Розділ: Повідомлення
Українці в Римі провели акцію пам’яті перемоги над нацизмом
Захід відбувся за підтримки й участі посольства України в Італії
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By Gromada | 05/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Помер Євгеній Пащенко, голова кафедри україністики в Загребському університеті
Упродовж кількох десятиліть він сприяв розвиткові культурних відносин між народами України й колишньої Югославії
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By Gromada | 05/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Зеленський дав звання «Мати-героїня» понад тисячі українських жінок
День матері в Україні відзначають у другу неділю травня
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By Gromada | 05/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Ткаченко: «закон про медіа» можуть винести на голосування у травні
«Я сподіваюся, що, можливо, в середині, можливо, наприкінці. Принаймні ми ставимо собі це за мету», – сказав міністр
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By VilneSlovo | 05/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Свобода слова
Ткаченко: якби існував закон про медіа, санкції РНБО проти «медведчуківських каналів» були б непотрібні
Ткаченко заявив, що діалог з представниками медіаспільноти стосовно законопроєкту про медіа «зіграв поганий жарт»
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By VilneSlovo | 05/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Свобода слова
У Дніпрі громадськість провела пам’ятну ходу
Пам’ять загиблих вшанували хвилиною мовчання та покладанням квітів, опісля працював «вільний мікрофон»
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By Gromada | 05/08/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Міністр Ткаченко розповів, як просуватимуть медіаграмотність серед школярів і студентів
Олександр Ткаченко повідомив про онлайн-платформу з медіаграмотності і конкурс щодо дитячої книжки про медіаграмотність
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By Gromada | 05/08/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
No, Biden Is Not Coming After Americans’ Burgers
Some Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators continue to falsely claim that President Joe Biden’s climate plan will force Americans to eat far less red meat. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at how burgers have become the latest battlefield in the country’s culture war.
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By Polityk | 05/08/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Меджліс просить уникати розваг у День пам’яті жертв геноциду кримськотатарського народу 18 травня
18 травня в Україні та світі згадують жертв депортації кримськотатарського народу з Криму у 1944 році
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By Gromada | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Соціологи запитали українців про алкоголь: найпопулярніше – вино та пиво
За даними дослідження, самогон вживають 6% опитаних, переважно на заході України
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By Gromada | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
With Ambassador Picks, Biden Faces Donor vs. Diversity Test
President Joe Biden is facing a fresh challenge to his oft-repeated commitment to diversity in his administration: assembling a diplomatic corps that gives a nod to key political allies and donors while staying true to a campaign pledge to appoint ambassadors who look like America.
More than three months into his administration, Biden has put forward just 11 ambassador nominations and has more than 80 such slots to fill around the globe. Administration officials this week signaled that Biden is ready to ramp up ambassador nominations as the president prepares for foreign travel and turns greater attention to global efforts to fight the coronavirus.
Lobbying has intensified for more sought-after ambassadorial postings — including dozens of assignments that past presidents often dispensed as rewards to political allies and top donors. Those appointments often come with an expectation that the appointees can foot the bill for entertaining on behalf of the United States in pricey, high-profile capitals.
But as he did with the assembling of his Cabinet and hiring top advisers, Biden is putting a premium on broadening representation in what historically has been one of the least diverse areas of government, White House officials say.
“The president looks to ensuring that the people representing him — not just in the United States, but around the world — represent the diversity of the country,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters this week.
Presidents on both sides of the aisle have rewarded donors and key supporters with a significant slice of sought-after ambassadorships. About 44% of Donald Trump’s ambassadorial appointments were political appointees, compared with 31% for Barack Obama and 32% for George W. Bush, according to the American Foreign Service Association. Biden hopes to keep political appointments to about 30% of ambassador picks, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions.
Most political appointees from the donor class, a small population that’s made up of predominantly white men, have little impact on foreign policy. Occasionally, they have been the source of presidential headaches.
Trump’s appointees included hotelier and $1 million inaugural contributor Gordon Sondland, who served as chief envoy to the European Union. Sondland provided unflattering testimony about Trump during his first impeachment, which centered on allegations Trump sought help from Ukrainian authorities to undermine Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Sondland was later fired by Trump.
Trump donor-turned-envoy Jeffrey Ross Gunter left locals in relatively crime-free Reykjavik, Iceland, aghast over his request to hire armed bodyguards. In Britain, Ambassador Robert “Woody” Johnson faced accusations he tried to steer golf’s British Open toward a Trump resort in Scotland and made racist and sexist comments.
In 2014, the American Foreign Service Association called for new guidelines to ensure that ambassadors meet certain qualifications for top diplomatic posts after a series of embarrassing confirmation hearings involving top Obama fundraisers. At least three of Obama’s nominees — for Norway, Argentina and Iceland — acknowledged during confirmation hearings that they had never been to the nations where they would serve.
Another big Obama donor, Cynthia Stroum, had a one-year tour in Luxembourg that was fraught with personality conflicts, verbal abuse and questionable expenditures on travel, wine and liquor, according to an internal State Department report.
So far, Biden has made two political appointments — retired career foreign service officer Linda Thomas-Greenfield for U.N. ambassador and Obama-era Deputy Labor Secretary Christopher Lu for another ambassadorial-ranked position at the U.N. Thomas-Greenfield is Black, and Lu, who is awaiting Senate confirmation, is Asian American.
His other nine nominees are all longtime career foreign service officers, picked to head up diplomatic missions in Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Cameroon, Lesotho, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Somalia and Vietnam.
Jockeying for ambassadorial positions started soon after Biden was elected and has only heated up as administration officials have signaled that the president is looking to begin filling vacancies ahead of his first overseas travel next month.
Cindy McCain, the widow of Republican Sen. John McCain and a longtime friend of the president and first lady Jill Biden, is under consideration for an ambassadorial position, including leading the U.N. World Food Program. Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, Illinois congressman and Obama chief of staff, is in contention to serve as ambassador to Japan after being passed up for the role of transportation secretary, according to people familiar with the ongoing deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Biden is also giving close consideration to former career foreign service officer Nicholas Burns, who served as undersecretary of state under George W. Bush and as U.S. envoy to Greece and NATO, to become ambassador to China. Thomas Nides, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, and Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman from Florida, are under consideration for ambassador to Israel.
The White House declined to comment about any of the potential picks.
Of the 104 diplomats currently serving or nominated for ambassador-level positions, 39 are women and 10 are people of color, according to the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, a bipartisan group of national security experts.
A group of more than 30 former female U.S. ambassadors, in an open letter organized by the Leadership Council and Women Ambassadors Serving America, urged Biden to prioritize gender parity in his selections for ambassadorships and other high-level national security positions.
“As you build out your diplomatic leadership, we hope you will pay attention to growing allies within the U.S. government who will also focus upon the diversity America’s representatives to the world should demonstrate,” the former ambassadors told Biden.
During the transition, Reps. Veronica Escobar and Joaquin Castro, both Texas Democrats, wrote a joint letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the administration to address the “persistence of grave disparities in racial and ethnic minority representation in the Foreign Service.”
To that end, the State Department last month appointed veteran diplomat Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as its first chief diversity and inclusion officer. Abercrombie-Winstanley will be the point person in a department-wide effort to bolster recruitment, retention and promotion of minority foreign service officers.
Blinken, in announcing her appointment, noted “the alarming lack of diversity at the highest levels of the State Department” during the Trump administration, but said the issue runs much deeper.
“The truth is this problem is as old as the department itself,” he said.
As a candidate, Biden declined to rule out appointing political donors to ambassadorships or other posts if he was elected. But he pledged his nominees would be the “best people” for their posts.
“Nobody, in fact, will be appointed by me based on anything they contributed,” Biden promised.
Ronald Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, Algeria and Bahrain, said Biden’s team has made progress in the early going in diversifying the upper ranks of the State Department.
He pointed to the nomination of Donald Lu, a career foreign service officer, as the next assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia and Brian A. Nichols to be the top envoy for Latin America. Nichols would be the first Black assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs since the late 1970s; Lu is Asian American.
In addition, the State Department’s chief spokesperson, Ned Price, is the first openly gay man to serve in that role. His principal deputy, Jalina Porter, is the first Black woman in that job.
“I think the administration is finding a good balance of experienced, accomplished career foreign service officers coming from diverse backgrounds,” said Neumann, who heads the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Finding good picks from Biden’s donor class, however, might be trickier, Neumann said, adding, “I don’t know how you go about finding competent, big donors from a pool that might be limited in diversity.”
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By Polityk | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
46% українців позитивно ставляться до визнання воїнів УПА борцями за незалежність – опитування
Проти цього – 29%, 9% респондентів відповіли, що їм байдуже, і ще 16% не визначилися
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By Gromada | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Опитування: діяльність Бандери позитивною для України вважають 32% українців, стільки ж – негативною
Молодь більш схильна вважати Степана Бандеру історичною постаттю, чия діяльність була радше позитивною для України, кажуть автори дослідження
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By Gromada | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Twitter Suspends Accounts Skirting Trump Ban
Twitter confirmed Thursday that it pulled the plug on several accounts trying to skirt its ban on former President Donald Trump by promoting his blog posts. The ex-president launched a page on his website earlier this week promising comment “straight from the desk of Donald J Trump.” The page was made public just before Facebook’s independent oversight board on Wednesday upheld the platform’s ban on Trump. Twitter accounts with names playing on Trump themes and seeking to amplify the Trump website posts were taken offline, according to the platform. “As stated in our ban evasion policy, we’ll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account,” a Twitter spokesperson told AFP. Twitter said it permanently suspended Trump’s account after the deadly January 6 Capitol riot because there was a risk he would further incite violence, following months of tweets disputing Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
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By Polityk | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden, in Louisiana, Tries to Bridge Troubled Waters
Politicians usually prefer to pose and smile in front of public works projects of pride. U.S. President Joe Biden did the opposite on Thursday — holding photo opportunities with a poorly maintained bridge as the backdrop and then touring a decrepit water treatment plant, with cameras in tow.“We’re standing here in the shadow of the I-10 bridge, which I’ve gone over several times myself in the past. And it’s a perfect example how we’ve neglected as a nation to invest in the future of our economy and the future of our people,” said Biden in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after he was introduced by the city’s Republican mayor.“Mr. President, any members of Congress out there who might be listening — Lake Charles needs help right now, and we’re asking for it,” Mayor Nic Hunter said.Biden proposes spending $2.3 trillion on infrastructure and jobs across the country. His visit, in part, was a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional delegation, which at the moment is exclusively Republican — until Representative-elect Troy Carter takes his House seat May 11 to represent the majority Black 2nd District.Narrower approachRepublicans insist on a narrower approach to infrastructure — repairing roads and bridges, modernizing transit and expanding broadband internet access, rather than spending money on renewable energy and care for the elderly.Biden’s American Jobs Plan is a “budget-busting tax hike spending boondoggle masquerading as an infrastructure bill,” said Republican Steve Scalise, who represents portions of Louisiana in the House. “Raising taxes that will force middle-class jobs overseas is not infrastructure.”Former President Donald Trump beat Biden in the state by nearly 20% in the 2020 presidential election.President Joe Biden is welcomed by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Louisiana Rep.-elect Troy Carter at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, La., May 6, 2021.Despite the loss in Louisiana, Biden “is the president for everyone,” Karine Jean-Pierre, White House deputy press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One during Thursday’s flight to the state.Republican lawmakers oppose Biden’s plan to fund projects with higher corporate taxes. The president contends such a tax hike would fund $115 billion for roads and bridges, and hundreds of billions of dollars more to modernize the electrical grid, provide better-quality drinking water, rebuild homes and accelerate the manufacturing of electric vehicles.The attempt to sell his package beyond his Democratic base is why Biden was pictured on Thursday at the Calcasieu River Bridge on Interstate 10 in Lake Charles. The bridge opened to vehicular traffic in 1952 and currently carries 80,000 cars and trucks daily. It is considered by structural engineers to be one of the most dangerous bridges in the United States.Operating the bridge beyond its anticipated 50-year life span is “a recipe for disaster,” Biden said.President Joe Biden tours a pumping room at the Sewerage & Water Board’s Carrollton water plant, May 6, 2021, in New Orleans, as New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell listens at right.Later in the afternoon, the president visited the Carrollton Water Plant in New Orleans, which provides drinking water to the country’s 50th-largest city.New Orleans is a major port city on the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast, sitting in bowl-shaped terrain that frequently floods.About half of the century-old plant’s turbines have failed in the past year. One of them exploded in 2019. Many of its pipes for water purification are crumbling.“The whole system could fail,” Ghassan Korban, executive director of the sewerage and water board of New Orleans, warned the president.Biden commented that water infrastructure, frequently overlooked, is a key element for “making life livable for ordinary people.”’Blue-collar blueprint’Biden said his “blue-collar blueprint” would help fix the bridge, the water facility and thousands more like them across the United States.On top of their long-existing infrastructure woes, the areas Biden toured, with quickly vanishing coastlines and wetlands, are fighting a losing battle — one that scientists say is exacerbated by a changing climate.Two devastating hurricanes ripped through southwestern Louisiana last year, and the region is bracing for the start of this year’s hurricane season, which officially begins in less than a month.”I know times have been tough here, and the damage from the hurricanes has been devastating,” Biden said during his remarks in Lake Charles, calling for hardened standards for new infrastructure projects as they “have to be built to withstand heavy winds and hurricanes.”
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By Polityk | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Support of Vaccine Patent Waiver is Only the First Step
World leaders welcomed the Biden administration’s announced support for waiving patent restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines, the so-called TRIPS waiver, at the World Trade Organization. While this could be a breakthrough in the global fight against the pandemic, as White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, it’s just the first step in a long and complicated process.
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By Polityk | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Florida Governor Signs Voting Restriction Bill into Law
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a voter restriction bill, making it the latest election battleground state in the south to adopt Republican-backed restrictions since the November presidential election.
DeSantis and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature said the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite the lack of voting irregularities last November.
The new law restricts when ballot drop boxes can be used during an early voting period, who can retrieve ballots, and the number of ballots that can be collected.
Voters requesting absentee ballots now face new identification requirements, and those making changes to their registration information are now required to provide an identification number, possibly from a driver’s license or some other type of acceptable identification.
The law also requires voters to submit new applications for absentee ballots in each general election cycle, instead of once every two cycles as required under the old law.
In addition, the law grants partisan election observers more authority to raise objections, and it requires people assisting voters to remain about 45 meters from polling stations, an increase from about a 30 meters radius.
The bill was approved by both houses of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. Democrats, voting rights groups and state elections officials said there was no need for the new restrictions.
Despite claims of voter fraud by state Republican politicians, they previously said they were unaware of such problems in Florida. Election supervisors throughout the state did not request any of the changes and cautioned that some of the new requirements may be expensive to implement and difficult to manage.
The NAACP, Common Cause and other rights groups said they would file a lawsuit in federal court arguing the new law would disproportionately affect disabled voters and those in predominantly Black and Latino communities.
The Democratic Party urged voters to cast ballots early by mail in last year’s November presidential election due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Florida Democrats cast 680,000 more mail-in ballots than Republicans, the first time in years they outvoted Republicans by mail.
Lawmakers in Republican-controlled states such as Georgia, Arizona and Texas have sought to explain a series of proposed voting restrictions by citing former president Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him.
Judges have discredited such claims in more than 60 lawsuits across the U.S. that failed to overturn election results.
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By Polityk | 05/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
На Олімпіаді вперше виступить спортсменка-трансгендер
Оновлені в 2015 році правила дозволяють трансжінкам виступати в жіночій ваговій категорії без операції зі зміни статі за умови низького рівня тестостерону впродовж щонайменше року
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By Gromada | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Кілька матеріалів журналістів Радіо Свобода потрапили до коротких списків конкурсу «Честь професії»
Загалом журналісти подали на конкурс 812 матеріалів
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By Gromada | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Обстріл в зоні ООС: один український військовий загинув, ще один поранений – штаб
Пораненого військового госпіталізували, його стан у штабі розцінюють як важкий
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By Gromada | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Захист ветерана, якого підозрюють у перевищенні самозахисту, оскаржує домашній арешт – адвокат
За словами Віталія Коломійця, захист розраховує на закриття справи
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By Gromada | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
МОН: 6 травня починається реєстрація на додаткову сесію ЗНО
Триватиме реєстрація до 18 травня
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By Gromada | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Judge Orders Justice Dept. to Release Trump Obstruction Memo
A federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice during the Russia investigation.
The Justice Department had refused to give the March 24, 2019, memorandum to a government transparency group that requested it under the Freedom of Information Act, saying the document represented the private advice of lawyers and was produced before any formal decision had been made and was therefore exempt from disclosure under public records law.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in a sharp rebuke of Barr, said the Justice Department had obscured “the true purpose of the memorandum” when it withheld the document.
She said the memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel contained “strategic, as opposed to legal advice” and that both the writers and the recipients already understood that Trump would not be prosecuted. Though government agencies may withhold from disclosure documents that reflect internal deliberations before a decision is made, that protection does not apply in this case since a conclusion had already been reached, the judge wrote.
“In other words, the review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” Jackson said in an order dated Monday.
The decision by Barr and senior Justice Department leaders to clear Trump of obstruction, even though special counsel Robert Mueller and his team pointedly did not reach that conclusion, was a significant moment for the president that he touted as vindication.
Barr issued a summary of Mueller’s report a full month before the entire 448-page document was released, helping shape the public perception of the investigation’s conclusions in a way that was favorable to Trump. Mueller subsequently complained to Barr that his summary had not fully captured the investigation’s findings and had caused “public confusion.”
In her order this week, Jackson chastised Barr for his general handling of the Mueller report, saying his “characterization of what he’d hardly had time to skim, much less, study closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to hide the ball.”
She also noted that another judge had rebuked Barr last year for what he said were misleading public statements that spun Mueller’s findings in the president’s favor.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a public records request seeking communications about the obstruction decision after Barr said that he and other senior officials had reached that conclusion in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal opinions to executive branch agencies.
At issue in a lawsuit pending before the judge were two particular documents the group wanted.
Jackson ruled that one of the documents, described by a Justice Department official as an “untitled, undated draft legal analysis” that was submitted to the attorney general as part of his decision-making, was properly withheld from the group.
But she ordered the release of the other memo, which concludes that the evidence assembled by Mueller’s team would not support an obstruction prosecution of Trump.
In her order, Jackson noted that the legal memo prepared for Barr, and the letter from Barr to Congress that describes the special counsel’s report, were “being written by the very same people at the very same time.
“The emails show not only that the authors and the recipients of the memorandum are working hand in hand to craft the advice that is supposedly being delivered by OLC, but that the letter to Congress is the priority, and it is getting completed first,” the judge wrote.
The judge said the Justice Department has until May 17 to file any motion to stay the order.
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By Polityk | 05/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Посольство України звернулося до ізраїльської сторони за поясненням щодо заборони на в’їзд українців
В’їзд, крім українців, заборонено громадянам Ефіопії, ПАР, Індії, Мексики та Туреччини
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By Gromada | 05/05/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Цьогорічний марш Рівності в Києві відбудеться у вересні – організатори
Торік Марші рівності у Києві проводили у форматі онлайн.
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By Gromada | 05/05/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
Судове засідання у справі Тетяни Чорновол перенесли
Суд не відбувся через те, що головуюча суддя на лікарняному
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By Gromada | 05/05/2021 | Повідомлення, Суспільство
