Новости за 30.10.2017

Rick Gates has long been a key aide to Washington lobbyist Paul Manafort and on Monday also found himself indicted, with both accused of a money laundering scheme linked to their lobbying for one-time Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych before a 2014 uprising toppled Yanukovych and sent him fleeing to exile in Russia. The 45-year-old Gates met Manafort more than two decades ago when he interned for Manafort's lobbying firm. Years later, one of their clients was Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who... Читать дальше...

President Donald Trump is likely to pick Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell as the next head of the U.S. central bank, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday, prompting investors to push down yields on Treasury notes. The Republican president, who is considering Powell, current Fed Chair Janet Yellen and three others for the top central bank job, will announce his decision on Thursday, a White House official said separately. By picking Powell, a soft-spoken centrist and Fed governor since 2012... Читать дальше...

U.S. President is expected to nominate Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the central bank, senior administration officials said Monday. Powell is a Republican centrist who appears inclined to continue the Fed’s strategy of gradual interest rate hikes. But officials say Trump hasn't made up his mind and could change it. Powell would represent a middle-ground pick for Trump, who is also considering current Democratic Fed Chair Janet Yellen as well as Stanford University... Читать дальше...

Michael Jackson died eight years ago, but he's still generating millions of dollars. Jackson is atop the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities for the fifth straight year, with $75 million. Forbes says Jackson's earnings are boosted by a new greatest hits album, a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show and a stake in the EMI music publishing catalog. Two other singers join Jackson in the top five. Elvis Presley comes in fourth with $35 million and Bob Marley ranks fifth with $23 million. Golf... Читать дальше...

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani's announcement he plans to step down was greeted with jubilation in Turkey’s pro-government media. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Barzani, his once close ally, of betrayal for his decision to hold an October independence referendum. “Ankara, whether or not it indicated clearly, would be clearly happy with the removal of Mr. Barzani as president and replaced with someone else, so that would be seen by a welcome development,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen... Читать дальше...

As the melodious tunes of an Urdu song wafted in the background, an Indian, a Pakistani and a Bangladeshi — who had just met — found themselves singing along. Soon they were holding hands. Occasionally they looked at each other and smiled, deeply appreciating the golden voice of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, who sang the Qawwali song. They shut their eyes again and soulfully sang along. "Afreen-Afreen," the room reverberated behind the voice of Khan's. "Afreen," an Urdu word, expresses praise. I was one of the three. Читать дальше...

By early afternoon brown dirt blocked the sunlight and a film of dust had settled on the counter. Abbass, 21, packed up a small window display of gold jewelry while his father tapped on a calculator.   The sandstorm in northeastern Syria was going nowhere. No sense staying open for the day.   The men lingered in the shop with a couple of neighbors, hoping the storm would pass before the walk home. They told us only their nicknames, joking that if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad returns... Читать дальше...

When real estate mogul Donald Trump was running for the U.S. presidency, a young foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, attempted to arrange a meeting between Russian government officials and the Trump campaign. Trump, in an interview at the time, described Papadopoulos as "an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy." The would-be Trump-Russia meeting never occurred. But on Monday, however, special counsel Robert Mueller disclosed that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month to... Читать дальше...

A U.S. court has blocked President Donald Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military. "The effect of the Court's Order is to revert to the status quo with regard to accession and retention that existed before the issuance of the Presidential Memorandum," the order filed by United States District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly read, referring to policies in place before Trump's June 30 executive order banning transgenders from serving in the military. The judge did, however, dismiss... Читать дальше...

What happened Monday? Political consultant Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates were indicted on charges including conspiracy against the United States, money laundering, tax fraud and failure to register as lobbyists for the former government of Ukraine. The two men, who worked on Donald Trump's presidential campaign, held offshore bank accounts through which more than $75 million flowed, according to the indictment. They are the first charges Department of Justice Special Counsel... Читать дальше...

Venezuelan authorities have used "illegal" raids on the homes of suspected political dissenters as part of an intimidation campaign, Amnesty International charged in a report issued Monday. Local human rights groups have gathered accounts "of at least 47 raids and attacks on residential areas" across the country between April and July, according to Amnesty's report. The raids coincide with four months of often-violent street demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro's socialist administration... Читать дальше...

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“There is NO COLLUSION!” tweeted President Donald Trump shortly after his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted as part of a special counsel's probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. The president fired off a pair of Monday morning Twitter posts within hours after news broke that Manafort and a longtime associate were indicted five months after Special Counsel Robert Mueller began investigating Russian interference in last year’s U.S. presidential election.... Читать дальше...

Imagine you could swipe your phone over a piece of fish in the supermarket and instantly see secure records of its entire path through the supply chain, from the technique used by the fisherman who caught it in Indonesia to when it was shipped and how it was processed at a factory in your home country —  all at the tap of a smartphone. Trial projects such as that one are testing the potential of Blockchain technology to bring transparency to all sorts of notoriously inefficient or shadowy industries in Southeast Asia. Читать дальше...

An Ethiopian opposition leader was due to be released on bail almost two years after he was detained during mass protests over land rights, a member of his party said on Monday. Bekele Gerba, secretary general of the Oromo Federalist Congress, was arrested in December 2015 as activists stepped up demonstrations accusing the government of seizing their land and passing it on to firms and developers. Violence went on to spread across the Oromiya province that surrounds the capital Addis Ababa and is home to many foreign-owned businesses... Читать дальше...

A Bahrain court sentenced three family members of a prominent activist to jail terms on weapons charges Monday, rights group the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said and accused authorities of using torture to extract confessions. In a separate case, Bahrain's Public Prosecutor announced Monday that it had sentenced 19 unnamed defendants to prison terms for contacts with a banned party it says is backed by Iran and involved in militant attacks. The cases underscore how authorities... Читать дальше...

U.S. lawmakers will grill top Trump administration officials on Monday about a new authorization for the use of military force in the campaign against Islamic State and other militant groups, Congress' most significant step in years toward taking back control of its constitutional right to authorize war. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the administration's view of a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force... Читать дальше...

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President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday sacked Nigeria's most senior civil servant after an investigation into graft allegations, the highest profile casualty of the anti-corruption pledge that helped bring him to power. He ordered an investigation into Babachir Lawal, an ally and one of his first appointments, after lawmakers in a separate probe alleged that he inflated the value of contracts for humanitarian aid projects in parts of the northeast ravaged by Boko Haram as part of a suspected kickback scheme. Читать дальше...

A journalist became the second woman to enter Russia's presidential race, saying on Monday she wanted to use the election to campaign for the rights of single mothers and children. The presidential election takes place in March next year. President Vladimir Putin is expected to stand and win, but has yet to confirm his plans. Some opposition activists believe the Kremlin's aim is to crown the field with candidates designed to distract and entertain in order to boost turnout and divide the liberal opposition. Читать дальше...

The White House is an enduring symbol of American leadership. The country was not yet a quarter of a century old when John Adams inhabited the President’s House in 1800. From that time on, the White house has been the working and living quarters of many presidents and their families, and hosted a number of foreign and domestic dignitaries. But historian Edward Lengel, of the White House Historical Association, says it also was home to some other beings. VOA’s Nikoleta Ilic reports.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports greenhouse gas emissions in Earth's atmosphere have reached the highest level ever in 800,000 years. The figure was made public at the launch in Geneva of the WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.   The report was released in advance of next week’s U.N. climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. It is meant as a wake-up call to nations that time is running out to take the necessary actions to curb global warning. The WMO reports CO2 concentrations... Читать дальше...

There are signs of growing communal tension in Kenya, as the country awaited the outcome of the re-run presidential election amid an opposition boycott. For VOA, Mohammed Yusuf reports from the village of Koguta on the border between the predominantly pro-opposition Western Kenya region and the Rift Valley region, which has historically backed the ruling Jubilee party.

The United States has pledged up to $60 million to support counterterrorism efforts by nations in Africa's Sahel region. The funding, announced Monday by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, will support the Group of Five Sahel Joint Task Force, a military unit set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger earlier this year. "Defeating terrorism depends on making sure terrorist organization cannot have safe havens on any continent," Tillerson said. "This money will boslter our regional... Читать дальше...

Incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta has won Kenya's presidential election, which was boycotted by the opposition, with just over 98 percent of the vote, the electoral commission announced Monday. Turnout for Thursday's poll was just under 39 percent of the 19.6 million registered voters, said Wafula Chebukati, the head of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who dropped out of the presidential re-run, had called on his supporters to boycott the vote... Читать дальше...