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Trade talk optimism helps European shares cling onto October highs

The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Staff

February 19, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – European shares edged down slightly on Tuesday at the open but clung to highs not seen since October as optimism about Sino/U.S. trade talks helped maintain morale despite a few earnings disappointments such as HSBC’s and BHP Group’s.

At 0829 GMT, the STOXX 600 was down 0.2 percent with most European bourses close to flat.

A new round of talks between the U.S. and China to resolve their trade war will take place in Washington on Tuesday.

Among the stocks in the red and pulling indexes down was HSBC, which reported a disappointing annual profit as higher costs and a stocks rout chipped away at its trading businesses.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded its rating for the stock to ‘neutral’ following the release of its results, saying there is “limited upside” for the share price.

The banking sector fell 0.8 percent.

The session’s top gainer was Germany’s Wirecard, up 7.7 percent. On Monday, Germany’s financial watchdog banned “short” selling of the stock due to volatility following reports in the Financial Times which are now the subject of an investigation by German authorities.

Still in Germany, HeidelbergCement jumped 4.4 percent as it shrugged off concerns about trade wars and a disorderly Brexit to forecast higher demand for cement this year.

(Julien Ponthus, Editing by Helen Reid)

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Pelosi revokes Pence's bonus office in House: report

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., just pulled a move straight out of the movie “Office Space” on Vice President Mike Pence.

Pelosi has decided to revoke the honorary office that former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., gave Pence on the first floor of the Capitol back in 2017.

NANCY PELOSI PRAISED BY LIBERALS FOR 'EXQUISITE SHADE' OF SOTU APPLAUSE

While Pence rarely used the office, NPR reported that his nameplate was removed from the door and that the space has been reassigned, according to a Democratic aide.

The vice president, who serves as the president of the U.S. Senate and has an office on that chamber's side, was given the House office shortly after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017; it was a sign of goodwill between the House, then led by the GOP, and one of its former members.

The space is at the moment sitting empty.

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"Room assignments are reviewed and changed at the beginning of every Congress," an aide told NPR.

The House speaker is the only member of Congress to have the power to assign coveted offices in the Capitol Building. Besides revoking Pence’s honorary office, Pelosi has doled out new office space for the White House legislative affairs team in the building.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Seoul lawmaker: Top Kim adviser in North removed from post

A South Korean lawmaker says that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's most trusted policy adviser apparently has been removed from one of his posts.

The head of parliament's intelligence committee, Lee Hye-hoon, on Wednesday cited South Korea's main spy agency as saying that Kim Yong Chol lost his Workers' Party post in charge of relations with South Korea.

She said she received a private briefing from the National Intelligence Service.

If confirmed, the development would add to speculation that Kim is being sidelined from nuclear diplomacy after February's North Korean-U.S. summit ended abruptly.

He has been North Korea's top nuclear negotiator and counterpart of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo since Kim Jong Un entered nuclear talks with the U.S. early last year.

Source: Fox News World

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Protests held in Pittsburgh after cop cleared in shooting

The father of a slain black teenager pleaded for peace Saturday after the acquittal of a white police officer triggered an apparent retaliatory shooting at the defense attorney's office and touched off protests in the streets of Pittsburgh.

Police put officers on 12-hour shifts until further notice.

The verdict late Friday in the deadly shooting of 17-year-old Antwon Rose II angered his family and civic leaders and prompted hundreds of people to gather Saturday afternoon at an intersection called Freedom Corner in the Hill District neighborhood, the historic center of black cultural life in Pittsburgh. One man held a sign with the names of black men killed by police around the U.S.

"It's very painful to see what happened, to sit there and deal with it," Rose's father, Antwon Rose Sr., told the crowd. "I just don't want it to happen to our city no more."

Afterward, he told reporters: "I want peace, period, all the way around. ... Just because there was violence doesn't mean that we counter that with violence."

The mostly white crowd then marched through downtown Pittsburgh and other city neighborhoods, periodically blocking streets as they chanted, "Who did this? Police did this!" The protest soon moved onto the University of Pittsburgh campus. Police reported no immediate arrests or injuries.

Early Saturday, five to eight shots were fired into the building where the officer's attorney, Patrick Thomassey, works, police in nearby Monroeville said. No one was hurt. Police said they had been staking out the place as a precaution, and the gunfire erupted after they left to answer another call around midnight.

Former East Pittsburgh police Officer Michael Rosfeld was charged with homicide for shooting Rose as the unarmed teenager ran away from a traffic stop last June. Rosfeld testified that he thought Rose or another suspect had a gun pointed at him and that he fired to protect himself and the community.

"I hope that man never sleeps at night," Rose's mother, Michelle Kenney, said of Rosfeld after the verdict, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I hope he gets as much sleep as I do, which is none."

Rose's family is now pressing ahead with a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Rosfeld and East Pittsburgh, a small municipality about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from downtown Pittsburgh, where the trial was held.

Thomassey told reporters after the verdict that Rosfeld is "a good man, he is." The defense attorney said he hopes the city remains calm and "everybody takes a deep breath and gets on with their lives."

The leaders of two major Pittsburgh charities issued a statement expressing "shock and outrage" over the verdict.

"Pittsburgh now sadly joins a disturbing and ever-growing catalogue of cases across the United States where law enforcement or security officials have walked free after the killings of young black men under questionable circumstances," wrote Maxwell King, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation, and Grant Oliphant, president of the Heinz Endowments.

"We have asked the question, 'Would Antwon Rose be alive today if he had been white?' We, his family and African American community leaders believe that more than likely he would be."

Pittsburgh was in the spotlight less than five months ago, when a gunman ranting about Jews killed 11 people at a synagogue.

Rose was riding in an unlicensed taxi that had been involved in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier when Rosfeld pulled the car over and shot the teenager in the back, arm and side of the face. Neither Rose nor another teen in the taxi was holding a weapon when the officer opened fire, though two guns were later found in the vehicle.

Rosfeld had worked for the East Pittsburgh Police Department for only a few weeks and was sworn in just hours before the shooting.

The 12-person jury — including three black members — saw video of the fatal confrontation. The jury took less than four hours to reach a verdict.

Prosecutor Jonathan Fodi argued that the video showed there was no threat to the officer. But a defense expert testified Rosfeld was within his rights to use deadly force to stop suspects he thought had been involved in a shooting.

The prosecution did not call its own use-of-force expert, a decision the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania questioned. But Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, said prosecutors were confident they had what they needed to make their case.

Shortly before the traffic stop, another person in the taxi, Zaijuan Hester, rolled down a window and shot at two men on the street, hitting one in the abdomen. Hester, 18, pleaded guilty last week to aggravated assault and firearms violations. He said he, not Rose, did the shooting.

Prosecutors had charged Rosfeld with an open count of homicide, meaning the jury had the option of convicting him of murder or manslaughter.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania, Ramesh Santanam in Pittsburgh and Keith Srakocic in Pittsburgh contributed to this story.

Source: Fox News National

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Australian media charges over Cardinal Pell trial ‘chilling’ for open justice: lawyer

FILE PHOTO - Cardinal George Pell attends a news conference at the Vatican
FILE PHOTO - Cardinal George Pell attends a news conference at the Vatican, June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Melanie Burton

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Charges against dozens of journalists and publishers in Australia over the reporting of Cardinal George Pell’s child sex abuse conviction will have a chilling effect on future news reporting if they are found guilty of breaching a suppression order, a lawyer defending the press told a court on Monday.

Prosecutors in the southern state of Victoria have accused 23 journalists and 13 news outlets of aiding and abetting contempt of court by overseas media and breaching suppression orders aimed at ensuring Pell a fair trial.

Pell became the most senior Catholic cleric worldwide to be convicted of child sex abuse and was jailed for six years in February. He is awaiting an appeal.

Among those facing contempt charges are Nine Entertainment Co, the Age, the Australian Financial Review, Macquarie Media, and several News Corp publications.

Breaches of suppression orders can be punished with jail for up to five years and fines of nearly A$100,000 ($71,000) for individuals, and nearly A$500,000 for companies.

Monday was the first day in court for a case that at once underscores the potentially severe consequences of breaching court reporting rules and their ineffectiveness at containing coverage in the digital news era.

A guilty verdict would have a “chilling effect” on open justice and democracy in Australia, said Matthew Collins QC, a lawyer representing all of the charged media organizations and reporters.

The county court of Victoria last year put a suppression order on reporting of Pell’s trial, or its eventual outcome, to prevent jury prejudice ahead of a second trial, which was eventually dropped.

In December, the jury in the first trial found Pell guilty of abusing two choir boys. The verdict was widely reported by foreign outlets online. Some Australian media alluded to the conviction without naming Pell directly.

Collins pressed the prosecution for more information about how Australian journalists could have broken court rules because none mentioned Pell by name or his conviction.

“I am at a loss to understand how they could have scandalized the court,” he said.

“They didn’t reference the cardinal, just referred to the fact that there was a broader story that could not be told.”

None of the accused journalists were present and Supreme Court Judge John Dixon ordered that prosecutors file an outline of their case by May 20 and that the matter return to court on June 26.

(Reporting by Melanie Burton in MELBOURNE and Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: OANN

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Notre Dame Cathedral: Salma Hayek’s French billionaire husband pledges more than $100M for rebuild

Salma Hayek’s husband, the French billionaire François-Henri Pinault, pledged almost $113 million to rebuild Paris’ historic Notre Dame Cathedral after Monday’s devastating fire.

Pinault announced Tuesday that he will draw almost $113 million in funds from his family’s investment firm, Artemis, “to participate in the effort that will be necessary for the complete reconstruction of Notre-Dame,” the French newspaper Le Figaro reported.

THE LATEST: FRENCH LEADER VOWS TO REBUILD DAMAGED NOTRE DAME

Pinault, 56, who is the chairman and CEO of Kering, a Paris-based luxury group behind brands including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, married the Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek in Paris in 2009, Yahoo News reported. The couple owns a residence nearby the destroyed 12th-century medieval Catholic cathedral.

“As many others I’m in deep shock and sadness to witness the beauty of Notre-Dame turn into smoke. I love you Paris,” Hayek said on Instagram, sharing an image of the cathedral ablaze.

Pinault’s father, the 82-year-old Francois Pinault, is worth $37.3 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. The family’s contribution is the first major donation to reconstruction efforts after the fire engulfed the historic structure, leading to the collapse of the structure’s main spire.

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A public fundraising drive for reconstruction efforts kicked off Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron addressed a sorrowful crowd at the site. He vowed to rebuild the cathedral for the French people, describing it as the “epicenter” of their lives, The New York Post reported.

“It is what our history deserves,” Macron said. “It is, in the deepest sense, our destiny.”

Source: Fox News World

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Congo suspends seating of new senators following disputed election

FILE PHOTO: Felix Tshisekedi holds up the constitution during his presidential the inauguration ceremony in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
FILE PHOTO: Felix Tshisekedi holds up the constitution during his presidential the inauguration ceremony in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, January 24, 2019. REUTERS/Olivia Acland/File Photo

March 18, 2019

By Stanis Bujakera and Giulia Paravicini

KINSHASA (Reuters) – President Felix Tshisekedi’s Congo government on Monday blocked newly-elected senators from taking office after a disputed vote that gave allies of his predecessor an overwhelming majority in the upper house of parliament.

The decision, announced after a meeting between Tshisekedi, cabinet ministers, the electoral commission chief and others, could trigger a standoff with ex-president Joseph Kabila’s camp two months after Tshisekedi succeeded him in Democratic Republic of Congo’s first ever transfer of power via the ballot box.

Kabila’s FCC coalition won 80 out of 100 seats, which are voted on by provincial assembly members, in Friday’s election, compared to just three for Tshisekedi’s UDPS party and its allies.

UDPS supporters protested over the results at the weekend. They pointed to about 20 candidates from across the political spectrum who withdrew from their races because they said provincial assembly members were demanding bribes of tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for their votes.

At least one person was killed in the protests and some offices of Kabila’s political party were ransacked.

Speaking to reporters after Monday’s meeting, Basile Olongo, the interim interior minister, said participants had decided to suspend the installation of new senators pending investigations by prosecutors into corruption allegations.

Gubernatorial elections scheduled for next week, which are also voted on by provincial assembly members, have been suspended indefinitely, Olongo added.

Kabila’s camp immediately criticized the decision.

“The constitution does not authorize an inter-institutional meeting to make these decisions,” Jean-Pierre Kambila, who served as Kabila’s deputy chief of staff, told Reuters. He did not say if the FCC planned to challenge the decision in court.

Opposition leader Tshisekedi’s victory in the Dec. 30 presidential election was also marred by allegations of graft.

Supporters of the runner-up, Martin Fayulu, accused Tshisekedi of striking a deal with Kabila to rig the outcome when it became clear Kabila’s preferred candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, could not win. Kabila was barred by term limits from standing again after 18 years in office.

Tshisekedi and Kabila’s camps deny the election was rigged. But some Tshisekedi supporters have voiced concern about his ability to govern independently, given the FCC’s parliamentary majorities and Kabila’s grip on the security services.

Despite losing the presidency, the FCC won about 70 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament and a clear majority of provincial assembly seats in elections also on Dec. 30.

(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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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)

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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)

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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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