Сторона обвинувачення просила суд взяти Петра Порошенка під варту із можливістю виходу під заставу в 1 мільярд гривень
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Двопартійна делегація Конгресу США прибула з візитом до Києва
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A French court found far-right French presidential candidate and political commentator Éric Zemmour guilty Monday of inciting racial hatred and ordered him to pay more than $11,000 in fines.
Zemmour told a group of foreign correspondents that he stood by his controversial words, insisting he could not have been inciting racial hatred “insofar as unaccompanied minor migrants are not from a separate race.”
Monday’s case focused on comments that Zemmour made in September 2020 during an interview on French television network CNews about children who migrated to France without parents or guardians.
“They don’t belong here,” Zemmour had said about the children. “They are thieves. They are murderers. They are rapists. That’s all they are. They should be sent back. They shouldn’t even come.”
Speaking at a news conference Monday, Zemmour stood by his comments and said he would appeal, adding that the court was condemning him for expressing his views.
The former TV pundit, who is running in April’s presidential election, is drawing fervent audiences with his anti-Islam, anti-immigration views.
For several weeks last year, opinion polls showed that Zemmour, who has earlier convictions for inciting racial hatred, was coming close to placing second in the presidential poll and facing French President Emmanuel Macron in a runoff. He now ranks fourth in many polls.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Britain’s rebellious Prime Minister Boris Johnson has seldom come across a rule he hasn’t wanted to break — and in many ways his political ascendancy has been because of his flouting of ordinances with voters thrilling to his audacity and readiness to defy conventions and norms.
His rule-breaking, though, is turning into a liability rather than an electoral asset — even among populist-minded voters who liked the idea of a break with the past and wanted him to shake up British politics.
Britain’s Conservative lawmakers returned to London Monday from their constituencies with rebukes still stinging their ears from voters furious with seemingly endless revelations about numerous impromptu and bibulous Downing Street parties held last year as the coronavirus pandemic death toll mounted. The parties were in breach of a strict nationwide lockdown, when social gatherings were banned and thousands were prohibited from visiting family members dying in hospital wards from COVID-19.
The newspaper front pages have been withering in their criticism about what they have dubbed as “Partygate” and so has been the public reaction as more revelations emerge of a culture of partying at Downing Street with aides resupplying with wine and beer purchased from a supermarket near the House of Commons and transported back in a suitcase. Calls for Johnson to resign have mounted — including from some Conservative lawmakers. Cabinet rivals have been jockeying behind the scenes to position themselves to replace him.
Last week, Johnson offered a half-apology in parliament for the breaches of lockdown rules, but said he thought a “bring your own booze” garden party he attended was a genuine work meeting. Later in the parliamentary tea rooms, he suggested to Conservative lawmakers the scandal was a storm in a teacup.
Government aides had hoped the storm would blow over and tasked a senior civil servant to investigate.
On Friday, the scandal worsened when it emerged one party took place at Downing Street the night before the funeral of Prince Philip. Tabloid newspapers — and opposition lawmakers — were quick to note the contrast with the behavior of the rule-observant monarch, Queen Elizabeth.
She mourned the passing of her husband of more than 70 years at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, sitting alone in the pews, distanced from her grieving relatives.
The government apologized to the queen.
A survey conducted by the Grassroots Conservatives group reported Sunday that 40 % of its supporters want Johnson to resign.
Conservative MPs said they confronted enormous anger from their local associations when visiting their districts Saturday and Sunday. Lawmaker Robert Syms told reporters, “I’ve had emails from what I would call Christian, decent, honest, honorable types of Tory voters, who say they feel embarrassed about voting Conservative with Boris Johnson.”
Oliver Dowden, Conservative Party chairman, toured TV studios Sunday, saying Johnson is “both very contrite and deeply apologetic for what happened” and plans to overhaul the “culture” at No. 10. “He is determined to make sure that this can’t be allowed to happen and that we address the underlying culture in Downing Street,” he said.
In his attempt to salvage his premiership, Johnson is reportedly planning to dismiss much of his inner circle of aides and advisers, in what The Times of London newspaper described Monday as a bid to “save his own skin.” He is also planning to announce a series of populist measures, including ending pandemic curbs.
Nadhim Zahawi, the education minister, claimed the prime minister is safe in his job; however, around 20 to 35 Conservative lawmakers are said to have submitted formal letters to party authorities requesting a leadership vote. Fifty-four letters would trigger such a vote. Dowden said it would be wrong for Johnson to step down as prime minister, and that a leadership contest was not what the public wanted.
With Johnson’s poll numbers plummeting, the country’s top pollster, John Curtice, a professor at the University of Strathclyde, said Monday he doubts the prime minister can recover from “Partygate.” Conservative lawmakers “have to ask themselves whether or not the prime minister is likely to recover from a situation where around a half of the people who voted for him thinks he should go,” he said.
While it might seem odd that a series of parties would topple a British prime minister, pollsters say, the scandal might be the breaking point for voters. They say voters have become enraged by the toxic mix of government chaos, abrupt policy reversals and corruption allegations. The cavalier partying has cut through to them, they say.
Johnson’s showmanship, once widely seen as an attribute, has also been misfiring as the public mood sours. In November, a rambling speech at a conference of the country’s top business leaders led to widespread criticism. In the speech, Johnson lost his notes, had to apologize for losing his way and extensively praised an amusement park, known as Peppa Pig World, while comparing himself to Moses and imitating the noise of an accelerating sports car.
Just before Christmas, David Frost, Johnson’s Brexit minister and close ally, quit the Cabinet, citing pandemic restrictions and the government’s “direction of travel.” Frost, who had been handling Britain’s post-Brexit negotiations with the European Union, voiced dissatisfaction, saying he was worried Britain wasn’t taking advantage of its exit from the EU to chart a new course of limited government, lower taxes and reduced regulation.
Johnson recently suffered one of the most significant parliamentary rebellions in modern British history, when more than 100 of his Conservative lawmakers voted against the reimposition of tough pandemic restrictions. The embattled prime minister was further rocked by a humiliating parliamentary by-election defeat in a seat in the English Midlands that had been held continuously by the Conservatives since 1832.
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З Австралії тенісиста депортували після скандалу через відсутність у нього щеплення від COVID-19
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Військові ЗСУ кажуть, що контролюють ситуацію
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Один із делегатів Конгресу США вказав на те, що Україна – це «країна з історією вибіркового правосуддя»
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Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday returned to Ukraine to face court on treason charges he believes are politically motivated.
At the Kyiv airport, where he arrived on a flight from Warsaw on Monday morning, Poroshenko was greeted by several thousand cheering supporters. Some carried banners reading “We need democracy,” and “Stop repressions.”
From the airport, Poroshenko is expected to head straight to court, which will rule on whether to remand him in custody pending investigation and trial.
A prosecutor has alleged that Poroshenko, owner of the Roshen confectionery empire and one of Ukraine’s richest businessmen, was involved in the sale of large amounts of coal that helped finance Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014-15.
Poroshenko’s assets have been frozen as part of its investigation into the allegations of high treason. The former leader of Ukraine faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Poroshenko insists that he is innocent. He accuses his successor, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of seeking to discredit him politically to distract from Ukraine’s widespread problems, including economic woes and rising deaths from COVID-19.
The charges are the latest in a string of accusations leveled against Poroshenko since he was defeated by Zelenskyy in 2019. The allegations have generated concerns of undemocratic score-settling in Ukraine and also alarmed Ukraine’s allies. They come as Russia has built up troops along the Ukraine border and the United States has voiced concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin might be planning an invasion of Ukraine.
Poroshenko was defeated by voters following a corruption scandal and a mixed record on reforms, but he emerged with strong patriotic credentials for his work in rebuilding the Ukrainian army as it fought Russian-backed insurgent fighters in the east.
Zelenskyy says he is waging a fight against oligarchs that is aimed at reducing their influence in Ukraine’s political and economic life.
Poroshenko has been outside of Ukraine for weeks, meeting with leaders in Brussels, Berlin and other European capitals.
His supporters view charges against him as politically motivated. “It is a revenge of the authorities and an attempt by Zelenskyy to eliminate his biggest rival in Ukraine’s politics,” Anton Ivashchenko, 42, told The Associated Press at the airport. “Persecution of Poroshenko sows animosity and discord among those who push for … Ukraine’s closer ties with the West.”
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У твітері розслідувального проєкту вказано, що у разі невдачі у російських судах рішення Мін’юсту Росії буде оскаржено в ЄСПЛ
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Згідно зі звітом, 10 найбагатших людей світу мають більше статків, ніж 3,1 мільярда найбідніших людей у світі разом узяті
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Зять Назарбаєва Тимур Кулібаєв, якого називають одним із найбагатших людей Казахстану, оголосив 17 січня, що залишає посаду голови національної палати підприємців «Атамекен»
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Біля будівлі суду його зустріли кілька сотень прихильників
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Прикордонники «чітко дотримувалися норм законодавства», вказують у пресслужбі
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Після переговорів між представниками США та Росії в Женеві та засідання Ради Росія – НАТО у Брюсселі минулого тижня російські представники заявили, що очікують від країн Заходу письмової відповіді на свої висунуті у грудні вимоги
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Greek artist Alekos Fassianos, whose work drew on his country’s mythology and folklore, died Sunday at the age of 86, his daughter Viktoria told AFP.
Described by some admirers as a modern-day Matisse and by others as the Greek Picasso, his works, which included paintings, lithographs, ceramics and tapestries, have been shown around the world.
While he resisted comparison with Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, he admired both artists, but insisted he had drawn on many different influences.
Fassianos, who had been bedridden at his home in the suburbs of Athens for several months, died in his sleep, Viktoria Fassianou said.
Ill health had forced the artist to put down his paintbrushes in 2019.
“All the work of Fassianos, the colors that filled his canvases, the multidimensional forms that dominated his paintings, exude Greece,” Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis paid tribute to Fassianos as a painter who “always balanced between realism and abstraction.”
Fassianos, he added, “leaves us a precious heritage.”
The artist split his time between Greece and France, where he studied lithography at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris.
The website devoted to his work says his style was forged in the 1960s and that his main themes have always been man, nature and the environment.
From Paris to Munich, Tokyo to Sao Paolo, Fassianos’s works were shown around the world. Examples of his work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and in the Pinacotheque in Athens.
“Greekness has always been his inspiration, from mythology to contemporary Greece,” the artist’s wife, Mariza Fassianou, told AFP during a visit to his home last year. “He has always believed that an artist should create with what they know.”
Her husband would work on the floor or even scratch the corner of a table, she said. “He destroyed what he didn’t like.”
An Athens museum devoted to his work will open in autumn 2022 and display some of the works that currently adorn his home.
His friend, architect Kyriakos Krokos, entirely redesigned the central Athens museum that will showcase his work, collaborating with Fassianos himself.
France has bestowed upon him some of its top awards, including the Legion of Honor (Arts and Letters) and he is also an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts.
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The North Macedonia’s parliament late Sunday elected Social Democrat technocrat Dimitar Kovacevski as prime minister after more than two months of political turmoil in the country.
Kovacevski, a former deputy finance minister, succeeds Zoran Zaev, who stepped down last month following his party’s heavy defeat in municipal elections.
The new coalition Cabinet, led by Kovacevski’s Social Democrats (SDSM), was backed by 62 MPs of those present in the 120-seat parliament. Forty-six lawmakers voted against.
Presenting his agenda to the parliament on Saturday, Kovacevski had said a key goal of his government would be “higher and sustainable economic growth.”
He also promised to address the country’s energy crisis and to try to bring it closer to the European Union.
Kovacevski, 47, assumed leadership of the SDSM helm last month.
He takes over as prime minister after the previous government, also SDSM-led, survived a no-confidence vote in November after weeks of negotiations with smaller parties.
Ever since however, the opposition has accused the government of lacking legitimacy and has called for early elections. Kovacevski insists the elections will be held as scheduled in 2024.
As deputy finance minister Kovacevski, who holds a PhD in economics, kept a low profile.
Political analysts have questioned whether he will be able to negotiate the challenges the nation faces.
At home, they say, he will have to face the complex relations within the ruling coalition and the corruption crippling the country’s economy.
His biggest foreign policy challenge is thought to be getting progress on EU membership talks, which are stalled because of the opposition of Bulgaria.
In 2019, the country added the geographical qualifier “North” to its official name to distinguish it from the Greek province of Macedonia.
The change enabled North Macedonia to join NATO and was a precondition for paving the way for its possible EU membership.
But Bulgaria stands in the country’s path to EU membership because of a dispute over historical issues and the origin of the Macedonian language.
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Під час спецоперації чотирьох заручників звільнили, нападник був убитий
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Росія вимагає від НАТО письмових гарантій щодо неприєднання не тільки України, але й Грузії до Північноатлантичного альянсу
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