Новости за 12.04.2017

Scattered protests flared Wednesday in slums that have long been a bulwark of support for Venezuela's socialist leaders only hours after a pro-government rally degenerated into heckling of President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro was attending a rally Tuesday night in the poor eastern state of Bolivar when a crowd turned on him. The official broadcast of the event cut out, but videos circulating on social media show people throwing objects at the president's vehicle and shouting "damn you!" A witness said people threw stones... Читать дальше...

Scientists are touting a discovery that they think might cure HIV infection. They’ve engineered an antibody that blocks the virus from entering and infecting key immune system cells.   The process, developed at the Scripps Researcher Institute in California, involves tethering an antibody, which fights infection, directly onto T cells, the immune system cells that are targeted by the AIDS virus. Eventually, if enough immune cells become infected and destroyed by HIV, the disease progresses to AIDS, which leads to certain death. Читать дальше...

Hungary denied Wednesday that a new education law was aimed at shutting down a university founded by U.S. financier George Soros, and suggested a possible compromise in a dispute that has drawn protests at home and criticism from Washington. Central European University (CEU) found itself in the eye of a political storm after Hungary's parliament passed the law last week setting tougher conditions for the awarding of licenses to foreign-based universities. Critics said the new terms would hurt... Читать дальше...

Timeless Turntables and lots of Vinyl

Scientists have identified the oldest-known forerunner of the dinosaurs and are expressing surprise at how little it actually resembled one. Researchers on Wednesday described fossils of a long-necked, four-legged, meat-eating reptile called Teleocrater rhadinus that reached up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and prowled a Tanzanian floodplain roughly 245 million years ago. It lived during the Triassic Period millions of years before the first dinosaurs. Scientists called it a close cousin rather than a direct dinosaur ancestor. Читать дальше...

Nigeria must do more to rescue the 195 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped three years ago in the jihadist group Boko Haram's most infamous attack, the United Nations said Wednesday. About 220 girls were taken from their school in Chibok in Borno state, where Boko Haram has waged an insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state, killing thousands and displacing more than 2 million people. Twenty-one Chibok girls were released in October in a deal brokered by Switzerland and the International Red Cross... Читать дальше...

Foreign journalists visiting North Korea have been told to prepare for a "big and important event" on Thursday, although there were no indications it was directly linked to tensions in the region over the isolated state's nuclear weapons program. Around 200 foreign journalists are in Pyongyang as the country marks the 105th birth anniversary of its founding president Kim Il Sung on April 15, North Korea's biggest national day called "Day of the Sun." Officials gave no details as to the nature of the event or where it would take place... Читать дальше...

American artist Ryan Mendoza, who has moved the former house of the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks from Detroit to Berlin, says he would like to return it to the United States one day. Parks' refusal in 1955 to give up her bus seat in Alabama for a white passenger became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement. She later moved to Detroit, where the house she lived in faced demolition until her niece, Rhea McCauley, bought it. McCauley paid $500 for the two-story dwelling and in turn handed it over to Mendoza... Читать дальше...

A Mexican court has blocked efforts by the foreign ministry to extradite jailed drug lord Hector Beltran Leyva to the United States, judicial authorities said on Wednesday, just a few months after top kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was sent north. The Mexico City court granted Beltran Leyva, one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords until his capture in 2014, an injunction in his appeal against extradition due to technicalities involving a failure to follow due process. In a statement, Mexico's... Читать дальше...

Four surveillance rooms believed to date back to communist-era Yugoslavia and filled with dust-covered listening equipment have been discovered behind a Slovenian hotel situated next to one of the world's largest limestone caves. The wiretapping rooms were found behind a solid steel door during renovation work at the back of the Hotel Jama and lead directly to the Postojna Cave's interior. The spy rooms were likely built around 1969 when the hotel was under construction, according to Marjan Batagelj... Читать дальше...

A Russian cosmonaut who has returned to Earth after a mission on the International Space Station said on Wednesday he had taken a relic of a Russian Orthodox saint with him. Astronauts and cosmonauts routinely take small items such as their children's toys or CDs with them as reminders of home. Sergei Ryzhikov told Russian news agencies that he would give the tiny relic of St. Serafim of Sarov's body, which he received from its home monastery last year, to an Orthodox church in Star City outside Moscow... Читать дальше...

Russia deployed yet another U.N. Security Council veto Wednesday to protect Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from international condemnation for last week's deadly chemical weapons attack. "With its veto, Russia said 'no' to accountability, Russia said 'no' to cooperation with the United Nations' independent investigation, and Russia said 'no' to a resolution that would have helped promote peace in Syria," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council. "Russia has once again chosen to side with Assad,"... Читать дальше...

Your Very Own Cameraman

Russia is struggling to source gas turbines for two new power plants it is building in Crimea, Russian Energy Ministry Alexander Novak said Wednesday. European Union sanctions bar European individuals and companies from providing energy technology to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Black Sea peninsula has suffered electricity shortages since then. Three sources told Reuters last year that turbines for the Crimean plants would be made by Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies LLC... Читать дальше...

Lebanese President Michel Aoun suspended a parliamentary session for a month on Wednesday, temporarily blocking proposed plans to extend parliament's term for the third time in a row since 2013. Parliament was expected to vote on Thursday to extend its own mandate again until 2018 without an election, officials said. Current lawmakers were elected in 2009 for what was meant to be four-year terms. Activists had called for protests against the extension, which they decried as a blow to democracy. Читать дальше...

Former Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, the moving force behind organizing last year's Olympics, is being investigated for allegedly accepting at least 15 million reals ($5 million) in payments to facilitate construction projects tied to the games. Paes is one of dozens of top politicians implicated in a sweeping judicial corruption investigation in which construction giant Odebrecht illegally paid billions to help win contracts. Paes' name appears in documents published Tuesday by Brazil's top court... Читать дальше...

Somali's president vowed Wednesday that his administration will eradicate the terrorist militant group al-Shabab across Somalia within two years, and he offered its leaders peace talks. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, was speaking at a ceremony marking the 57th anniversary of the foundation of the Somali National Army, which was held at the compound of the Ministry of Defense in Mogadishu. "We confirm to the Somali people that we are prepared and within two years' period we... Читать дальше...

The last two surviving animals from Mosul's dilapidated zoo arrived this week at an animal shelter in Jordan, after months of malnutrition and a long journey out of Iraq that included being stuck at the border for 12 days. Simba the lion and Lola the bear lived in a once-peaceful animal park that has been destroyed by months of fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants. The park, located in Eastern Mosul, was retaken by Iraqi forces earlier this year. Neighbors fed Simba and Lola until the fighting became too fierce. Читать дальше...

Montenegro's accession to NATO is vital for regional stability and the joint effort of the Western allies to resist a resurgent Russia, U.S. Senator John McCain said on Wednesday. The visit of McCain, the Republican chairman of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, to Montenegro comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump signed the U.S. ratification for the tiny Adriatic republic's accession to NATO, which Russia opposed. "There is also evidence that Russians are trying to undermine... Читать дальше...

Bulgaria inched closer to getting a new government, with Boiko Borisov back as prime minister, after his dominant center-right GERB party gave ground in coalition talks with nationalists Wednesday. GERB, which won the most seats in March 26 elections but failed to get an outright majority, agreed to a deal to raise the minimum state pension — a key demand of the nationalist United Patriots (UP) alliance, which Borisov's party had previously opposed. "It is clear to everyone that if we fail to... Читать дальше...

The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president last year raised the specter of economic recession in Mexico, sent the country's peso into a tailspin, and threatened local industry such as car making. But four months on, Mexican automobile output is accelerating fast, unemployment is at a nine-year low, and the peso has been one of the world's best-performing currencies in 2017. Since diplomatic ties reached a nadir in January with the cancellation of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's planned meeting with Trump... Читать дальше...

President Donald Trump appears to be offering a grand bargain to Chinese President Xi Jinping in which each would get something he dearly wants -- an assurance of economic stability ahead of a critical Communist Party Congress in exchange for Chinese help in halting North Korea's nuclear programs. The offer has come in a burst of television interviews and social media posts. In a pair of Twitter posts this week, Trump suggested he would agree not to launch a threatened trade war with China, helping... Читать дальше...

Bangladesh hanged three extremists Wednesday who were found guilty of a 2004 grenade attack on a British diplomat. Early last year the High Court dismissed the appeals of Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of the banned group Harkatul Jihad al-Islami, and two of his followers.  The three were convicted of attacking Anwar Choudhury, who at the time of the attack, was British high commissioner to Bangladesh. Choudhury survived the grenade attack, which took place as he visited a Sufi shrine in the northeastern city of Sylhet. Читать дальше...

German police arrested a suspected Islamic extremist Wednesday as investigators said they are looking into a possible “terrorist link” to three explosions that hit the Borussia Dortmund soccer team’s bus, authorities said. A series of explosions rocked the team’s bus Tuesday, injuring Dortmund player Marc Bartra and a policeman, and forcing the team to postpone a game against Monaco that evening. Two suspects “from the Islamist spectrum have come into the focus of the criminal prosecution,” Frauke Koehler... Читать дальше...

Sikhs in the United States are launching a million-dollar awareness campaign that seeks to stop hate-fueled attacks by explaining more about who they are and what they believe. The "We are Sikhs" campaign was years in the making, funded by Sikh leaders and their families across a dozen cities, who have been swept up in anti-Muslim sentiment since the Sept. 11 attacks. Their beards and turbans — symbols of equality in a religion that opposes India's caste system — make American Sikhs easy targets for the angry and uninformed. Читать дальше...