Daily: 04/18/2022

Росія: через вихід іноземних компаній до 200 тисяч жителів Москви можуть втратити роботу – мер

Влада міста очікує, що майже 12,5 тисячі осіб пройдуть перенавчання, а ще 39 тисяч – влаштуються на тимчасові чи громадські роботи

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Зеленський передав голові місії ЄС в Україні заповнений опитувальник щодо вступу до блоку

«Ми віримо, що здобудемо підтримку й станемо кандидатом на вступ. Після цього розпочнеться наступний, фінальний етап», – заявив президент

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Tourism-Reliant Cyprus Scraps Virus Tests for Most Travelers

Cyprus authorities on Monday made traveling to the east Mediterranean island nation easier as the summer tourist season kicks into gear by rescinding the need to undergo any COVID-19 tests prior to boarding a flight or on arrival.

According to the new regulations, only unvaccinated people who haven’t contracted and recovered from the coronavirus must undergo a PCR test 72 hours prior to boarding or a rapid test 24 hours before departure.

All Cyprus-bound passengers are no longer required to fill in a form — also known as a Cyprus Flight Pass — providing information that enables authorities to trace them if they do test positive for COVID-19 during their stay.

Vaccinated and recovered passengers will need a valid European Union health certificate. Health certificates from third countries are accepted if they’ve joined the EU’s COVID certificate system.

All adults are considered vaccinated for nine months after receiving their second dose or have received a 3rd booster shot. Individuals are designated as recently recovered from COVID-19 seven days after testing positive and for six months thereafter.

Tourism directly accounts for 13% of the island nation’s economy and authorities are keen to attract new markets to make up for the significant loss of Russian and Ukrainian tourists in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Україна планує отримати статус країни-кандидата в ЄС вже у червні – Єрмак

Після цього розпочнуться переговори про безпосередній вступ України до Євросоюзу

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Затонула «Москва»: з’явилися ймовірні фото і відео крейсера під час пожежі

Справжність фото і відео не підтверджена, проте експерти, що їх коментують, стверджують, що вони виглядають дуже правдоподібно, і корабель на них – це саме «Москва»

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«Закликаємо стати на сторону правди» – у МЗС України реагують на звинувачення президента Сербії

17 квітня в ефірі телекомпанії Pink TV Александар Вучич заявив, що його країна продовжить польоти до Росії, попри повідомлення про «мінування» рейсів

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Священники УПЦ (МП) зібрали майже пів тисячі підписів за церковний трибунал над Кирилом

Звернення у перекладі на грецьку подадуть на розгляд до Собору предстоятелів Константинопольської, Александрійської, Антіохійської, Єрусалимської і Кіпрської церков, якому підсудний патріарх РПЦ

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Zelenskyy Says Russian Forces Conducting ‘Deliberate Terror’   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of engaging in “deliberate terror” with mortar and artillery strikes on residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv, while Ukrainian forces in the southern city of Mariupol defied a Russian deadline to lay down their arms. 

Zelenskyy, in a video address late Sunday, said he expects Russia to launch an offensive in the eastern Donbas region “in the near future.” 

Russia’s withdrawal of its forces from areas around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and other parts of the north in recent weeks prompted assessments from Western military officials that Russia was reinforcing and redeploying those assets to eastern Ukraine. 

Capturing the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the port city of Mariupol to the south, would allow Russia to control a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula, which it seized in 2014. 

Zelenskyy, in an interview with CNN taped Friday and aired Sunday, said for Ukraine the battle for Donbas will be critical, and that if Russia captures the area it could once again try to seize Kyiv. 

“…It is very important for us to not allow them, to stand our ground, because this battle … can influence the course of the whole war,” Zelenskyy said.  

Russia has called on the remaining fighters in Mariupol to surrender, saying it controlled urban areas of the city, while an estimated 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers and 400 mercenaries remaining at the sprawling Azovstal steel mill. 

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told ABC’s “This Week” Sunday the country’s forces will “fight to the end” in Mariupol. 

“The city still has not fallen,” he said, hours after the expiration of Russia’s declared deadline. 

Asked about reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Moscow is winning the war, Shmyhal noted that while several cities are under siege, only Kherson in the south has fallen under Russian control.    

“More than 900 cities, towns and villages…are freed from Russian occupation,” Shmyhal said, adding Ukraine has no intention of surrendering in the eastern Donbas region.   

 The prime minister added that Ukraine wants a diplomatic solution “if possible.”  

 “We won’t leave our country, our families, our land,” he said.  

Zelenskyy said in his Sunday night address that Western nations should increase their sanctions against Russia, including actions targeting Russia’s oil and banking sectors. 

“Everyone in Europe and America already sees Russia openly using energy to destabilize Western societies,” Zelenskyy said. “All of this requires greater speed from Western countries in preparing a new, powerful package of sanctions.” 

Earlier Sunday, the Ukrainian leader tweeted that he had discussed ensuring Ukraine’s financial stability and preparations for post-war reconstruction with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.   

Georgieva tweeted in response, saying that support was “essential to lay the foundations for rebuilding a modern competitive #Ukraine.”  

 

Russia initially described its aims as disarming Ukraine and defeating nationalists there. Kyiv and its Western allies say those are bogus justifications for an unprovoked war of aggression that has driven a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes.    

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 

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Greek Police say Migrant Shot Dead While Crossing From Turkey 

A migrant was killed by gunfire at the Greece-Turkey border while she and several others attempted to cross a river separating the two countries, Greek police said on April 17. 

It wasn’t immediately clear who fired the shot that killed the woman the night before. An autopsy showed that the victim was shot in the back with a small-caliber weapon. 

Greek police were patrolling the area where the Evros River, which is called Meric in Turkish, narrows to about 60 to 70 meters (around 200 feet) wide and through which many migrants attempt to cross, according to a police statement and additional information provided to The Associated Press by a police officer on condition of anonymity. The officers spotted numerous migrants on the Turkish side shortly before 9 p.m. on April 16.

Police said 11 people embarked on an inflatable dinghy, and officers directed flashlights at the boat and started shouting “Police. Go back.” 

In response, said the police officer, a “barrage” of shots erupted from the Turkish side.  

The Greek police patrol couldn’t detect the source of the shots in the darkness and fell to the ground to protect themselves, shooting warning shots in the air, according to the statement which the officer corroborated. 

The dinghy came close to the Greek shore and five people disembarked — four made it to the shore while a fifth person was seen floating in the water. Police reached the body with some difficulty, according to the statement, and when they pulled it to the shore they determined that it belonged to a woman and that she was dead. 

Police questioned the four survivors — three Pakistani males, one of them a minor (17 years old), and a woman from Eritrea. It wasn’t known what happened to the other six people who tried to cross, but authorities don’t believe they entered Greece. 

Coroner Pavlos Pavlidis, who performed the autopsy on the woman in the northeastern city of Alexandroupolis, told the AP that the victim was between the ages of 20 and 25 and that she was most likely from one of the Horn of Africa countries. 

She had a wound “in the upper right (back) area. She was shot from close distance and died almost instantly from post-hemorrhagic (blood loss) shock,” Pavlidis said. 

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Париж вивчає доповідь ЄС, яка звинувачує Ле Пен у шахрайстві

Як стверджується в доповіді, Ле Пен привласнила 140 тисяч євро, а члени партії розтратили загалом 617 тисяч євро

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Родичі матросів із крейсера «Москва» заявляють про їхнє зникнення

Повідомлення з’являються попри заяви Міноборони Росії про те, що екіпаж встигли евакуювати

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Папа Франциск закликав зупинити війну, «в яку втягнули» Україну

У традиційному посланні «До міста і світу» (Urbi et Orbi) понтифік назвав цьогорічний Великдень «Великоднем війни»

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US Intelligence Satellite Launched From California

A classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office was launched into space from California on Sunday. 

The NROL-85 satellite lifted off at 6:13 a.m. local time from Vandenberg Space Force Base aboard a two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. 

It was the first mission by the NRO to reuse a SpaceX rocket booster, Vandenberg said in a statement. 

The Falcon’s first stage flew back and landed at the seaside base northwest of Los Angeles. 

The NRO only described the NROL-85 satellite as a “critical national security payload.” 

Its launch was one of three awarded by the Air Force to SpaceX in 2019 for a combined fixed price of $297 million. 

The NRO is the government agency in charge of developing, building, launching and maintaining U.S. satellites that provide intelligence data to senior policymakers, the intelligence community and the Defense Department. 

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‘This Land Is in Blood’: A Ukraine Village Digs Up the Dead

On a quiet street lined with walnut trees was a cemetery with four bodies that hadn’t yet found a home.

All were victims of Russian soldiers in this village outside Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Their temporary caskets were together in a grave. Volunteers dug them up one by one Sunday — two weeks after the soldiers disappeared.

This spring is a grim season of planting and replanting in towns and villages around Kyiv. Bodies given hurried graves amid the Russian occupation are now being retrieved for investigations into possible war crimes. More than 900 civilian victims have been found so far.

All four bodies here were killed on the same street, on the same day. That’s according to the local man who provided their caskets. He bent and kissed the cemetery’s wrought-iron crosses as he walked to the makeshift grave.

The volunteers tried digging with shovels, then gave up and called an excavator. As they waited, they recounted their work secretly burying bodies during the monthlong Russian occupation, then retrieving them. One young man recalled being discovered by soldiers who pointed guns at him and told him “Don’t look up” as he dug a grave.

The excavator arrived, rumbling past the cemetery’s wooden outhouse. Soon there was the smell of fresh earth, and the murmur, “There they are.”

A woman appeared, crying. Ira Slepchenko was the wife of one man buried here. No one told her he was being dug up now. The wife of another victim arrived. Valya Naumenko peered into the grave, then hugged Ira. “Don’t collapse,” she said. “I need you to be OK.”

The two couples lived next to each other. On the final day before the Russians left the village, soldiers knocked at one home. Valya’s husband, Pavlo Ivanyuk, opened the door. The soldiers took him to the garage and shot him in the head, apparently without any explanation.

Then the soldiers shouted, “Is anyone else here?”

Ira’s husband, Sasha Nedolezhko, heard the gunshot. But he thought the soldiers would search the homes if no one answered. He opened the door and the soldiers shot him too.

The men’s caskets were lifted out with the others, then pried open. The four bodies, wrapped in blankets, were placed in body bags. The lace-edged white lining of each casket was stained red where the head had been.

Ira watched from afar, smoking, but stood by the empty caskets as the others left. “All this land is in blood, and it will take years to recover,” she said.

She had known her husband was here. Nine days after his temporary burial, she came to the cemetery scattered with picnic tables, following the local custom of spending time with the dead. She brought coffee and cookies.

“I want this war to end as soon as possible,” she said.

The other bodies were a teacher and a local man who lived alone. No one came for them Sunday.

In the house next to the cemetery, 66-year-old Valya Voronets cooked homegrown potatoes in a wood-warmed room, still getting by without water, electricity or gas. A small radio played, but not for long because the news gets too depressing. A plate of freshly cut radishes rested near the window.

A Russian soldier once came running and pointed his gun at her husband after spotting him climbing onto the roof to get a cellphone signal. “Are you going to kill an old man?” 65-year-old Myhailo Scherbakov replied.

Not all the Russians were like that. Voronets said she cried together with another soldier, barely 21. “You’re too young,” she told him. Another soldier told her they didn’t want to fight.

Still, she feared them all. But she offered them milk from her only cow.

“I felt sorry for them in these conditions,” she said. “And if you’re nice to them, maybe they won’t kill you.” 

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Tesla Stockholders Ask Judge to Silence Musk in Fraud Case 

A group of Tesla shareholders suing CEO Elon Musk over some 2018 tweets about taking the company private is asking a federal judge to order Musk to stop commenting on the case. 

Lawyers for stockholders of the Austin, Texas-based company also say in court documents that the judge in the case has ruled that Musk’s tweets about having “funding secured” to take Tesla private were false, and that his comments also violate a 2018 court settlement with U.S. securities regulators in which Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million fines. 

Musk, during an interview April 14 at the TED 2022 conference, said he had the funding to take Tesla private in 2018. He called the Securities and Exchange Commission a profane name and said he only settled because bankers told him they would stop providing capital if he didn’t, and Tesla would go bankrupt. 

The interview and court action came just days after Musk, the world’s richest person, made a controversial offer to take over Twitter and turn it into a private company with a $43 billion offer that equals $54.20 per share. Twitter’s board on April 15 adopted a “poison pill” strategy that would make it prohibitively expensive for Musk to buy the shares. 

In court documents filed April 15, lawyers for the Tesla shareholders alleged that Musk is trying to influence potential jurors in the lawsuit. They contend that Musk’s 2018 tweets about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share were written to manipulate the stock price, costing shareholders money. 

Now, lawyers say Musk is campaigning to influence possible jurors as the case gets closer to trial. 

“Musk’s comments risk confusing potential jurors with the false narrative that he did not knowingly make misrepresentations with his Aug. 7, 2018, tweets,” the lawyers wrote. “His present statements on that issue, an unsubtle attempt to absolve himself in the court of public opinion, will only have a prejudicial influence on a jury.” 

The lawyers asked Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco to restrain Musk from making further public comments on the issue until after the trial. Chen gave Musk’s lawyers until April 20 to respond. 

Alex Spiro, a lawyer representing Musk, wrote in an email April 17 that the plaintiffs’ lawyers are seeking a big payout. “Nothing will ever change the truth, which is that Elon Musk was considering taking Tesla private and could have,” he wrote. “All that’s left some half-decade later is random plaintiffs lawyers trying to make a buck and others trying to block that truth from coming to light, all to the detriment of free speech.” 

But the shareholders’ lawyers wrote that Chen already ruled that Musk’s tweets were false and misleading, and “that no reasonable juror could conclude otherwise.” 

Judge Chen’s order, issued April 1, was not in the public court file as of April 17.  Adam Apton, a lawyer for the shareholders, said it was sealed because it has evidence that Musk and Tesla say is confidential. It will stay sealed until the parties agree if anything should remain sealed, he wrote in an email. “Our motion for TRO (temporary restraining order) accurately describes the issues decided by the court,” Apton wrote. 

After Musk’s 2018 tweets, the SEC filed a complaint against him alleging securities law violations. Musk then agreed to the fine and signed the court agreement. Part of the agreement says that Musk “will not take any action or make or permit to be made any public statement denying, directly or indirectly, any allegation in the complaint or creating the impression that the complaint is without factual basis.” 

If Musk violates the agreement, the SEC may ask the court to scrap it and restore the securities fraud complaint, the agreement says. A message was left April 17 seeking comment from the SEC. 

Spiro, on behalf of Musk, already has asked a Manhattan federal court to throw out the agreement. He contends the SEC is using the pact and “near limitless resources” to chill Musk’s speech. Court documents filed by Spiro say Musk signed the agreement when Tesla was a less mature company and SEC action jeopardized its financing. 

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Ukraine’s Reservists, the Last Line of Defense

Manning checkpoints and patrolling towns and cities: the reservists of Ukraine’s territorial defense force are the last line standing between ordinary civilians and Russian troops.

Standing 2.07 meters (6 feet, 9.5 inches) and dressed in camouflage fatigues that reveal only his eyes under a hood, “Buffalo” quit his job in construction and signed up for the force when the Russians invaded.

A cheerful young man in his 20s, he is one of the hundreds of thousands to answer President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for reservists.

He was posted to Svyatohirsk, a village about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Kramatorsk, the capital of the Donbas region in the east of the country.

The front lines are just 10 kilometers to the north and northwest, where fighting rages and the sound of intense bombardments can be heard daily.

Fighting is particularly fierce around the town of Izyum. Victory there for the Russian troops would open the way toward Kramatorsk.

“I’m sure you can hear the artillery,” Buffalo told AFP. “And how our villages are disappearing from the face of the Earth.”

He proudly shows a video on his mobile phone that shows him with his comrades deployed for combat in the snow, Kalashnikov in his hand.

But his mission also includes protecting and helping the local civilians.

“The civilians have learned what war is,” he said. “They stay in the basements and it’s all they can do to stay alive.

“Any time we can, we bring them food and water. There are a lot of elderly people there who have no place to go.”

There are still a good number left in the village of Svyatohirsk, which had a population of 5,000 before the war, and was then best known for its Orthodox monastery.

Behind the counter of his little cafe Andriy is kept busy. Local people mix with soldiers and reservists as they line up for a hot dog, a hamburger or a hot drink.

“Some people have left and others have stayed,” he said.

“The people are here. Everybody is walking around, shopping — one way or another they have to eat.”

Dressed in fatigues with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, reservist Andriy, 35, is among the customers.

For him, the territorial defense force is unique.

“We have people of all ages and from different backgrounds who all came together because they had only one goal. Teachers, engineers, workers, artists, it’s extremely important,” said the young man, a civil servant before the war.

“We will hold on until the last breath,” he said.

Many bridges in the region have been destroyed by the Ukrainians to slow down any advance by the Russians as Moscow turns the focus of its offensive toward the Donbas region.

The one in Svyatohirsk is still standing, even though mines are ready to blow it up.

Previously guarded by the territorial force, regular soldiers now keep watch over it.

“The bridge is under the protection of both the Ukrainian armed forces and the territorial defense,” said Volodymyr Rybalkin, a civilian journalist and head of territorial defense in the town.

Like many members of the territorial defense, he already had combat experience during the Donbas war in 2014-2015.

“Above us there are professional military commanders, who coordinate. Our task is to communicate with the civilians so that there is understanding and support between the two,” he explained.

Asked about Moscow’s announced offensive, he appears confident.

“The front line is less than 10 kilometers away. The artillery is firing at full strength and pushing the enemy back,” he said.

“I can’t predict what will happen tomorrow. Today (Russian) planes didn’t fly. We don’t know if tomorrow they will be back. We’ll react to all their actions.”

Behind him, “Buffalo” leads a refrain addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Glory to Ukraine!” he bellows.

“Glory to the heroes!” his comrades reply.

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Естонія, Бельгія та Болгарія закрили свої порти для російських суден – офіційно

Європейські країни закривають свої порти, відповідно до п’ятого пакету санкцій Євросоюзу проти РФ

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