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Google Cloud hires another Oracle veteran for top role

FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London
FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

March 11, 2019

By Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud has hired Amit Zavery to lead one of its engineering teams, a company spokeswoman confirmed on Monday, making him the highest-ranking Oracle executive to reunite with former Oracle President Thomas Kurian since he became Google Cloud’s chief executive.

Zavery left last week as executive vice president for Oracle cloud platform. He started on Monday as a Google Cloud vice president of engineering and will lead the Apigee team, the spokeswoman said.

Oracle Corp declined to comment.

Zavery worked at Oracle for about 24 years, starting as a software engineer and most recently looking over a portfolio of application development tools for cloud computing customers. Some analysts estimate that the portfolio, combined with fees from hosting data on the cloud, will generate $2.1 billion in revenue for Oracle during its fiscal 2019.

Google gained some similar tools through its $625 million acquisition of Apigee in 2016. Apigee Chief Executive Chet Kapoor, who became a vice president at Google, is remaining with the company, the spokeswoman said.

Zavery will help Google add to its tools platform, which helps businesses develop applications for their workers or customers.

Kurian last month said Google Cloud would focus on trying to win business from the biggest companies in a handful of industries by offering them a wider variety of specialized services. Google is a distant No. 3 to Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp in selling cloud storage and services.

Kurian spent 22 years at Oracle before leaving last year and joining Google shortly after.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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‘Marine’s Marine’ who wrote eloquently of time in Iraq, loses cancer battle

"I saw some of the toughest Marines I have ever known shedding tears and talking of the importance of holding the hands and stroking the heads of their fallen friends and their undying love for them,” Marine Col. Mark Smith wrote of his time in Iraq during the beginnings of the war in 2004 and 2005.

Smith, who was with the Reserves 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, wrote weekly letters to the families of the reserve battalion, reports said. He served in Babil Province, south of Baghdad, known as the Triangle of Death.

MARINES ID 2 PILOTS KILLED IN ARIZONA HELICOPTER CRASH

Smith was a 32-year Marine veteran and retired in 2014. He was remembered as a “Marine’s Marine” during his funeral in Indianapolis after having lost his battle with lung cancer.

“That’s why we loved him ... he didn’t mince words,” Sharon Semrow, the wife of a man who served with Smith told Stars and Stripes in an interview. Many of those who served with Smith attended his service Wednesday, the military paper reported.

Darrick Sewell, a lance corporal who served with Smith, said he could usually be found working on the letter every Thursday at “zero-dark-thirty,” often after a long day of operations.

“I cannot even begin to express to you the soul touching sight of combat-hardened Marines, encrusted with weeks of sweat and dust, who have daily been engaged in combat, coming to complete and utter solemnity and respect in the handling of the body of one of their own,” Smith wrote of recovering the body of Lance Cpl. Daniel Wyatt, the first of 12 Marines killed during his tour, Stars and Stripes reported. “It puts on display a level of brotherly love you just cannot see anywhere else.”

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Smith was 54 years old.

Source: Fox News National

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Defense asks for cop's acquittal on murder in teen's death

After prosecutors wrapped up their case, the lawyer for a white former police officer charged in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager asked a judge Thursday to issue an acquittal on murder charges.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld shot and killed 17-year-old Antwon Rose II after pulling over a car suspected to have been involved in a drive-by shooting. Rose was a passenger in the unlicensed cab and was shot as he fled.

Prosecutors charged Rosfeld with an open count of homicide, meaning the jury has the option of convicting him of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter.

Defense lawyer Patrick Thomassey asked the judge to clear Rosfeld of murder, saying prosecutors failed to show he acted with malice as required under the law. Thomassey made his motion after prosecutors rested their case.

"What we have is a police officer doing his duty. There's not a hardness of heart required for first- or third-degree murder," Thomassey said. "We have a burst of three shots in one second on a fleeing felon and we're going to charge him with murder? It's not fair."

Prosecutor Daniel Fitzsimmons said the fact that Rosfeld shot a fleeing Rose in the back was evidence of malice.

Even if the judge ruled in the defense's favor, Rosfeld could still be convicted of manslaughter.

The judge said he would rule later Thursday.

Prosecutors ended their case by calling three expert witnesses to the stand, including a firearms analyst who matched one of the bullets recovered from Rose's body to Rosfeld's gun — a formality since it's not in dispute that Rosfeld fire the fatal shots.

Raymond Everett of the Allegheny County medical examiner's office also told jurors that two guns with extended magazines were recovered from the car.

Rose had been riding in the front seat of the unlicensed taxi when Zaijuan Hester, in the backseat, rolled down a window and shot at two men on the street. Rosfeld pulled the car over minutes later.

Hester pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated assault and firearms violations for the shooting, which wounded a man in the abdomen. The 18-year-old told a judge that he, not Rose, did the shooting.

A neighbor shot video of Rosfeld's fatal encounter with Rose that was played for the jury. The video was posted online, triggering protests in the Pittsburgh area last year.

Source: Fox News National

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Pakistan PM accuses India of war hysteria over downed F-16 claim

FILE PHOTO: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attends talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attends talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/Pool

April 6, 2019

By Syed Raza Hassan and Sankalp Phartiyal

KARACHI, Pakistan/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “whipping up war hysteria” over claims that India shot down a Pakistani F-16 during a standoff in February, saying the truth is always the best policy.

U.S.-based Foreign Policy magazine, citing U.S. officials, said all of Pakistan’s F-16 combat jets had been accounted for, contradicting an Indian air force assessment that it had shot down one of the jets.

“The truth always prevails and is always the best policy,” Khan said in a Tweet. “BJP’s attempt to win elections through whipping up war hysteria and false claims of downing a Pak F 16 has backfired with US Defense officials also confirming that no F16 was missing from Pakistan’s fleet.”

Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan engaged in an aerial battle over the disputed region of Kashmir a day after Indian jets crossed over into Pakistan to attack a suspected camp of anti-India militants.

An Indian jet was brought down during the fight and its pilot captured when he ejected on the Pakistani side of the border. He was later released.

India said it too had shot down a Pakistani aircraft and the air force displayed pieces of a missile that it said had been fired by a Pakistani F-16 before it went down.

Foreign Policy said in a report published on Thursday two U.S. defense officials with direct knowledge of the matter said U.S. personnel had done a count of Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing.

Details of the India-Pakistan air engagement have not been fully provided by either side. If the U.S. report turns out to be true, it would be a further blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had said that India had taught Pakistan a lesson, ahead of elections next week.

The BJP is campaigning on a platform of tough national security, especially with regard to arch foe Pakistan. New Delhi blames Pakistan for stoking a 30-year revolt in Muslim-majority Kashmir but Islamabad denies any involvement.

The success of Indian air strikes on a camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group in northwestern Pakistan has also been thrown into doubt after satellite images showed little sign of damage.

High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters last month showed that a religious school run by Jaish appeared to be still standing days after India said its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants.

Pakistan closed its airspace amid the standoff but most commercial air traffic has since resumed and major airports have opened.

Pakistan offered to open one air route on Friday, an Indian government official said, without specifying details and declining to be named as the matter was not public.

An Air India official said on condition of anonymity that Pakistan has opened one of its 11 air routes, from the southern side, adding that the carrier began operations via this route on Friday.

“Pakistan has opened one air route over India on April 4th, it is a north-west bound route,” Mujtaba Baig, spokesman for Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority, told Reuters on Saturday.

An email sent to the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation was not immediately answered. Air India did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

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Spain’s former PM Rajoy testifies in Catalan trial

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy takes his seat at Parliament before the vote of a no confidence motion in Madrid
FILE PHOTO - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy takes his seat at Parliament before the vote of a no confidence motion in Madrid, Spain, June 1, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

February 27, 2019

MADRID (Reuters) – Former Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy will appear in court on Wednesday as a witness, for the second time in less than two years, to give evidence in the trial of twelve Catalan separatist leaders.

Rajoy, who was kicked out of office last June in a no confidence motion by the Socialists, will be questioned about the circumstances surrounding a failed independence attempt by Catalonia in the autumn of 2017.

Rajoy’s center-right government sent thousands of anti-riot police to Catalonia, who used batons and rubber bullets to stop an independence referendum on Oct. 1, 2017.

Weeks later, Rajoy imposed direct rule on the wealthy northeastern region and shortly afterwards called a regional election hoping the independence drive would lose steam. In the end, pro-independence parties retained a slim majority in the regional assembly.

Rajoy’s had already become Spain’s first sitting prime minister to give evidence in court, in the summer of 2017, over a long-running graft scandal that tainted his conservative People’s Party and ultimately ended his political career.

It will be only the second time a former prime minister testifies in Spain’s highest court; former Socialist leader Felipe Gonzalez gave evidence in 1998 in a trial of para-police groups against Basque separatists, or ETA.

Under a unique Spanish practice, Rajoy will be questioned by a representative from the far right Vox party, which in this case will act as the prosecution in the defense of the public interest.

In December, Vox became the first far-right party in Spain in more than four decades to score an electoral victory, in a local ballot in the region of Andalusia. The movement draws a lot of support for its strong stance against independence for Spain’s regions.

Rajoy is one of 500 witnesses in the trial against 12 former Catalan leaders, nine of whom have been jailed and charged with rebellion. The former prime minister’s deputy, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, will also appear.

The trial enters a new stage on Wednesday after it concluded questioning of the 12 defendants on Tuesday.

Former Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras, the most high-profile defendant in the trial, has said he is a political prisoner and insists his region has the right to secede from Spain.

(Reporting by Jose Elias Rodriguez; Editing by Axel Bugge and Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Germany Extends Ban on Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Germany has extended its current ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia for six more months, ending on September 30, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Thursday.

During that period, no new contracts will be approved, Seibert said. The decision came after Merkel met with members of her cabinet to review the policy.

The German government had placed a temporary ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in October 2018, following the controversial killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

At the time, Merkel said that no new exports to the country would be allowed until the circumstances of Khashoggi’s death had been established. But more recently, the chancellor indicated that Germany needed to be more flexible.

Graph showing German arms exports to Saudi Arabia

Criticism From the UK and France

The ban has divided Merkel’s governing coalition, but it has also drawn criticism from France and Britain. Both countries have decried the fact that the Saudi weapons freeze also bars sales of arms manufactured in different countries that happen to have German components in them.

France’s Ambassador to Germany, Anne-Marie Descotes, said this week that Germany’s arms export policy and cumbersome licensing rules threatened future bilateral defense projects.

Descotes warned that this debate would leave companies preferring “German-free arms products” — in other words, weapons systems that did not include German components.

She also admonished Germans for treating the debate as if weapons exports were a domestic policy matter, when in fact “it has serious consequences for our bilateral cooperation in the field of defense, and for the strengthening of European sovereignty.”


Mohammed bin Salman was behind the Yemen War that has claimed the lives of over 13,000 including 3,000 children. Will the gruesome beating, murder & dismemberment of a journalist — reportedly captured by his Apple Watch — cause even establishment neocons to stop supporting the brutal Saudi regime?

Effective Measures?

In an attempt to quell these concerns, the German government agreed to extend export licenses that have already been granted for nine months, in an effort to spare these companies the costly and time-consuming process of applying for a new license.

Germany also called on France and Britain to ensure that its weapons systems deliveries to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates would not be used in the Yemen conflict.

There is also evidence that Germany’s arms export controls are ineffectual, despite France’s insistence: in February investigations by DW and others revealed that German weapons are being used in Yemen, despite Germany’s export controls.

“The re-start of arms exports to Saudi Arabia would be a fatal foreign policy signal and would contribute to the continued destabilization of the Middle East,” Green party spokesman Omid Nouripour told DW. “We need a common European arms export policy that excludes exports into war zones.”

Global Trade

According to a report released this month by the Sweden-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), arms sales to the Middle East almost doubled in the 2014-2018 period compared with 2009-2013.

Saudi Arabia received nearly 1 in 4 US weapons that were sold in the most recent period. It also imported more weapons than any other country, raking in 12 percent of global imports.

Germany increased its international arms sales by 13 percent, with German-built submarines enjoying particularly strong demand abroad.


Alex Jones gives his personal view on how the United States should intervene in South America.

Source: InfoWars

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New Zealand university students to get drug testing at orientation: report

Students at a New Zealand university will be getting free drug testing during the first week of the upcoming semester.

The student associate at Otago University is offering services that will allow students to check whether their recreational drugs have not been mixed with potentially dangerous substances. It would be the first time a university has done free drug testing in the country.

Debbie Downs, the chief executive of the Otago University Students Association (OUSA), said it was a “bold and pre-emptive move” designed to keep students safe.

“First and foremost, OUSA is no way condones drug use of any kind, but in the day and age we live in, we are cognizant of the need for harm prevention,” she said, according to The Guardian.

AUSTRALIAN PILOT SPELLS OUT ‘I’M BORED’ DURING TEST FLIGHT

A university spokeswoman said that the drug testing will not happen on campus nor is it enforced by the university officials.

“The university does not endorse either the use of illegal drugs or the drug testing initiative led by the NZ Drug Foundation, but has no plans to interfere in the detail of OUSA’s welfare and support delivery,” the spokeswoman said.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC KEEPS KILLING MY FRIENDS

According to the Guardian, drug testing has been increasingly used at music festivals across New Zealand as part of a health-based approach to illegal drug use that is supported by the government.

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According to the Drug Foundation of New Zealand, people between the ages of 18 and 25 have the highest rate of drug use of any age group in the country.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

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After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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