ucrdem
ucrdem's JournalCorbyn Puts May on the Spot By Agreeing to Attend Debate
Source: Bloomberg
May 31, 2017, 5:31 AM PDT
With June 8 elections looming, gap between two has narrowed
U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he will take part in a seven-way general election debate on Wednesday night as Prime Minister Theresa May stuck to her position that she would rather address voters than confront her rival on live television.
The BBC, which is hosting the debate at 7:30 p.m., confirmed that Corbyn had decided to attend, while a Conservative Party spokesman said that May had no plans to join him. The prime minister has seen her once-comfortable poll lead erode a week before the vote.
"It puts her in a bind," said Matt Beech, director of the Center for British Politics at the University of Hull. "It’s difficult but I think the most sensible thing is for May to stick by her guns -- as a PM you lose the gravitas when you’re brought to the level of all these other potentials most of whom don’t have a chance of winning. If she does turn up she looks like she’s not stable and not steady."
May’s mantra has been “strong and stable” but she has appeared increasingly uncomfortable when quizzed about her shrinking poll lead and policy U-turns --resorting to a series of personal attack against Corbyn from the Group of Seven summit in Sicily to back home when she resumed campaigning.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-31/u-k-s-corbyn-puts-may-on-the-spot-by-agreeing-to-attend-debate
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Debate is tonight, Corbyn is gaining, election is June 8
Merkel wants to foster India ties, softens message on U.S. as Trump scolds
Source: Reuters
Tue May 30, 2017 | 10:12am EDT
BERLIN - Germany wants to develop its ties with India but this should not be at the cost of its trans-Atlantic relationship, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday after meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Merkel, trying to repair damage after shocking Washington on Sunday by declaring the era in which Europe could rely on its partners was somewhat over, repeatedly stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic ties. But she also highlighted Germany's history of cooperating with India and China in a global world.
(snip)
In a thinly veiled dig at the Trump administration, Merkel said "protectionist tendencies" were increasing worldwide and this made it necessary to remain open and ensure conditions for negotiations are fair.
(snip)
Speaking at a joint news conference with Modi, Merkel reiterated her view that "we need to take our fate in Europe into our own hands".
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-india-idUSKBN18Q0ZJ?il=0
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I believe a message is being sent
Macron seeks fast-track in surprise meeting with Putin
Source: Deutsche Welle
The new French president will host Vladimir Putin next Monday, for a first meeting since he pledged to deal firmly with Russia. Despite rifts over Syria, Ukraine and cyber attacks, experts predict interesting talks.
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to welcome his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to the Palace of Versailles on Monday for a surprise first meeting full of significance.
It is timed to coincide with the opening of an exhibition commemorating the 300th anniversary of Peter the Great's visit to France, which marked the start of Franco-Russian ties. For Putin, it will be the first one-on-one meeting with a French leader in five years.
Amid strained relations between the two countries, Macron has the opportunity to meet Putin without hosting him officially at the Elysee Palace, which would involve "all kinds of protocolar things," Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, head of the Paris office of the European council on foreign relations (ECFR), told DW.
Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/macron-seeks-fast-track-in-surprise-meeting-with-putin/a-38981587
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Meeting at Versailles tomorrow to open a Russian art exhibit.
Trump 'determined to pursue peace' after Pope meeting
Source: BBC
US President Donald Trump has said he is "more determined than ever" to pursue peace in the world after meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican.
He was granted a short private audience with the head of the Catholic Church on the latest leg of his overseas trip.
The two men have in the past clashed on issues such as migration, climate change and a Mexico-US wall.
Mr Trump is now in Brussels for talks with Nato and EU officials.
He will also hold meetings with Belgium's King Philippe and Prime Minister Charles Michel.
After the meeting between President Trump and the Pope, the Vatican said there had been an "exchange of views" on international issues.
Mr Trump, who BBC Europe editor Katya Adler says seemed star-struck, said of the Pope: "He is something, he's really good. We had a fantastic meeting and we had a fantastic tour, it was really beautiful. We're liking Italy very much... it was an honour to be with the Pope."
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40023725
note to hosts: this is a recent after-report bearing what appears to be new news.
Venezuela's Maduro Attacks 'Fascist' Protesters for Setting Man on Fire
Source: Reuters/Newsweek
BY REUTERS ON 5/22/17 AT 3:00 AM
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro excoriated opposition protesters on Sunday for setting a man on fire during a demonstration, accusing them of targeting him for being pro-government.
"A person was set on fire, beaten up, stabbed... They nearly lynched him, just because he shouted out that he was a 'Chavista'," Maduro said, referring to the ruling socialist movement set up by his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Witnesses to the incident on Saturday afternoon, including a Reuters photographer, said the crowd had accused the man of being a thief.
About 100 people, who had been participating in anti-Maduro protests, surrounded him, doused him in gasoline and set him alight in Plaza Altamira in east Caracas, the witnesses said.
Though some in the crowd said he should die, others helped him and the man survived.
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/venezuelas-maduro-attacks-fascist-protesters-setting-man-fire-613063
The Comey FBI gets its man, yay
No, not Meuller, a Texas legislator named Carlos Uresti who just happens to be a Democrat:
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Texas state Sen. Uresti arrested, turns himself in to FBI
Updated: May 17, 2017 10:50pm
Federal marshals lead Texas State Sen. Carlos Uresti, 53, from the Federal Building to the Federal Courthouse, Wednesday, May 17, 2017. He appeared in court after being indicted Tuesday on 13 federal counts for bribery and fraud in two separate cases.
http://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/BREAKING-Texas-state-Sen-Uresti-turns-himself-11152908.php
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And Uresti is not the first pol to be taken out by the FBI, not by a long shot. And they always seem to be Democrats. Anyone else notice a pattern in the carpet here?
Macron descend les Champs-Elyses dans la toute nouvelle DS 7 Crossback
La Parisienne, 14 mai 2017, 13h29
Emmanuel Macron a choisi le nouveau modèle de DS pour se présenter sur les Champs-Elysées en tant que nouveau président de la République.
Elle n'est pas encore commercialisée mais est la toute nouvelle voiture d'apparat d'Emmanuel Macron. C'est à bord de la DS 7 Crossback que le président de la République, fraîchement investi, remontera les Champs-Elysées ce dimanche à Paris, comme nous l'avions annoncé voilà quelques jours.
Le SUV français a été personnalisé pour le président : il est bleu encre, dispose d'un toit découvrable et de jantes dorées.
http://www.leparisien.fr/elections/presidentielle/macron-descend-les-champs-elysees-dans-la-toute-nouvelle-ds-7-crossback-14-05-2017-6947592.php
VIDEO: Emmanuel Macron a 15 ans, dans un role de composition
"L'aboiement d'un chien ou l'ombre d'un homme ?"
It was pure theatre – in real life and onstage. Brigitte Trogneux, Macron’s drama teacher, was 24 years older than him, married, and with children.
“He played a scarecrow, I remember that very, very well. And I found him incredible in this scene, what a presence,” recalled Trogneux in the documentary, “Macron, a Meteor's Strategy.”
At 15, Macron fell in love with his 39-year-old drama teacher, whose three children included a daughter his own age.
http://www.france24.com/en/20170505-france-emmanuel-macron-profile-childhood-wife-president
Abbas, in meeting with Putin, says Moscow must be part of peace process
Source: Times of Israel
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Sochi resort in Western Russia on Thursday, and said that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be “impossible” without the participation of Moscow in the peace process.
“It is impossible to solve the Palestinian issue without Russia’s meaningful participation in the peace process. That is what we have been emphasizing at all international meetings,” Abbas said in his meeting with Putin, according to the official Russian State news agency Tass.
Putin said Russia “will continue to give its full support to the resumption of direct dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.”
“The peaceful coexistence of the two states — Palestine and Israel — is an indispensable condition to ensure genuine security and stability in this region,” Putin said.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-in-meeting-with-putin-says-moscow-must-be-part-of-peace-process/
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas take part in a videoconference with Bethlehem following a meeting at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on May 11, 2017
The dark history at the heart of the French election
More on Macron and LePen:By James McAuley, WaPo, May 6 at 6:00 AM
PARIS — The French call it “the past that will not pass.” . . . When voters go to the polls Sunday, they will choose between warring interpretations of France’s past as much as between different visions for its future.
(snip)
For Le Pen — the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a convicted Holocaust denier who repeatedly has dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history” — the past is nothing to be ashamed of. Last month, she remarked on national television that France bore no responsibility for an infamous Paris roundup during the Holocaust, when French authorities arrested some 13,000 Jews, soon deported to their deaths.
Approximately 76,000 Jews were deported from France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Most never returned.
“If there were those responsible,” Le Pen said, “it was those who were in power at the time. This is not France.”
(snip)
In one of Macron’s most controversial decisions on the campaign trial, he went in February to Algeria, which France had annexed for 132 years, and called on the French state to apologize formally for its crimes as a colonial power, especially in the bloody war for Algerian independence between 1954 and 1962. France’s history in that war, Macron said in an interview days later, represented “crimes and acts of barbarism” that today deserve to be labeled “crimes against humanity.”
For months, Le Pen has harped on Macron for those three words, accusing him once again in a televised debate Wednesday of “insulting” the French people.
In a high-profile case, her father, in the 2002 presidential campaign, was accused of torture during the Algerian War — charges that the elder Le Pen vehemently disputes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-dark-history-at-the-heart-of-the-french-election/2017/05/05/d31235ee-301e-11e7-a335-fa0ae1940305_story.html
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