Those who have been lucky enough to enjoy the Gregorian chants and complex Renaissance melodies of the pope’s choir say it’s like hearing the angels sing. The choir sings at all the main papal events and travels around the globe to perform. Officials say the choir delivers a message of peace to people of all faiths. VOA’s Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome.
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Колишній президент України Віктор Янукович, звинувачений у державній зраді, позивається до Генеральної прокуратури і генпрокурора України Юрія Луценка.
Як повідомляє портал «Судова влада України», Янукович подав до Печерського райсуду Києва заяву «про захист честі, гідності і ділової репутації».
Коли саме це сталося, не уточнено.
Розгляд позову призначений на 13 вересня.
Речниця генпрокурора Лариса Сарган у Facebook пов’язала подачу позову з тим, що Оболонський райсуд Києва, який розглядає справу проти Януковича, 30 липня переходить до дебатів.
Читайте також: «Сім’я» Януковича підсанкційна ще рік, але «чорний список» може скорочуватися й далі
Наприкінці червня 2017 року суд перейшов до заочного розгляду в справі за звинуваченням Віктора Януковича у державній зраді.
Слідство інкримінує Януковичу три статті Кримінального кодексу України: ч. 5 ст. 27 (державна зрада), ч. 2 ст. 437 (пособництво у веденні агресивної війни); ч. 3 ст. 110 (пособництво в посяганні на територіальну цілісність і недоторканність України, що спричинило загибель людей або інші тяжкі наслідки).
Екс-президент України звинувачення відкидає. Віктор Янукович виїхав з України до Росії після розстрілів на Майдані у лютому 2014 року.
your ad hereGreece began over the weekend to begin burying the victims of the deadly wildfire that raged through crowded resort areas east of Athens last week.
Fire officials raised the death toll to 91 and said 25 people remained missing on Sunday, after last Monday’s fire raced through the area.
Hundreds attended a memorial service Sunday in Mati, a popular resort village hardest hit by the fire.
The local Orthodox Church official, Bishop Kyrillos, presided over the service.
“There’s fewer of us now than usually,” Kyrillos said. “It is the victims of the recent fire that are missing — friends, relatives and acquaintances, next-door people that we saw every day in town and on the beach.”
Fire officials said most of the victims died in the fire, but some drowned in the sea while trying to flee the blaze.
Greek authorities said the fire was the result of arson. It spread quickly because of dry conditions and winds of up to 100 kilometers per hour.
A database maintained by the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels shows this was the deadliest wildfire in Europe since 1900.
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The trial of President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman will open this week with tales of lavish spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultant’s pocket.
What’s likely to be missing: answers about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, or really any mention of Russia at all.
Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial, the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, will center on his Ukrainian consulting work and only briefly touch on his involvement with the president’s campaign.
But the broader implications are unmistakable.
The trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday with jury selection in Alexandria, Virginia, will give the public its most detailed glimpse of evidence Mueller’s team has spent the year accumulating. It will feature testimony about the business dealings and foreign ties of a defendant Trump entrusted to run his campaign during a critical stretch in 2016, including during the Republican convention. And it will unfold at a delicate time for the president as Mueller’s team presses for an interview and as Trump escalates his attacks on an investigation he calls a “witch hunt.”
Adding to the intrigue is the expected spectacle of Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, testifying against him after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors, and the speculation that Manafort, who faces charges in two different courts and decades in prison if convicted, may be holding out for a pardon from Trump.
“Perhaps he believes that he’s done nothing wrong, and because he’s done nothing wrong, he’s unwilling to plead guilty to any crime whatsoever — even if it’s a lesser crime,” said Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor. “Obviously, that’s very risky for him.”
Manafort was indicted along with Gates in Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation, but he is the only American charged to opt for a trial instead of cooperating with the government. The remaining 31 individuals charged have either reached plea agreements, including ex-White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, or are Russians seen as unlikely to enter an American courtroom. Three Russian companies have also been charged.
Prosecutors in Manafort’s case have said they may call 35 witnesses, including five who have immunity agreements, as they try to prove that he laundered more than $30 million in Ukrainian political consulting proceeds and concealed the funds from the IRS.
Jurors are expected to see photographs of his Mercedes-Benz and of his Hampton property putting green and swimming pool. There’s likely to be testimony, too, about tailored Beverly Hills clothing, high-end antiques, rugs and art and New York Yankees seasons tickets.
The luxurious lifestyle was funded by Manafort’s political consulting for the pro-Russian Ukrainian political party of Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed as Ukraine’s president in 2014.
Lawyers have tangled over how much jurors will hear of his overseas political work, particularly about his ties to Russia and other wealthy political figures.
At a recent hearing, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who will preside over the trial, warned prosecutors to restrain themselves, noting the current “antipathy” toward Russia and how “most people in this country don’t distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians.” He said he would not tolerate any pictures of Manafort and others “at a cocktail party with scantily clad women,” if they exist.
Prosecutor Greg Andres reassured the judge that “there will be no pictures of scantily clad women, period,” nor photographs of Russian flags.
“I don’t anticipate that a government witness will utter the word `Russia,”‘ Andres said.
While jurors will be hearing painstaking detail about Manafort’s finances, they won’t be told about Manafort’s other criminal case, in the nation’s capital, where he faces charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and lying to the government.
Nor will they hear about the reason he’s been jailed since last month after a judge revoked his house arrest over allegations that he and a longtime associate attempted to tamper with witnesses in the case. And they won’t learn that Manafort’s co-defendant in the Washington case is a business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik, who lives in Russia and who U.S. authorities assert has connections to Russian intelligence.
Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly sought to play down Manafort’s connection to the president, yet the trial won’t be entirely without references to the campaign.
Mueller’s team says Manafort’s position in the Trump campaign is relevant to some of the bank fraud charges. Prosecutors plan to present evidence that a chairman of one of the banks allowed Manafort to file inaccurate loan information in exchange for a job on the campaign and the promise of a job in the Trump administration. The administration job never materialized.
The trial will afford the public its first glimpse of a defense that so far has focused less on the substance of the allegations than on Mueller’s authority to bring the case in the first place. At one point, his defense lawyers sued Mueller and the Justice Department, saying they had overstepped their bounds by bringing a prosecution untethered to the core questions of Mueller’s investigation — whether Russia worked with the Trump campaign to tip the election.
Ellis rejected that argument despite having initially questioned the special counsel’s motives for bringing the case. He noted that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, had explicitly authorized Mueller to investigate Manafort’s business dealings. Mueller’s original mandate was to investigate not only potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but also any other crimes arising from the probe.
“When a prosecutor looks into those dealings and uncovers evidence of criminal culpability,” said Stanford law professor David Alan Sklansky, “it doesn’t make sense to ask him to avert his eyes.”
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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he believes the 4.1 percent growth the U.S. recorded in the last three months is sustainable in the coming months despite skepticism expressed by independent economists.
“There’s just a lot of good things going on,” Kudlow told CNN. He said President Donald Trump “deserves a victory lap,” with “low tax rates, rolling back regulations, opening up energy, for example. Trade reform I think is already paying off. The fundamentals of the economy look really good.”
He said “business investment spending is really booming. That’s a productivity creator. That’s a job creator. That’s a wage creator for ordinary mainstream folks, terribly important.”
Kudlow said the five calendar quarters occurring fully during Trump’s 18-month presidency have now been recorded with average economic growth of 2.9 percent for the world’s largest economy.
“I don’t see why we can’t run this for several quarters,” Kudlow said.
As the 4.1 percent growth rate for the April-to-June period was announced Friday, Trump boasted that the U.S. was on track to hit its highest annual growth rate in its gross domestic product in 13 years and predicted that as the country reaches new trade deals with other countries, the U.S. would exceed its second quarter advance.
“These numbers are very, very sustainable,” he said. “This isn’t a one-time shot.”
On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “The biggest and best results coming out of the good GDP report was that the quarterly Trade Deficit has been reduced by $52 Billion and, of course, the historically low unemployment numbers, especially for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Women.”
Skeptics less upbeat
Some independent economists, however, voiced skepticism that the $18.6 trillion annual U.S. economy would continue to advance at the same pace as the last three months.
Some forecasters said the gains in recent months were mostly, although not totally, the result of temporary factors, such as the initial boost from tax cuts Trump supported that took effect earlier this year. Most analysts say that for all of 2018 the U.S. could reach 3 percent growth, which would be the best since a 3.5 percent gain in 2005, but not again hit the annual 4.1 percent growth rate recorded last quarter.
“We believe quarter two will represent a growth peak as the boost from tax cuts fades, global growth moderates, inflation rises, the Fed tightens monetary policy and trade protectionism looms over the economy,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said, “The second quarter was a strong quarter, but it was juiced up by the tax cuts and higher government spending.”
In the U.S., consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, with Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, saying that such spending accounted for the robust second quarter.
“Consumers were really on a tear,” he said. “So to grow at 4 [percent] probably tells you people were spending the tax cuts that they enjoyed back in January, but that’s extremely unlikely to happen again.”
your ad hereIntrigue surrounding the U.S. Justice Department’s Russia probe has risen once again amid reports President Donald Trump’s former attorney is claiming Trump knew in advance of a 2016 meeting his top campaign staff and close family members held with Russians promising compromising material on then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report.
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Опозиційний лідер Олексій Навальний взяв участь, але не став виступати на мітингу проти пенсійної реформи, який 29 липня організувала в Москві дотепер маловідома Лібертаріанська партія Росії.
«На мітингу проти пенсійного грабежу. Тут чудово. Сьогодні не виступаю – ротація ораторів важлива річ. Стою разом з усіма, як сьогодні і має робити кожний відповідальний громадянин», – написав Навальний у мережі Twitter.
За даними організації «Білий лічильник», яка здійснює незалежний від влади підрахунок учасників мітингу, 29 липня на площу імені Сахарова в російській столиці прийшло понад п’ять тисяч людей.
Мітинги проти пенсійної реформи відбуваються в Москві другий день поспіль. 28 липня в організованому насамперед комуністами заході взяли участь понад 12 тисяч людей.
28 липня протести відбулися в десятках інших міст Росії.
Законопроект, поданий урядом і підтриманий Державною думою в першому читанні, передбачає, що пенсійний вік зросте до 65 років для чоловіків до 2028 року та до 63 років для жінок до 2034 року. Зараз пенсійний вік для чоловіків і жінок становить 60 і 55 років відповідно.
Плани уряду викликали протести по всій Росії з моменту їхнього оголошення в червні. Понад 2,8 мільйона людей підписали петицію проти реформи на сайті change.org.
Критики заявили, що вік виходу на пенсію у багатьох регіонах є вищим за середню тривалість життя.
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Прем’єр-міністр Угорщини Віктор Орбан, який представляє праві сили, розкритикував держави Західної Європи, які назвав «недемократичними» за їхню політику щодо мігрантів.
«На Заході існує лібералізм, але демократії там немає», – сказав Орбан на зустрічі з етнічними угорцями в Румунії. Він сказав, що цензура «стала звичайною практикою» в Західній Європі і що ці країни наклали на себе «обмеження свободи слова».
Орбан назвав Єврокомісію «символом невдачі». За його словами, на виборах до Європейського парламенту в наступному році домінуватиме «одна серйозна загальна тема – імміграція». Орбан закликав праві партії об’єднати зусилля, щоб «зосередити всю увагу на європейських виборах 2019 року» і поставити міграцію на перше місце в порядку денному. Він сказав, що політична еліта ЄС не змогла захистити Європу від мусульманської імміграції.
У квітні партія Віктора Орбана «Фідес» перемогла на виборах у парламент, а сам Орбан обійняв посаду голови уряду втретє поспіль. Орбан належить до тих лідерів країн Євросоюзу, які виступають проти імміграції. Угорщина побудувала загородження на кордоні і схвалила закони проти мігрантів, а також виступила проти діяльності мігрантських організацій.
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Російський прем’єр-міністр Дмитро Медведєв прибув на набережну Севастополя, де відбувається парад на честь Дня Військово-морського флоту Росії, повідомляють 29 липня російські інформагенції.
Командувач Чорноморським флотом Росії Олександр Моїсеєв провів огляд бойових кораблів, вилаштуваних у парадному порядку. Цьому передували урочистий молебень та покладання квітів до меморіальної стіни на честь оборони міста в 1941–1942 роках.
Медведєв прибув до Севастополя ввечері 28 липня і взяв участь в в урочистому концерті, присвяченому 1030-річчю хрещення Русі.
Місцеві ЗМІ справжньою причиною приїзду російського прем’єра називають засідання з розгляду виконання «федеральної цільової програми» розвитку окупованого міста. Серед проблем – провал туристичного сезону, занепад комунального господарства, неналежний стан доріг, відсутність очисних споруд, на які були виділені два мільярди рублів (це близько 800 мільйонів гривень).
Востаннє Медведєв приїздив до Севастополя в серпні 2017 року.
Міжнародні організації визнали анексію Криму незаконною і засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили економічні санкції. Росія заперечує анексію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості». Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила датою початку тимчасової окупації Криму і Севастополя Росією 20 лютого 2014 року.
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One hundred days from now, we should be better able to answer the following question: What does the country really think about the presidency of Donald J. Trump?
Midterm congressional elections are on November 6th and party control of both the Senate and House of Representatives is at stake, not to mention the fate of the Trump presidency for the next two years.
Opposition Democrats enjoy some key advantages three months out. When voters are asked which party they will support in the November elections, Democrats hold a seven point edge over Republicans in the latest polling average calculated by the non-partisan website Real Clear Politics. In a recent Quinnipiac poll, Democrats held a 51 to 39 percent generic ballot lead over Republicans, and other surveys have shown the Democratic advantage widening in recent weeks.
Referendum on Trump
Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much but they do see eye-to-eye on one thing, and that is that President Trump will be the defining issue in this year’s midterms.
With that in mind, Trump has been busy rallying his base and urging them to get out and support Republican candidates in November.
“We won’t back down, we won’t give in, and we will never, ever, surrender,” Trump told supporters at a recent campaign rally in Great Falls, Montana. “We will never, ever, quit. We go forward to victory.”
The president touted some good economic news on Friday when the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy surged last quarter to an annual growth rate of 4.1 percent, the fastest pace since 2014. “We have accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Energized Democrats
But the good economic news seems to be doing little to blunt enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms among opposition Democrats.
Democrats have undertaken an intensive grassroots organizing campaign for November to get out the vote, and that includes high-profile names like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for president in 2016.
“This fight about who controls the House is unbelievably important and it could literally come down to one or two elections,” Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd in Kansas recently. “If you guys can do what I know you can. This will be an election heard not only all over this country but all over the world.”
Democrats need to pick up about two dozen seats to retake the majority in the House, and gain two seats to have a majority in the Senate.
WATCH: US Midterm elections
In addition to being energized, analysts predict that Democrats also have history on their side.
“The midterms generally are good for the out party, the party out of the White House, and in this case Donald Trump is a particularly unpopular president among Democrats,” said John Fortier with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “They are motivated, they don’t like him and they want to come out to vote.”
Trump’s polls
And then there is the issue of the president’s poll numbers, which appear to have slipped slightly since his controversial summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Real Clear average has Trump’s approval at 43 percent, with 53 percent disapproving. But in two polls last week, Trump dropped below 40 percent approval, a reversal after improving his poll numbers in the last few months.
The latest Quinnipiac survey had the president’s approval at 38 percent, with 58 percent disapproving. And the Marist Poll found Trump’s approval at 39 percent with 51 percent disapproving. Marist also had the president under 40 percent approval in three key Midwestern states: Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won Michigan and Wisconsin as part of his Electoral College triumph in the 2016 presidential election.
Rallying the base
As Trump campaigns around the country on behalf of Republicans, he is urging supporters to defy history and turn out in strong numbers to show support for his agenda.
It is clear that both parties now see the midterms as a referendum on the president. “We have rarely had a president who was so centered on an election and so essential to it,” said University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato via Skype. “He is the Sun. Everything else revolving around the Sun is a planet or a moon.”
While Trump will be center-stage in the campaign, recent polls show Americans concerned with a range of issues including the economy, immigration, health care, guns and taxes.
Optimistic Democrats
Given Trump’s low approval rating and the historical trend of presidents suffering losses in midterm elections, many experts predict that Democrats should make gains.
“I think the question is, is there a Democratic wave or is it a Democratic tsunami?” said Brookings Institution scholar Elaine Kamarck. “Do Democrats take the House with a margin of five (seats) or do they take the House with a margin of 30? That I don’t think anybody can tell yet.”
But given the president’s loyal base and his apparent interest in campaigning, some Trump supporters caution that Republicans could do better than expected.
“I think the Democrats will gain some seats. But right now, if the election were held today, the Republicans may hold the House by one or two,” said former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. He spoke with VOA’s Georgian Service.
All 435 House seats and about a third of the 100 Senate seats are at stake in November, and the outcome will have a major impact on the next two years of Trump’s presidency.
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«Учорашнім випадом щодо Криму Росія демонструє свою слабкість, огризаючись на декларації низки цивілізованих країн»
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A black man yelled at former White House press secretary Sean Spicer in a bookstore and accused Spicer of calling him a racial slur when they were students at a prep school decades ago.
Spicer was “taken aback” by the man’s “outrageous claim” and had no recollection of him or of being in school with him, his publicist said on Saturday.
Spicer was at a book signing in Middletown on Friday to promote his new book reflecting on his time at the press podium for President Donald Trump.
Alex Lombard, who was standing behind a small group of people waiting in line to meet Spicer and get him to sign the book, called out Spicer’s name and said they went to Portsmouth Abbey School together. Spicer waved to him and said, “Hey. Yeah. How are you?”
Lombard, a Newport native who now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then accused Spicer of calling him the N-word and trying to fight him when they were at school.
“You don’t remember that you tried to fight me?” Lombard asked. “But you called me a (N-word) first.”
A security guard approached Lombard and led him away as he kept talking: “I was 14 then. I was a scared kid then, Sean. I’m not scared to fight you now.”
The Providence Journal reported Saturday that Lombard said he was a member of Portsmouth Abbey’s class of 1990. It said Spicer was a member of the class of 1989.
Phone and email messages left by The Associated Press for the school were not immediately returned.
A Newport Daily News video of the encounter doesn’t show how Spicer, who was seated at a table signing books, reacted to being accused of using the racial slur. But his publicist said he was shocked by the allegation.
Spicer “can’t recall any incident like this happening” and was “not sure if this was just a stunt this man was pulling,” Regnery Publishing publicist Lauren McCue said.
She said Spicer has been in the news a lot the last couple of years and it was “a very odd time” for an accusation like this to be made.
Spicer has been promoting “The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President,” which just came out. The book paints a rosy if sometimes thorny picture of Trump, describing him as “a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow” and a man to whom the regular rules of politics don’t apply.
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A prominent Belgrade lawyer who in the past helped to defend late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was shot dead, gangland-style, in front of his home on Saturday, police said.
Dragoslav Ognjanovic, 57, was gunned down in front of his apartment building in the Novi Beograd neighborhood and his 26-year-old son was wounded in the right arm, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
As a prominent criminal lawyer, Ognjanovic served in the early 2000s on a legal team that helped to defend Milosevic at his war crimes trial before the U.N. tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Milosevic died in the tribunal’s detention unit in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
Over the years, Ognjanovic also defended some of Serbia’s leading underworld figures.
Several prominent members of Serbian and Montenegrin organized crime networks have been killed in Belgrade in the past two years in what police describe as a turf war over the illegal drugs market.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responding to a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to slap sanctions on Ankara if it did not free an American pastor, said his country would stand its ground, Haberturk TV reported Sunday.
The friendship between the United States and Turkey is on the line in this dispute, Erdogan said, according to TRT Haber and other media.
“We will not take a step back when faced with sanctions,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “They should not forget that they will lose a sincere partner.”
American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was transferred to house arrest this week after 21 months of detention in a Turkish prison, has worked in Turkey for more than two decades. He has been accused of supporting the group Ankara says was behind a failed military coup in 2016, and of supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The pastor, who has denied the charges, faces up to 35 years in jail if found guilty.
Diplomats have been working to settle the tense dispute, and on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the status of the pastor with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, the State Department said.
Also Sunday, Haberturk TV quoted Erdogan as saying that Turkey would resort to international arbitration if the United States blocked the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara.
Erdogan also said Turkey had asked for U.S. help in securing the return to Turkey of Turkish citizen Ebru Ozkan, detained in Israel, Haberturk reported.
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Agriculture ministers from the G-20 countries criticized protectionism in a joint statement Saturday and vowed to reform World Trade Organization (WTO)
rules, but did not detail what steps they would take to improve the food trade system.
In the statement, they said they were “concerned about the increasing use of protectionist nontariff trade measures, inconsistently with WTO rules.”
The ministers from countries including the United States and China, in Buenos Aires for the G-20 meeting of agriculture ministers, said in the statement they had affirmed their commitment not to adopt “unnecessary obstacles” to trade, and affirmed their rights and obligations under WTO agreements.
The meeting came amid rising trade tensions that have rocked agricultural markets. China and other top U.S. trade partners have placed retaliatory tariffs on American farmers after the Trump administration put duties on Chinese goods as well as steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.
U.S. growers are expected to take an estimated $11 billion hit due to China’s retaliatory tariffs. Last week, the Trump administration said it would pay up to $12 billion to help farmers weather the trade war.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting that Trump’s plan would include between $7 billion and $8 billion in direct cash relief that U.S. farmers could see as early as late September.
Despite the payments, the measures are “not going to make farmers whole,” Perdue said.
Citing the Trump administration’s relief measures, German Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner said farmers “don’t need aid, [they] need trade.”
“We had a very frank discussion about the fact that we don’t want unilateral protectionist measures,” Kloeckner said in a news conference after the meeting.
The ministers, whose countries represent 60 percent of the world’s agricultural land and 80 percent of food and agricultural commodities trade, did not specify which measures they were referring to in the statement. Asked for details, Kloeckner said the ministers did not want to “criticize a single
country.”
“We all know what happens if a single person or country doesn’t adhere to WTO rules, trying to get a benefit for themselves through protectionism,” she said. “This will usually lead to retaliatory tariffs.”
In the statement, the ministers said they agreed to continue reforming the WTO’s agricultural trade rules.
“Independent of all the news there was surrounding [the meeting], we managed to reach a unanimous consensus,” Argentine Agriculture Minister Luis Miguel Etchevehere said.
U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker struck a surprise deal on Wednesday that ended the risk of further escalating trade tensions between the two powers.
After the meeting, Trump said the European Union would buy “a lot” of U.S. soybeans.
Earlier, Kloeckner told Reuters that the trade relationship between the United States and the European Union was improving, but that there was no guarantee the bloc would import the quantity of soybeans that Washington expects.
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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is being detained in Turkey on terrorism and espionage charges.
Details of the conversation were not disclosed, but State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the two diplomats were “committed to continued discussions to resolve the matter and address other issues of common concern.”
Brunson, an evangelical pastor from Black Mountain, North Carolina, was indicted on charges of helping a network led by U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in addition to supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The detention of Brunson has strained relations between Turkey and the U.S., both NATO allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened sanctions as part of a pressure campaign to free the pastor.
Brunson had been in jail for 21 months before being put under house arrest Wednesday. His transfer came one week after a court inside a prison complex in the western Turkish town of Aliaga ruled to keep Brunson in detention while he is tried. The court dismissed Brunson’s attorney’s request for Brunson to be freed pending the outcome of the trial, which was adjourned until October 12.
Brunson, 50, who denies the charges, could face up to 35 years in prison if convicted.
Pompeo wrote Wednesday on Twitter that Brunson’s transfer was “long overdue news” but added that the U.S. expected Ankara to do more.
Trump has repeatedly demanded Brunson’s release. The U.S. president has tweeted that Brunson’s detention is “a total disgrace” and added, “He has done nothing wrong, and his family needs him!”
Brunson is among tens of thousands of people Erdogan detained on similar charges during the state of emergency he declared following the failed coup.
The state of emergency ended July 18, but the Turkish legislature passed a new “anti-terror” law Wednesday that gives authorities more power to detain suspects and restore public order.
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Один з найбільш відомих американських кардиналів римо-католицької церкви подав у відставку на тлі сексуального скандалу, що розгортається.
Папа Римський Франциск заявив у своїй заяві 28 липня із Ватикану, що він прийняв відставку кардинала Теодора Маккарріка, колишнього архієпископа Вашингтона.
Відставку спричинило повідомлення минулого місяця про те, що чиновники церкви у США підтвердили звинувачення щодо Маккарріка у здійсненні сексуального насильства проти підлітка близько 50 років тому. Пізніше з’явилися й інші звинувачення.
Повідомляють, що Маккаррік – перший кардинал на пам’яті нині живих, хто втратив свій титул у католицькій церкві.
Єпископи були замішані у скандали сексуального насильства, які впродовж десятиліть псували репутацію церкви у всьому світі.
У лютому 2018 року у Ватикані відновила роботу комісія з боротьби з сексуальним насильством в духовенстві. Комісія збиратиме свідчення людей, які стали жертвами насильства, після чого має представити папі Римському рекомендації, які дозволять запобігти подібним злочинам у майбутньому.
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28 липня у Запоріжжі фінішував мотопробіг за єдність України. Учасників акції місцеві байкери, представники обласної влади та ЗМІ зустрічали на центральній площі міста.
«Думаю, що ця традиція буде продовжуватися і наступного року і через рік, і буде охоплювати не лише Україну, а й інші країни. Це велика місія, що піднімає людей, виховує їх патріотизм, що зараз у нас, на жаль, починає затихати, а це дуже погано. Чому везли прапор? Бо це найбільш монументальне, що в нас є, символ нашої країни. І те, що ми проїхали через всю країну з цим прапором, об’єднуючись з областями – ми показали, що ми дружні, незважаючи на всі наші відмінності», – розповів ініціатор мотопробігу Микола Спірідонов.
Після урочистої зустрічі в центрі Запоріжжя учасники мотопробігу вирушили на Хортицю, де для них у «Кінному театрі» було організовано святкову програму.
Мотопробіг за єдність України стартував 23 липня в Ужгороді. Під час акції байкери проїхали через усю країну та відвідали оборонців України у Маріуполі та на Чонгарі. З собою мотоциклісти провезли через всю країну два великих прапори: державний прапор України і національний прапор кримськотатарського народу.
Як повідомляє проект Радіо Свобода Крим.Реалії, на адміністративному кордоні з Кримом байкери передали кримськотатарським активістам національний прапор кримськотатарського народу з підписами байкерських клубів України.
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The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.
At the time, the sister only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame.
“It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told the Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.”
After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on an issue that the Catholic Church has yet to come to terms with: The sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops. An AP examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the universal tradition of sisters’ second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.
Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.
The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children, and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians.
The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican. Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won’t be believed, experts told the AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their vows of celibacy, knowing that their secrets will be kept.
However, this week, about half a dozen sisters in a small religious congregation in Chile went public on national television with their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns — and how their superiors did nothing to stop it. A nun in India recently filed a formal police complaint accusing a bishop of rape, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Cases in Africa have come up periodically; in 2013, for example, a well-known priest in Uganda wrote a letter to his superiors that mentioned “priests romantically involved with religious sisters” — for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in May. And the sister in Europe spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light.
“I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago,” Karlijn Demasure, one of the church’s leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP in an interview. “I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.”
TAKING VICTIMS SERIOUSLY
The Vatican declined to comment on what measures, if any, it has taken to assess the scope of the problem globally, what it has done to punish offenders and care for the victims. A Vatican official said it is up to local church leaders to sanction priests who sexually abuse sisters, but that often such crimes go unpunished both in civil and canonical courts.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the issue, said only some cases arrive at the Holy See for investigation. It was a reference to the fact that the Catholic Church has no clear measures in place to investigate and punish bishops who themselves abuse or allow abusers to remain in their ranks — a legal loophole that has recently been highlighted by the McCarrick case.
The official said the church has focused much of its attention recently on protecting children, but that vulnerable adults “deserve the same protection.”
“Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested,” the official told the AP. “Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty.”
But being taken seriously is often the toughest obstacle for sisters who are sexually abused, said Demasure, until recently executive director of the church’s Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church’s leading think tank on the issue.
“They (the priests) can always say ‘she wanted it,’” Demasure said. “It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa.”
Demasure said many priests in Africa, for example, struggle with celibacy because of traditional and cultural beliefs in the importance of having children. Novices, who are just entering religious life, are particularly vulnerable because they often need a letter from their parish priest to be accepted into certain religious congregations. “And sometimes they have to pay for that,” she said.
And when these women become pregnant?
“Mainly she has an abortion. Even more than once. And he pays for that. A religious sister has no money. A priest, yes,” she said.
There can also be a price for blowing the whistle on the problem.
In 2013, the Rev. Anthony Musaala in Kampala, Uganda wrote what he called an open letter to members of the local Catholic establishment about “numerous cases” of alleged sex liaisons of priests, including with nuns. He charged that it was “an open secret that many Catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity.”
He was sanctioned, even though Ugandan newspapers regularly report cases of priests caught in sex escapades. The topic is even the subject of a popular novel taught in high schools.
In 2012, a priest sued a bishop in western Uganda who had suspended him and ordered him to stop interacting with at least four nuns. The priest, who denied the allegations, lost the suit, and the sisters later withdrew their own suit against the bishop.
Archbishop John Baptist Odama, leader of the local Ugandan conference of bishops, told the AP that unverified or verified allegations against individual priests should not be used to smear the whole church.
“Individual cases may happen, if they are there,” he said Thursday. “Individual cases must be treated as individual cases.”
PRIESTLY ABUSE OF NUNS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM
Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. In 1994, the late Sr. Maura O’Donohue wrote the most comprehensive study about a six-year, 23-nation survey, in which she learned of 29 nuns who had been impregnated in a single congregation.
Nuns, she reported, were considered “safe” sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population.
Four years later, in a report to top religious superiors and Vatican officials, Sr. Marie McDonald said harassment and rape of African sisters by priests is “allegedly common.” Sometimes, when a nun becomes pregnant, the priest insists on an abortion, the report said.
The problem travelled when the sisters were sent to Rome for studies. They “frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help in writing essays. Sexual favors are sometimes the payment they have to make for such help,” the report said.
The reports were never meant to be made public. The U.S. National Catholic Reporter put them online in 2001, exposing the depths of a scandal the church had long sought to keep under wraps. To date, the Vatican hasn’t said what, if anything, it ever did with the information.
Sister Paola Moggi, a member of the Missionary Combonian Sisters — a religious congregation with a significant presence in 16 African countries — said in her experience the African church “had made great strides” since the 1990s, when she did missionary work in Kenya, but the problem has not been eliminated.
“I have found in Africa sisters who are absolutely emancipated and who say what they think to a priest they meet who might ask to have sex with them,” she told the AP.
“I have also found sisters who said ‘Well, you have to understand their needs, and that while we only have a monthly cycle a man has a continuous cycle of sperm’ — verbatim words from the ’90s,” she said.
But the fact that in just a few weeks scandals of priests allegedly molesting sisters have erupted publicly on two other continents — Asia and Latin America — suggests that the problem is not confined to Africa, and that some women are now willing to break the taboo to denounce it publicly.
In India, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus filed a police report last month alleging a bishop raped her in May 2014 during a visit to the heavily Christian state of Kerala, and that he subsequently sexually abused her around a dozen more times over the following two years, Indian media have reported. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds.
In Chile, the scandal of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, an order dedicated to health care in the diocese of Talca, erupted at the same time the country’s entire Catholic hierarchy has been under fire for decades of sex abuse and cover-ups. The scandal got so bad that in May, Francis summoned all Chilean bishops to Rome, where they all offered to resign en masse.
The case, exposed by the Chilean state broadcaster, involves accusations of priests fondling and kissing nuns, including while naked, and some religious sisters sexually abusing younger ones. The victims said they told their mother superior, but that she did nothing. Talca’s new temporary bishop has vowed to find justice.
The Vatican is well aware that religious sisters have long been particularly vulnerable to abuse. Perhaps the most sensational account was detailed in the 2013 book “The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio,” based on the archives of the Vatican’s 1860s Inquisition trial of abuse, embezzlement, murder and “false holiness” inside a Roman convent. Once word got out, the Vatican poured the full force of its Inquisition to investigate and punish.
It remains to be seen what the Vatican will do now that more sisters are speaking out.
ONE SISTER’S STORY — AND YEARS OF HURT
The sister who spoke to the AP about her assault in 2000 during confession at a Bologna university clasped her rosary as she recounted the details.
She recalled exactly how she and the priest were seated in two armchairs face-to-face in the university classroom, her eyes cast to the floor. At a certain point, she said, the priest got up from his chair and forced himself on her. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair.
The nun continued with her confession that day. But the assault — and a subsequent advance by a different priest a year later — eventually led her to stop going to confession with any priest other than her spiritual father, who lives in a different country.
“The place of confession should be a place of salvation, freedom and mercy,” she said. “Because of this experience, confession became a place of sin and abuse of power.”
She recalled at one point a priest in whom she had confided had apologized “on behalf of the church.” But nobody ever took any action against the offender, who was a prominent university professor.
The woman recounted her story to the AP without knowing that at that very moment, a funeral service was being held for the priest who had assaulted her 18 years earlier.
She later said the combination of his death and her decision to speak out lifted a great weight.
“I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest,” she said. “I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight.”
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Посол України у Сполучених Штатах Америки Валерій Чалий особисто подякував державному секретарю Майку Помпео за Кримську декларацію. Про це посол повідомив на своїй сторінці у Facebook.
«За дорученням президента України Петра Порошенка особисто подякував Державному секретарю США Майку Помпео за ухвалу Декларації політики США щодо Криму (думаю, в майбутньому буде згадуватися як «Декларація Помпео»), – написав посол.
Також Чалий зазначив, що обговорив з Помпео подальші спільні кроки щодо стратегічного партнерства України і США.
25 липня державний секретар США Майк Помпео заявив, що Сполучені Штати Америки закликають Росію припинити окупацію українського півострова Крим.
«Оскільки демократичні держави прагнуть побудувати вільний, справедливий і квітучий світ, ми повинні підтримувати нашу прихильність до міжнародного принципу суверенної рівності та поваги територіальної цілісності інших держав. Росія діяла у спосіб, не гідний великої нації, і обрала ізоляцію від міжнародної спільноти», – йдеться в заяві Помпео, оприлюдненій на сайті Державного департаменту.
Читайте також: Псевдосенсації зчиняють «бурю», а щодо важливої Кримської декларації США немає резонансу – Щербак
У березні 2014 року Росія анексувала український півострів Крим. Міжнародні організації визнали анексію Криму незаконною і засудили дії Росії, країни Заходу запровадили проти неї економічні санкції. Кремль заперечує анексію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості».
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Уряд Канади 28 липня виступив із заявою, в якій підтвердив свою позицію щодо незаконності анексії Росією українського півострова Крим. На думку Оттави, це порушує «найважливішу міжнародну норму про те, що жодна країна не може силою змінити кордони інших країн».
«Канада підтверджує своє незмінну повагу до територіальної цілісності України та засуджує дії, вжиті Росією для насильницької інтеграції Кримського півострова в Росію, в тому числі через відкриття мосту через Керченської протоки в травні 2018 року», – ідеться в документі.
Канада також вказує на порушення прав людини з часу окупації Криму, зокрема, переслідування кримських татар.
«Ми закликаємо до звільнення всіх незаконно затриманих українських громадян, у тому числі Олега Сенцова, які були вивезені до Росії та засуджені судами, юрисдикції яких у Криму ми не визнаємо», – наголошує канадський уряд.
Кілька західних країн останнім часом виступили на підтримку територіальної цілісності України та підтвердили невизнання анексії Криму.
Сполучені Штати Америки закликають Росію припинити окупацію українського півострова Крим, заявив 25 липня державний секретар США Майк Помпео.
Норвегія підтримала офіційну декларацію Державного департаменту США по Криму, повідомили 26 липня в міністерстві закордонних справ Норвегії.
У березні 2014 року Росія анексувала український півострів Крим. Міжнародні організації визнали анексію Криму незаконною і засудили дії Росії, країни Заходу запровадили проти неї економічні санкції. Кремль заперечує анексію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості».
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President Donald Trump falsely claimed he’s pulled off “an economic turnaround of historic proportions.”
Speaking at the White House Friday after the government reported that the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter, Trump declared that the gains were sustainable and would only accelerate. Few economists outside the administration agree with this claim.
His remarks followed events Thursday in Iowa and Illinois, where Trump falsely repeated a claim that the U.S. economy is the best “we’ve ever had” and incorrectly asserted that Canada’s trade market is “totally closed.”
WATCH: Trump Says Economy Numbers Sustainable, But Experts Doubtful
A look at the claims:
Historic turnaround
TRUMP: “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” — remarks Friday at the White House.
THE FACTS: Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy.
The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.
While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.
The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past.
Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control.
Trade deficit
TRUMP: “One of the biggest wins in the report, and it is, indeed a big one, is that the trade deficit — very dear to my heart because we’ve been ripped off by the world — has dropped.”
THE FACTS: Trump is correct that a lower trade deficit helped growth in the April-June quarter, but it’s not necessarily for a positive reason.
The president has been floating plans to slap import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign goods, which has led to the risk of retaliatory tariffs by foreign companies on U.S. goods.
This threat of an escalating trade war has led many companies to increase their levels of trade before any tariffs hit, causing the temporary boost in exports being celebrated by Trump.
Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial, said the result is that the gains from trade in the second quarter will not be repeated.
Best economy ever
TRUMP: “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.” — remarks in Granite City, Illinois.
THE FACTS: Even allowing for Trump’s tendency to exaggerate, this overstates things.
The unemployment rate is near a 40-year low and growth is solid, but by many measures the current economy trails other periods in U.S. history. Average hourly pay, before adjusting for inflation, is rising around a 2.5 percent annual rate, below the 4 percent level reached in the late 1990s when the unemployment rate was as low as it is now.
Pay was growing even faster in the late 1960s, when the jobless rate remained below 4 percent for nearly four years. And economic growth topped 4 percent for three full years from 1998 through 2000, an annual rate it hasn’t touched since.
Canada market closed
TRUMP: “The Canadians, you have a totally closed market … they have a 375 percent tax on dairy products, other than that it’s wonderful to deal. And we have a very big deficit with Canada, a trade deficit.” — remarks in Peosta, Iowa.
THE FACTS: No, it’s not totally closed. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s market is almost totally open to the United States. Each country has a few products that are still largely protected, such as dairy in Canada and sugar in the United States.
Trump also repeated his claim that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, but that is true only in goods. When services are included, such as insurance, tourism, and engineering, the U.S. had a $2.8 billion surplus with Canada last year.
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Friday’s positive numbers on the U.S. economic growth are “very, very sustainable,” according to U.S. President Donald Trump. His comments came after figures showed U.S. GDP growth hit 4.1 percent in the second quarter. The question is whether that growth is sustainable, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from the White House.
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Twitter’s share price fell more than 20 percent Friday after the social media giant reported a drop in active users.
Twitter said it had 335 million monthly users in the second quarter of the year, which was down a million from the amount of monthly users in the first quarter of the year, and below the 339 million users Wall Street was expecting.
Twitter said that the number of monthly users could continue to fall next quarter as the company continues to ban accounts that violate its terms of service and as it makes other accounts less visible.
The company says it is putting the long-term stability of its platform above user growth. However, the move has made it more difficult for investors to value the company, as they rely on data pertaining to the platform’s potential user reach.
Shares in Twitter tumbled 20.5 percent to close at $34.12 Friday. The fall in the share price came despite Twitter’s report of higher than expected revenue. During the last quarter, Twitter posted a profit of $100 million, marking the company’s third consecutive profitable quarter.
The drop in Twitter’s share price came a day after Facebook lost 19 percent of its value. Facebook said Thursday that slower user growth in big markets and increased spending to improve privacy would hit margins for years, leading to the company’s worst trading day since it went public in 2012.
Both Twitter and Facebook have been under pressure from regulators in several countries to protect user data as well as stamp out hate speech and misinformation.
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