президент США Дональд Трамп погодився зі своїми радниками, які запропонували йому вислати дипломатів.
Згідно з повідомленням, можливі кроки Вашингтона щодо реакції на справу Скрипаля Дональд Трамп обговорював напередодні на нараді за участю посла США в Росії Джона Гантсмана, міністрів фінансів, торгівлі, юстиції та оборони, а також представників спецслужб.
США вже висилали велику групу російських дипломатів в грудні 2016 року, за часів президентства Барака Обами. Тоді причиною такого кроку було втручання російських хакерів у вибори президента США. Через декілька місяців Москва також зажадала від США істотно скоротити штат своєї дипломатичної місії в Росії.
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У штабі АТО в суботу ввечері повідомили, що в одній з бригад на лінії зіткнення на Донбасі один військовослужбовець загинув, ще один зазнав поранення. За попередньою інформацією військових, це сталося внаслідок необережного поводження з боєприпасами.
«Триває з’ясування обставин інциденту», – заявили у прес-центрі штабу АТО.
Повідомляється, що травмованого військовослужбовця вже відвезли до лікувального закладу та надали необхідну медичну допомогу.
Раніше сьогодні в штабі АТО повідомляли, що в результаті бойових дій і п’яти обстрілів упродовж дня з боку підтримуваних Росією бойовиків на Донбасі ніхто з військовослужбовців ЗСУ не постраждав.
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Суд у Пакистані виправдав 20 людей у справі про причетність до спалення живцем подружжя християн у 2014 році, яке помилково звинуватили у богохульстві.
У 2014 році в місцевості Кот-Радга-Кішан 26-річний Шехзад на прізвисько Масіх («християни») і його дружина 24-річна Шама були спалені живцем у промисловій печі юрбою людей, яка підозрювала їх в «паплюженні Корану». Ці звинувачення в результаті не підтвердилися. Поліція заарештувала десятки селян у справі. Пізніше у 2016 році судом до смертної кари були засуджені 5 осіб, ще 10 були засуджені на різні терміни арешту через сприяння у вбивстві. Водночас 93 підозрюваних були виправдані.
24 березня прокуратура заявила, що суд виправдав підозрюваних, яким були висунуті звинувачення у справі на пізнішій стадії.
Вбивство подружжя християн викликало критику міжнародної спільноти законів про богохульство у Пакистані, що були запроваджені ще у 1980-х роках.
Державний департамент США заявляє, що закони про богохульство Пакистану часто використовуються як виправдання «судів Лінча».
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The United States has flouted trade rules with an inquiry into intellectual property and China will defend its interests, Vice Premier Liu He told U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a telephone call on Saturday, Chinese state media reported.
The call between Mnuchin and Liu, a confidante of President Xi Jinping, was the highest-level contact between the two governments since U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods on Thursday.
The deepening rift has sent a chill through financial markets and the corporate world as investors predicted dire consequences for the global economy should trade barriers start going up.
Several U.S. chief executives attending a high-profile forum in Beijing on Saturday, including BlackRock Inc’s Larry Fink and Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, urged restraint.
In his call with Mnuchin, Liu, a Harvard-trained economist, said China still hoped both sides would remain “rational” and work together to keep trade relations stable, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
U.S. officials say an eight-month probe under the 1974 U.S. Trade Act has found that China engages in unfair trade practices by forcing American investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms.
However, Liu said the investigation report “violates international trade rules and is beneficial to neither Chinese interests, U.S. interests nor global interests”, Xinhua cited him as saying.
In a statement on its website, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said it had filed a request – at the direction of Trump – for consultations with China at the World Trade Organization to address “discriminatory technology licensing agreements.”
China’s commerce ministry expressed regret at the filing on Saturday, and said China had taken strong measures to protect the legal rights and interests of both domestic and foreign owners of intellectual property.
Counter moves
During a visit to Washington in early March, Liu had requested Washington set up a new economic dialogue mechanism, identify a point person on China issues, and deliver a list of demands.
The Trump administration responded by telling China to immediately shave $100 billion off its record $375 billion trade surplus with the United States. Beijing told Washington that U.S. export restrictions on some high-tech products are to blame.
“China has already prepared, and has the strength, to defend its national interests,” Liu said on Saturday.
According to an editorial by China’s state-run Global Times, it was Mnuchin who called Liu.
Firing off a warning shot, China on Friday declared plans to levy additional duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposed after a separate U.S. probe.
Zhang Zhaoxiang, senior vice president of China Minmetals Corp, said that while the state-owned mining group’s steel exports to the U.S. are tiny, the impact could come indirectly.
“China’s direct exports to the U.S. are not big. But there will be some impact due to our exports via the United States or indirect exports,” Zhang told reporters on the sidelines of the China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday.
Global Times said Beijing was only just beginning to look at means to retaliate.
“We believe it is only part of China’s countermeasures, and soybeans and other U.S. farm products will be targeted,” the widely-read tabloid said in a Saturday editorial.
Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of Beijing-based think tank China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, told China Daily that Beijing could impose tariffs on more U.S. products, and is considering a second and even third list of targets.
Possible items include aircraft and chips, Wei, a former vice commerce minister, told the newspaper, adding that tourism could be a possible target.
Soybeans, autos, planes
The commerce ministry’s response had so far been “relatively weak,” respected former Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei said at the forum.
“If I were in the government, I would probably hit soybeans first, then hit autos and airplanes,” said Lou, currently chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund.
U.S. farm groups have long feared that China, which imports more than third of all U.S. soybeans, could slow purchases of agricultural products, heaping more pain on the struggling U.S. farm sector.
U.S. agricultural exports to China stood at $19.6 billion last year, with soybean shipments accounting for $12.4 billion.
Chinese penalties on U.S. soybeans will especially hurt Iowa, a state that backed Trump in the 2016 presidential elections.
Boeing jets have also been often cited as a potential target by China.
China and the U.S. had benefitted by globalization, Blackrock’s Larry Fink said at the forum.
“I believe that a dialogue and maybe some adjustments in trade and trade policy can be in order. It does not need to be done publicly; it can be done privately,” he said.
Apple’s Tim Cook called for “calm heads” amid the dispute.
The sparring has cast a spotlight on hardware makers such as Apple, which assemble the majority of their products in China for export to other countries.
Electrical goods and tech are the largest U.S. import item from China.
Some economists say higher U.S. tariffs will lead to higher costs and ultimately hurt U.S. consumers, while restrictions on Chinese investments could take away jobs in America.
“I don’t think local governments in the United States and President Trump hope to see U.S. workers losing their jobs,” Sun Yongcai, general manager at Chinese railway firm CRRS Corp, which has two U.S. production plants, said at the forum.
your ad hereУ штабі української воєнної операції на Донбасі 24 березня повідомили, що через обстріли підтримуваних Росією бойовиків ніхто із українських воїнів упродовж дня не постраждав. Згідно з повідомленням на сторінці штабу у Facebook, від початку доби і до 18-ї години суботи бойовики здійснили 5 обстрілів позицій ЗСУ.
Згідно з повідомленням, обстріли бойовиків тривали неподалік Кам’янки, Лебединського та Щастя.
Під час збройних атак підтримувані Росією бойовики використовували гранатомети різних типів, великокаліберні кулемети та стрілецьку зброю.
Бойовики з угруповань «ДНР» та «ЛНР» на своїх сайтах не пишуть про порушення режиму тиші упродовж дня.
Згідно з домовленостями тристоронньої контактної групи щодо врегулювання ситуації на Донбасі, черговий режим припинення вогню мав розпочатися з початку доби 5 березня. Сторони неодноразово заявляли про його порушення і звинувачували в цьому одна одну.
your ad hereH. Wayne Huizenga, a college dropout who built a business empire that included Blockbuster Entertainment, AutoNation and three professional sports franchises, has died. He was 80.
Huizenga died Thursday night at his home, said Valerie Hinkell, a longtime assistant. The cause was cancer, said Bob Henninger, executive vice president of Huizenga Holdings.
Starting with a single garbage truck in 1968, Huizenga built Waste Management Inc. into a Fortune 500 company. He purchased independent sanitation engineering companies, and by the time he took the company public in 1972, he had completed the acquisition of 133 small-time haulers. By 1983, Waste Management was the largest waste disposal company in the United States.
The business model worked again with Blockbuster Video, which he started in 1985 and built into the leading movie rental chain nine years later. In 1996, he formed AutoNation and built it into a Fortune 500 company.
Sports team owner
Huizenga was founding owner of baseball’s Florida Marlins and the NHL’s Florida Panthers — expansion teams that played their first games in 1993. He bought the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and their stadium for $168 million in 1994 from the children of founder Joe Robbie but had sold all three teams by 2009.
“Wayne Huizenga was a seminal figure in the cultural history of South Florida,” current Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said in a statement. “He completely changed the landscape of the region’s sports scene. … Sports fans throughout the region owe him a debt of thanks.”
The Marlins won the 1997 World Series, and the Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996, but Huizenga’s beloved Dolphins never reached a Super Bowl while he owned the team.
“If I have one disappointment, the disappointment would be that we did not bring a championship home,” Huizenga said shortly after he sold the Dolphins to Ross. “It’s something we failed to do.”
Fan favorite — for a time
Huizenga earned an almost cultlike following among business investors who watched him build Blockbuster Entertainment into the leading video rental chain by snapping up competitors. He cracked Forbes’ list of the 100 richest Americans, becoming chairman of Republic Services, one of the nation’s top waste management companies, and AutoNation, the nation’s largest automotive retailer. In 2013, Forbes estimated his wealth at $2.5 billion.
For a time, Huizenga was also a favorite with South Florida sports fans, drawing cheers and autograph seekers in public. The crowd roared when he danced the hokey pokey on the field during an early Marlins game. He went on a spending spree to build a veteran team that won the World Series in the franchise’s fifth year.
But his popularity plummeted when he ordered the roster dismantled after that season. He was frustrated by poor attendance and his failure to swing a deal for a new ballpark built with taxpayer money.
Many South Florida fans never forgave him for breaking up the championship team. Huizenga drew boos when introduced at Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino’s retirement celebration in 2000 and kept a lower public profile after that.
In 2009, Huizenga said he regretted ordering the Marlins’ payroll purge.
“We lost $34 million the year we won the World Series, and I just said, ‘You know what, I’m not going to do that,’” Huizenga said. “If I had it to do over again, I’d say, ‘OK, we’ll go one more year.’”
He sold the Marlins in 1999 to John Henry, and sold the Panthers in 2001, unhappy with rising NHL player salaries and the stock price for the team’s public company.
Dolphins man
Huizenga’s first sports love was the Dolphins; he had been a season-ticket holder since their first season in 1966. But he fared better in the NFL as a businessman than as a sports fan.
He turned a nifty profit by selling the Dolphins and their stadium for $1.1 billion, nearly seven times what he paid to become sole owner. But he knew the bottom line in the NFL is championships, and his Dolphins perennially came up short.
Huizenga earned a reputation as a hands-off owner and won raves from many loyal employees, even though he made six coaching changes. He eased Pro Football Hall of Famer Don Shula into retirement in early 1996, and Jimmy Johnson, Dave Wannstedt, interim coach Jim Bates, Nick Saban, Cam Cameron and Tony Sparano followed as coach.
Johnson tweeted: “A great man, one of the nicest individuals I have ever known, Wayne Huizenga passed away. RIP.”
Garbage business
Harry Wayne Huizenga was born in the Chicago suburbs on Dec. 29, 1937, to a family of garbage haulers. He began his business career in Pompano Beach in 1962, driving a garbage truck from 2 a.m. to noon each day for $500 a month.
Huizenga was a five-time recipient of Financial World magazine’s “CEO of the Year” award, and was the Ernst & Young “2005 World Entrepreneur of the Year.”
Regarding his business acumen, Huizenga said: “You just have to be in the right place at the right time. It can only happen in America.”
In 1960, he married Joyce VanderWagon. Together they had two children, Wayne Jr. and Scott. They divorced in 1966. Wayne married his second wife, Marti Goldsby, in 1972. She died in 2017.
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Thousands of people converged on Washington and other U.S. cities Saturday to rally for tougher gun laws following a recent deadly mass shooting that sparked outrage and political activism among young people across the country.
The “March for Our Lives” demonstrations, led by survivors of the February 14 massacre of 17 students and personnel at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people. The main rally in the nation’s capital is expected to draw as many as a 500,000 people, according to student organizing groups and the gun-control group Everytown For Gun Safety.
More than 800 sister marches have been planned in each of the 50 U.S. states and worldwide.
Student organizers are demanding that children’s lives are made a higher priority for the country and an end to the epidemic of mass school shootings.
Alex Wind, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, got the crowd in the nation’s capital energized, saying, “To those saying teenagers can’t do anything, I am here to say teenagers are the only ones who could have made this movement possible.”
Wind said the government “has been useless” on the issue of gun control “for too long.”
Zion Kelly, a student in Washington, D.C., spoke about his twin brother, Zaire, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery on the street in September 2017.
Zion Kelly spoke on behalf of those students who face the threat of gun violence every time they walk to and from school. The Kelly family is proposing legislation, to be named after Zaire, to create safe passage zones to and from schools and other activities.
He became emotional talking about losing his twin and people in the crowd shouted support and cheered him. “My name is Zion Kelly and just like you, I’ve had enough,” he said in ending his speech.
Gun rights advocates also are among the throngs of demonstrators in Washington.
A man who wanted to be identified only as “Joe” from upstate New York told VOA in front of the Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House, “This whole march … is just an emotional reaction to something that is very tragic.”
He said gun control proposals, such as banning semi-automatic weapons like the one used in the Parkland shooting, are not “going to reduce gun violence, it’s just going to take away the rights of law abiding citizens.”
President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida during the Washington rally, but White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in a statement, “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today. Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOP School Violence Acts, and signed them into law.”
Walters also noted the Department of Justice moved to ban bump stocks Friday through regulations by issuing a proposed rule that would define
machine gun” to include the devices, which allows semi-automatic guns to function like automatic guns.
David Hogg, a student at the Florida high school that suffered the mass shooting, spoke at a rally in Parkland Saturday morning. He described an effort by the students — parentspromisetokids.org — in which parents and children enter into a pact where the parents will only vote for legislators whose priorities are “children’s safety over guns.”
“Let me be clear, a thumbs up, a like on Facebook, or even a follow on Twitter is not enough. We need your uploaded pictures of you and your families with signed contracts posted and shared on Facebook, and #PPTK, and retweets on Twitter. Anything less will be failing our mission. This is not an awareness movement, it’s a change movement that requires action on all of you,” Hogg said.
Americans have been reluctant to give up their guns and there have been few changes in gun laws in response to mass shootings.
A new poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates, however, that sentiment may be changing. The poll found that 69 percent of Americans surveyed now think gun laws should be tightened, up from 61 percent in in October, 2016 and 55 percent in October 2013.
Overall the survey indicated 90 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of gun owners now favor stricter gun control laws.
But nearly half of Americans, the poll revealed, do not expect their politicians to take action toward changing gun laws.
Student activists, however, have begun concentrating on voter registration with mid-term congressional elections coming up in the fall.
The March for Our Lives website reports that it has almost reached its goal of raising $3.8 million.
Actor George Clooney and wife, Amal Clooney, a lawyer, gave March For Our Lives a $500,000 donation, which was matched by actress and TV host Oprah Winfrey, director Steven Spielberg and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres and photo publishing service Shutterfly announced a joint donation of $50,000. Model Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend, a musician, pledged $25,000.
The Clooneys, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, singers Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, and actors Jennifer Hudson, Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen have all expressed intentions of attending Saturday’s march in Washington.
Moves to tighten U.S. gun laws are traditionally opposed by the National Rifle Association, the country’s preeminent group of gun rights supporters.
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When a Silicon Valley company in northern California asked Sumat Lam to transfer to Austin, Texas, common stereotypes came to mind.
“I definitely was confused when I was offered the role out of college for Austin. You think about cowboys. You think a little bit about the barbecue. Everything is bigger in Texas,” Lam, a Cambodian-American, recalled.
Texas could have seemed like another country for Lam, who grew up in California as the son of immigrant parents. He is from the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and went to Stanford University, in the Silicon Valley technology corridor. His friends encouraged him to give Austin a try. He moved and has been working in Austin for the last four years.
WATCH: Why is Austin an Attractive Hub for Many Tech Companies?
“I definitely love Austin more after four years here. I was really taken aback by how small it was. I was expecting a much larger metropolitan area, but me, I actually love the size of Austin.
“It’s not as embedded in the Texas stereotype as people presume,” Lam said. “People from all over are coming, people are bringing in the culture, their influences from Boston and New York and Philadelphia.”
Characteristics of a tech hub
While Austin is not Silicon Valley, technology companies from that area and other major U.S. hubs are taking notice of Austin’s growing tech scene. The lower cost of living and doing business, combined with a smaller size, are among the reasons that people and companies are attracted to Austin.
“I look at all the companies that have already moved here or in the process of moving here. Google, Apple, two of the big leaders in the tech already have large offices down here,” Lam said.
“I’ve heard people call it Silicon Ranch. I think it’s kind of hilarious,” said Austin native Meghan Berry, who also works for a tech company.
Start-ups and big companies are taking up office spaces downtown and more are being built.
Offices influenced by Silicon Valley tech culture, featuring ping pong tables, catered meals and massage therapists, can be found in Austin. Lam also noticed the area’s transient culture.
“I’ve come to realize it’s such a transient place. People tell me they do a few years at a given tech company and look for the next role at another company,” he said.
What fuels Austin’s tech industry?
Many Texans consider the Austin-based computer company Dell, as the flagship firm that gave birth to an entire tech ecosystem in the city.
“There was a thing called “Dellionaires,” and so people who became millionaires after they worked at Dell, then went out and they started a bunch of companies,” said Chris Valentine, event manager and producer for a technology event called the SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event.
The University of Texas, plus the annual SXSW (South by Southwest) technology conference and music festival increase the city’s tech presence on the map by attracting tech experts and entrepreneurs from around the globe. People in the music business also fuel the tech industry in Austin.
“A lot of my friends are musicians. They also work in the tech field so there’s a huge overlap,” Berry said.
“There’s a strong foundational tech base that’s here. There’s that creative aspect and really bringing that all together is a powerful combination,” said Lou Kikos, general manager of Los Angeles-based web hosting provider Media Temple. The company has had a presence at SXSW in Austin for the past 11 years.
“A lot of companies are coming here. They have access to capital; it’s a very open community. That’s one of the wonderful things about Austin; people just seem to be kind of very open, kind of wanting to help each other,” Valentine said.
Culturally, Lam said that while Austin is home to people from Latin America and Europe, there are not that many people who look like him in town.
“When I walk out on the street, let’s just say I’m more than likely to be one of the only minorities, sort of, on any given street or any given room,” he said.
While Lam misses Cambodian food, he would recommend Austin to anyone who wants to relocate because the standard of living is high, and Austin has all the benefits of a big city without being too big. Another perk, Lam said, is the people.
“I’ve never felt unwelcome here,” he said.
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The French Interior Minister said Saturday that the French police officer who exchanged himself for a hostages held by a gunman in a supermarket in the southwestern town of Trebes has died.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame has passed away. He died for his country. France will never forget his heroism,” Interior Minister Gerard Collomb wrote Saturday on his Twitter account.
Authorities say two people have been arrested in connection with the shootings, including a woman who is reported to have been close to the assailant.
The gunman shot three people to death Friday during a burst of violence.
Car hijacking
First, he hijacked a car near Carcassonne, in southern France, Friday morning, killing the passenger and wounding the driver. He then drove off in the car and shot into a group of police officers who had been jogging, wounding one of them.
Next, in Trebes, near Carcassonne, he walked into the Super U supermarket where he opened fire, killing two people. He held several hostages in the supermarket, where Beltrame volunteered to trade himself for the hostages.
The gunman agreed and Beltrame kept an open line on his phone so his fellow officers could hear what was going on. When the officers heard more gunshots, they stormed the market, killing the gunman. Beltrame had been wounded.
Terrorism
After French President Emmanual Macron said evidence suggested the gunman’s actions were considered terrorism, the Islamic State militant group’s propaganda arm claimed responsibility.
“The person who carried out the attack in Trebes in southern France is a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried out the operation in response to a call to target the states” of the anti-IS global coalition, the Amaq agency stated on the messaging app Telegram.
Interior Minister Collomb said Friday, however, police had not considered 26-year-old suspect Redouane Lakdim, who was born in Morocco and lived in Carcassonne, a terrorist threat.
“He was known by the police for petty crimes. We had monitored him and did not think he had been radicalized,” Collomb said. He added, “He was already under surveillance when he suddenly decided to act.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office said counterterrorism authorities have assumed control of the investigation.
France has been on high alert after being hit with a series of Islamic State extremist attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 200 people.
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Adult film star Stormy Daniels is expected to discuss her alleged affair with President Donald Trump Sunday on the CBS program “60 Minutes.” Trump has denied the affair, which Daniels says took place in 2006. Daniels is one of three women involved in court cases stemming from contacts with Trump that could become major distractions for a White House dealing with political turmoil on several fronts. More now from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone in Washington.
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European Union leaders have given their unqualified backing to Britain over its accusation that Russia used a nerve agent to try to kill a former double agent and his daughter in Southern England earlier this month. At a two-day summit in Brussels that ended Friday, EU leaders also demanded a permanent exemption from proposed U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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