Category: AP

Novak Djokovic, Russian players expected to compete at French Open

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Novak Djokovic will be allowed to play at the French Open even if he is not vaccinated against COVID-19 as long as the coronavirus situation in France remains stable, organizers said Wednesday.

Russian tennis players, including top-ranked Daniil Medvedev, will also be admitted to play in the tournament but as neutral athletes because of the war started by their country in neighbouring Ukraine.

Organizers said there is nothing at the moment preventing Djokovic from defending his title at the clay-court Grand Slam. France this week lifted measures requiring the need to wear face masks in most settings and allowing people who aren’t vaccinated back into restaurants, sports arenas and other venues.

At this stage there is nothing to stop him returning to the courts,” French Open director Amelie Mauresmo said at a news conference.

Djokovic was deported from Australia in January after a legal battle over whether he should be allowed to enter the country, forcing him to miss the Australian Open. He told the BBC last month that he was willing to miss upcoming Grand Slam tournaments as well if they required him to get vaccinated.

Djokovic has won the French Open twice and has a total of 20 major titles, one short of the record held by Rafael Nadal after the Spaniard won this year’s Australian Open.

French tennis federation president Gilles Moretton said that although Djokovic is now free to play, French authorities might be forced to introduce new restrictions if the virus situation deteriorates before the tournament starts on May 22.

It is not up to us,” Moretton said. Today there is a little virus that is going around. We are quite confident that the lights are green, but we are all cautious about what has happened over the last two years.”

Asked whether Russian tennis players will be allowed to compete at the tournament in the light of the war in Ukraine, organizers said they plan to stick to decisions suspending Russia and ally Belarus but allowing their players to compete as neutral athletes.

The seven groups that run the sport around the world have condemned the war; cancelled events in Russia and Belarus; kicked those two nations out of the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup team competitions; and announced on March 1 that players from those countries will be allowed to compete in WTA, ATP and Grand Slam tournaments but not under the name or flag of Russia or Belarus.

We are holding this line,” said Amelie Oudea-Castera, the French tennis federation director general.

Other sports, including track and field, soccer and figure skating, have barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from competition.

Wimbledon organizers are having conversations with the British government about whether Russian players should be allowed to compete at the grass-court tournament this year if they dont distance themselves from President Vladimir Putin.

Oudea-Castera said French organizers don’t plan to start a detailed and individualized analysis of players’ individual situations, which can be extraordinarily dependent on the family situations experienced by each of them.”

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the day Medvedev was assured of moving atop the ATP rankings for the first time while competing at the Mexico Open.

Watching the news from home, waking up here in Mexico, was not easy, Medvedev said then. By being a tennis player, I want to promote peace all over the world. We play in so many different countries; Ive been in so many countries as a junior and as a pro. It’s just not easy to hear all this news. … I’m all for peace.

Also Read: Daniil Medvedev Wimbledon hopes could hinge on political assurance, UK minister

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Russian request to freeze UEFA sanctions on its teams denied

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The ban on Russian football teams from European competition was upheld Tuesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The urgent CAS ruling an interim judgment pending a full appeal hearing in the weeks ahead does not apply to Russia’s chances of being reinstated for World Cup qualifying.

Russian athletes and teams have been banned from dozens of sports since the country invaded Ukraine last month.

The ban by FIFA is part of a similar but separate appeal by the Russian soccer federation which could be decided by CAS this week. Russia had been scheduled to play Poland on March 24 in the World Cup qualifying playoffs.

Tuesday CAS verdict gives an indication of how the court might also act on the Russian request to freeze the FIFA ban.

Last week, FIFA awarded a bye to Poland. That country’s football federation and players have said they would refuse to play Russia.

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Russians push toward Kyiv, keep up siege of other cities

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Russian forces appeared to make progress from the northeast in their slow fight toward Ukraine’s capital, while tanks and artillery pounded places already under siege with shelling so heavy that residents of one city were unable to bury the growing number of dead.

In past offensives in Syria and Chechnya, Russia’s strategy has been to crush armed resistance with sustained airstrikes and shelling that levels population centres. That kind of assault has cut off the southern port city of Mariupol, and a similar fate could await Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine if the war continues.

In Mariupol, unceasing barrages into the city have thwarted repeated attempts to bring in food and water and evacuate trapped civilians. On Friday, an Associated Press photographer captured the moment when a tank appeared to fire directly on an apartment building, enveloping one side in a billowing orange fireball.

A deadly strike on a maternity hospital there this week sparked international outrage and war-crime allegations.

Mariupol’s death toll has passed 1,500 in 12 days of attack, the mayor’s office said. Shelling forced crews to stop digging trenches for mass graves, so the dead aren’t even being buried, the mayor said.

Invading Russian forces have struggled far more than expected against determined Ukrainian fighters. But Russia’s stronger military threatens to grind down Ukrainian forces, despite an ongoing flow of weapons and other assistance from the West for Ukraine’s westward-looking, democratically elected government.

The conflict has already sent 2.5 million people fleeing the country.

On the ground, the Kremlin’s forces appeared to be trying to regroup and regain momentum after encountering heavy losses and tough resistance over the past two weeks. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia is trying to reset and re-posture its troops, gearing up for operations against Kyiv.

“It’s ugly already, but it’s going to get worse,” said Nick Reynolds, a warfare analyst at Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

In a multi-front attack on Kyiv, the Russians’ push from the northeast appeared to be advancing, a US defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to give the US assessment of the fight. Combat units were moved up from the rear as the forces closed to less than 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the capital.

New commercial satellite images appeared to capture artillery firing on residential areas between the Russians and the capital. The images from Maxar Technologies showed muzzle flashes and smoke from the big guns, as well as impact craters and burning homes in the town of Moschun, outside Kyiv, the company said.

In a devastated village east of the capital, villagers climbed over toppled walls and flapping metal strips in the remnants of a pool hall, restaurant and theater freshly blown apart by Russian bombs.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin created this mess, thinking he will be in charge here,” 62-year-old Ivan Merzyk said. In temperatures sinking below freezing, villagers quickly spread plastic wrap or nailed plywood over blown-out windows of their homes.

“We are not going away from here,” Merzyk said.

On the economic and political fronts, the US and its allies moved to further isolate and sanction the Kremlin. President Joe Biden announced that the US will dramatically downgrade its trade status with Russia and ban imports of Russian seafood, alcohol and diamonds.

The move to revoke Russia’s most favoured nation (MFN) status was taken in coordination with the European Union and Group of Seven countries.

“The free world is coming together to confront Putin,” Biden said.

With the invasion in its 16th day, Putin said there had been certain positive developments in ongoing talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, but he gave no details.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared on video to encourage his people to keep fighting.

“It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it,” he said via video from Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said authorities were working on establishing 12 humanitarian corridors and trying to ensure food, medicine and other basics get to people across the country. Thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed in the invasion, along with many Ukrainian civilians.

He also accused Russia of kidnapping the mayor of one city, Melitopol, calling the abduction a new stage of terror. The Biden administration had warned before the invasion of Russian plans to detain and kill targeted people in Ukraine. Zelenskyy himself is a likely top target.

At least until recently, Russians have made the biggest advances on cities in the east and south while struggling in the north and around Kyiv.

Russia said Friday it used high-precision long-range weapons to put military airfields in Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk in the west out of action. The attack on Lutsk killed four Ukrainian servicemen, the mayor said.

Russian airstrikes also targeted for the first time Dnipro, a major industrial hub in the east and Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, with about one million people. One person was killed, Ukrainian officials said.

Read Also | Russia-Ukraine War: Farmers stalled, fuelling fears of global food shortages

In images of the aftermath released by Ukraine’s emergency agency, firefighters doused a flaming building, and ash fell on bloodied rubble. Smoke billowed over shattered concrete where buildings once stood.

American defense officials said Russian pilots are averaging 200 sorties a day, compared with five to 10 for Ukrainian forces, which are focusing more on surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and drones to take out Russian aircraft.

The US also said Russia has launched nearly 810 missiles into Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the United Nations political chief said the international organisation had received credible reports that Russian forces were using cluster bombs in populated areas. The bombs scatter smaller explosives over a wide area and are prohibited in cities and towns under international law.

Read Also | Russia-Ukraine war: Armed attack on sovereign nation a blatant example of aggression, says Swedish envoy

Click here to follow our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war

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Trump’s praise of Putin, ‘America First’ view tested by war

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively challenged the pillars of Republican foreign policy that defined the party since World War II.

He mocked John McCain’s capture during the Vietnam War, validated autocrats with his platitudes, questioned long-time military and security alliances and embraced an isolationist worldview. And to the horror of many GOP leaders at the time, it worked, resonating with voters who believed, in part, that a bipartisan establishment in Washington had brokered trade deals that hurt American workers and recklessly stumbled into so-called forever wars.

But Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is posing a serious test for Trump and his America First doctrine at a moment when he is eyeing another presidential run and using this year’s mid-term elections to keep bending the GOP to his will. He’s largely alone in his sustained praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin as smart, an assessment he reiterated last week during speeches to donors and conservative activists. His often deferential vice president, Mike Pence, split with him on the issue late Friday.

The multinational partnerships that Trump repeatedly undermined, meanwhile, have allowed the West to quickly band together to hobble Russia’s economy with coordinated sanctions. The NATO alliance, which Trump once dismissed as obsolete, is flexing its strength as a foil to Russia’s aggression.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the war is a fresh reminder, observers say, that the US can’t simply ignore the world’s problems, even if that’s sometimes a politically appealing way to connect with voters facing their own daily struggles.

“This is a brutal wake-up call to both parties that not only are we not going to be able to do less in the world,” said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former diplomat, “(but also) we are going to have to do more.”

While he argued that large elements of both parties have demonstrated a desire to turn inward, the current situation poses a special problem for Republicans and the America firsters who have previously tried to paint Russia have a benign actor.

“The entire thrust of America First, I would argue, was misguided in a world where what happens anywhere can and will affect us,” he said.

It’s unclear whether the Western unity that has taken hold against Russia can be sustained if the war escalates, expands beyond Ukraine or drags on indefinitely. And after two decades of US foreign policy failures, including the Iraq War and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, many Americans are approaching the moment with caution.

On the eve of Russia’s invasion, just 26 percent of Americans said they supported the US playing a major role in the conflict, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But the challenges to Trump’s approach to the world are clear.

Sweden and Finland have abandoned their long-held neutrality and warmed to the idea of joining NATO, expanding an alliance Trump continued to criticise this week. Germany, a country Trump spent years trying to browbeat into spending more on its defense, broke its longstanding post-World War II policy by sending anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine and pledging to dramatically increase its defense budget.

Trump and his allies insist that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine were he still president. And Russia did not make aggressive moves on his watch, something former aides and others credit to his erratic behaviour and direct threats that left world leaders uncertain of how Trump would respond to a provocation.

Roger Zakheim, the Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, credited Trump for deterring Putin, who he said had validated the need for allies to invest more in their security and defense.

“I think President Trump, at least as it related to Ukraine, was able to deter Vladimir Putin. And that was a function of unpredictability, which is valuable to deterring an autocrat like Vladimir Putin,” he said. Still, he argued Putin’s actions had been so aggressive, brazen and immoral that it had de-emphasised the difference between various foreign policy approaches.

Still, the war renews focus on the controversial role Ukraine played during Trump’s tenure, particularly the way the then-president used defense of the struggling country as a bargaining tool to improve his domestic political standing.

Trump was impeached for the first time for trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate his 2020 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. The effort included holding up nearly $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine and leveraging an Oval Office visit that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been requesting.

Trump also pushed discredited claims that Ukraine, not Russia, had meddled in the 2016 election, repeatedly siding with Putin over his own national intelligence agencies.

“Putin is the critical agent, but certainly Trump contributed to it with his scheme back then and continued to contribute it by undermining national security,” said retired US Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, the former national security council whistleblower who raised alarms about Trump’s pressure tactics. “Ultimately the president undermined US foreign policy because he weakened Ukraine.”

As he aims to play a significant role in this year’s mid-terms and potentially run for president again in 2024, Trump has shown little interest in calibrating his approach to Putin.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been laying the groundwork for his own potential presidential run, has largely abandoned the language he was criticised for using before the invasion, when he had called Putin very capable and said he had enormous respect for him. Even Tucker Carlson, the popular Fox News host who had openly questioned why he shouldn’t side with Russia over Ukraine, has tried to walk back his pro-Russia rhetoric, saying, “We’ve been taken by surprise by the whole thing.”

That’s left Trump relatively isolated, defending his decision to label Putin as smart and criticising the response from Biden and other Western leaders, even as he has denounced the invasion as horrific and a very sad thing for the world.

“NATO has the money now, but they’re not doing the job they should be doing,” he said this week on Fox Business. “It’s almost like they’re staying away.”

That has earned rebuke from some in his party.

In a speech to GOP donors Friday night, Pence forcefully defended NATO and admonished those who have defended Putin as he, too, weighs a presidential run.

“There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “There is only room for champions of freedom.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News there “should be no confusion about Vladimir Putin”.

“He’s a thug. He’s a killer,” McConnell said. “He’s been on the rampage and this will not end well for him.”

Chris Stirewalt, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank and a contributing editor to The Dispatch, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is fundamentally different from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that turned large swaths of the American public against foreign intervention and which Trump was able to use to his political advantage.

“Putin,” he said, “has undone so much of what Trump and nationalists in the United States had done to change the global order.”

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United States Federal Reserve officials push back on rapid interest rate hikes

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Federal Reserve should start raising interest rates next month to help rein in too-high inflation, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said Friday. But he added that the rate hikes may not have to begin with as big a bang as some have suggested.

With inflation at its hottest level in two generations, the Fed is widely expected to seek to cool the economy by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate from its record low of nearly zero, where it’s been throughout the pandemic. The only question has been how big and how quickly it will move, because an overly aggressive approach could choke the economy while too much caution could let inflation spiral further.

“Personally, I don’t see any compelling argument to take a big step at the beginning,” Williams said following an event at New Jersey City University to discuss the economy and interest rates.

Williams, who is vice chair of the committee that sets the Fed’s interest-rate policy, said he sees a March increase as the beginning of a “steadily moving process to get interest rates closer to a level where they are no longer stimulating the economy. He also said he expects inflation to fall from its current level due to a confluence of factors, including the Fed’s moves and hoped-for improvements in supply-chain bottlenecks. Last month, inflation hit 7.5 percent in January compared with a year ago.

William’s comments were echoed by other Fed officials, who spoke at a policy conference in New York. This support for a steady approach to rate hikes contrasted with previous statements by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, who said the Fed should consider a half-point rate hike in one of its upcoming meetings, twice its normal increase. His comments shook Wall Street, which had been expecting a slower lift-off of rates.

Lael Brainard, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said that she expected the Fed would, at its next meeting in March, initiate a series of rate increases.

Brainard is close to Fed Chair Jerome Powell and has been nominated for vice chair, the Fed’s No. 2 position.

Krishna Guha, an analyst at investment bank Evercore ISI, said that Brainard broadly endorsed Wall Street’s expectations that the Fed will hike rates six times this year.

She also said the Fed would soon turn to reducing its huge, $9-trillion balance sheet, which has more than doubled during the pandemic because of the Fed’s bond purchases. She said they would likely do so more quickly than from 2017-2019, when they allowed about $50 billion in bonds to mature without replacing them.

Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, said Friday that the Fed needed to adjust its low-interest rate policies, which he called wrong-footed. But he also suggested that the central bank may not have to sharply raise rates this year.

Evans also said that high prices have mostly been caused by disruptions to supply chains and other factors stemming from the pandemic, and will likely fade partly on their own.

And given the economy’s current strength, the Fed’s moves shouldn’t slow hiring as much as interest rate hikes have in the past, Evans added.

Higher rates can corral inflation by slowing the economy. But they can also cause a recession if they go too high, and they put downward pressure on all kinds of investments from stock prices to cryptocurrencies.

Wall Street has been fixated on almost every word from Fed officials recently, hoping to divine how quickly and by how much the Fed will move.

The mix of aggressive and moderate comments have left traders’ expectations in flux. Traders were pricing in only a 21 percent probability of such a half-point move on Friday afternoon, down from 49 percent a week earlier, according to CME Group.

Williams said he did not want to get into minute details about whether market expectations are in line with his own thinking for interest-rate policy.

But he said that the big-picture movements make sense, based on expectations that the Fed will move its key interest rate closer to normal, like 2 percent to 2.5 percent by the end of next year. That’s higher than the most recent forecast Fed officials gave. In December, they had a median projection of 1.6 percent for the federal fund’s rate at the end of 2023.

Evans, who typically favours lower interest rates, acknowledged that if inflation stayed high throughout this year, a larger number of rate hikes could be necessary.

Other speakers at the New York conference focused on whether the Fed had erred when it adopted its new policy framework in August 2020, which sought to keep rates low until inflation actually materialised. Previously, the Fed would typically raise borrowing costs when the economy was healthy to preempt any inflation.

Frederick Mishkin, a former Fed governor and economist at Columbia University, said the Fed had made a serious mistake in not hiking rates earlier to prevent inflation from taking off. Now Fed officials may have to raise rates much higher to bring prices back in line, he added.

Evans, however, defended the Fed’s new policy framework by pointing out that in the past, when the Fed hiked rates to preempt inflation, such moves likely cost many jobs. And in some cases, inflation didn’t materialise.

Following the remarks by Williams and Evans, the two-year Treasury note fell to 1.46 percent from 1.49 percent on late Thursday. It tends to move with expectations for the Fed’s policy on rates. Stocks and other areas of the bond market were also lower amid worries about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Omicron’s New Year cocktail: Sorrow, fear, hope for 2022

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Sorrow for the dead and dying, fear of more infections to come and hopes for an end to the coronavirus pandemic were again the bittersweet cocktail with which the world said good riddance to 2021 and ushered in 2022. New Year’s Eve, which used to be celebrated globally with a free-spirited wildness, felt instead like a case of deja vu, with the fast-spreading Omicron variant again filling hospitals.

“We just need enjoyment,” said Karen Page, 53, who was among the fed-up revellers venturing out in London. “We have just been in so long.”

The mostly muted New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world ushered in the fourth calendar year framed by the global pandemic. More than 285 million people have been infected by the coronavirus worldwide since late 2019 and more than 5 million have died.

In Paris, officials cancelled the fireworks amid surging infections and reintroduced mandatory mask-wearing outdoors, an obligation followed by the majority of people who milled about on the Champs-Elysees as the final hours of 2021 ticked away. In Berlin, police urged people not to gather near the Brandenburg Gate, where a concert was staged without a live audience. In Madrid, authorities allowed only 7,000 people into the city’s Puerta del Sol downtown square, a venue traditionally hosting some 20,000 revellers.

In the United States, officials took a mixed approach to the year-end revelry: nixing the audience at a countdown concert in Los Angeles, scaling it back in New York yet going full speed ahead in Las Vegas, where thousands turned up for performances and a fireworks show on the Strip that got off to a late start because of gusty winds. President Joe Biden noted the losses and uncertainty caused by the pandemic but said: “We’re persevering. We’re recovering.”

“Back to work. Back to school. Back to joy,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter. “That’s how we made it through this year. And how we’ll embrace the next. Together.”

In New York, officials allowed just 15,000 people vaccinated and masked inside the perimeter around Times Square, a sliver of the one million that typically squeeze in to watch the famed ball drop. Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio, defending the event, said people need to see that New York is open for business.

Yet by Thursday, rapper LL Cool J had dropped out of the New York telecast after a positive COVID-19 test and restaurant-owners battered by staffing shortages and Omicron cancelations throughout the holiday season struggled to stay open.

“I’m really scared for our industry,” said New York restaurateur David Rabin, who watched reservations and party bookings disappear this month. “No one made any money in December. The fact they may have a good night tonight, it has no impact.”

Airlines also struggled as the year came to a close, cancelling thousands of flights after the virus struck flight crews and other personnel and amid bad weather. The pandemic game-changer of 2021 vaccinations continued apace. Pakistan said it had fully vaccinated 70 million of its 220 million people this year and Britain said it met its goal of offering a vaccine booster shot to all adults by Friday. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin mourned the dead, praised Russians for their strength in difficult times and soberly warned that the pandemic isn’t retreating yet. Russia’s virus task force has reported 308,860 COVID-19 deaths but its state statistics agency says the death toll has been more than double that.

“I would like to express words of sincere support to all those who lost their dear ones,” Putin said in a televised address broadcast just before midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones. Elsewhere, the venue that many chose for New Year’s celebrations was the same place they became overly familiar with during lockdowns: their homes.

Pope Francis also cancelled his New Year’s Eve tradition of visiting the life-sized manger set up in St. Peter’s Square, again to avoid a crowd. In an unusual move for Francis, the 85-year-old pontiff donned a surgical mask for a Vespers service of prayer and hymns on Friday evening as he sat in an armchair. But he also delivered a homily standing and unmasked. “A sense of being lost has grown in the world during the pandemic,” Francis told the faithful in St. Peter’s Basilica.

France, Britain, Portugal and Australia were among countries that set new records for COVID-19 infections as 2021 gave way to 2022. In London, the normal fireworks display, which would have attracted tens of thousands of people to the city centre and the banks of the Thames, was replaced by a light and drones show broadcast on television. Location details about the spectacle were kept secret in advance to avoid crowds gathering.

“The last two years have been so difficult for so many people, so many have suffered and there is a point when we need to start coming together finally,” said Mira Lluk, 22, a special needs teacher.

France’s unprecedented 232,200 new cases on Friday marked its third day running above the 200,000 mark. The UK was close behind, with 189,846 new cases, also a record. In London, officials said as many as 1 in 15 people were infected with the virus in the week before Christmas. Hospitalisations of COVID-19 patients in the UK rose 68 percent in the last week, to the highest levels since February. In Brazil, Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach welcomed a small crowd of a few thousand for 16 minutes of fireworks. Rio’s New Year’s bash usually brings more than two million people to Copacabana beach. In 2020 there was no celebration due to the pandemic. This year there was music on loudspeakers, but no live concerts like in previous editions. Yet boisterous New Year’s Eve celebrations kicked off in the Serbian capital of Belgrade where, unlike elsewhere in Europe, mass gatherings were allowed despite fears of the Omicron variant. One medical expert predicted that Serbia will see thousands of new COVID-19 infections after the holidays.

At Expo 2020, the sprawling world’s fair outside Dubai, 26-year-old tourist Lujain Orfi prepared to throw caution to the wind on New Year’s Eve, her first time ever outside Saudi Arabia, where she lives in the holy city of Medina. “If you don’t celebrate, life will pass you by,” she said. “I’m healthy and took two (vaccine) doses. We just have to enjoy.”

Australia went ahead with its celebrations despite reporting a record 32,000 new cases. Thousands of fireworks lit up the sky over Sydney’s Harbor Bridge and Opera House at midnight. Yet the crowds were far smaller than in pre-pandemic years. In Japan, writer Naoki Matsuzawa said he would spend the next few days cooking and delivering food to the elderly because some stores would be closed. He said vaccinations had made people less anxious about the pandemic, despite the new variant.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

France’s conservative party to choose presidential candidate

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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PARIS (AP) Members of France’s main conservative party are picking their presidential candidate on Saturday, a decision that could significantly shape April’s election.

The head of the Paris region, Valrie Pcresse, and a hardline lawmaker from Nice, Eric Ciotti, are competing in the final round of The Republicans’ primary.

About 140,000 registered members of The Republicans are eligible to participate in the electronic voting. The result is to be announced later on  Saturday.

Immigration and security emerged as top issues in the party primary largely because of another presidential candidate, far-right former TV pundit Eric Zemmour. Zemmour, an author and former journalist with multiple hate-speech convictions, formally declared his candidacy this week in a video relaying anti-migrant, anti-Islam imagery.

Pcresse, 54, is a former minister and government spokesperson under conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2012.

If elected by party members and later by French voters, she vowed to break with the centrist policies of incumbent President Emmanuel Macron. Macron is expected to seek a second term but he has yet to formally declare his candidacy.

Pcresse said her first action as president would be to end France’s 35-hour workweek so employees work and earn more. She also has promoted a tough stance on immigration, saying that people who entered the country illegally should be deported.

A supporter of the European Union, Pcresse left The Republicans in 2019 amid leadership divisions after the party had a poor showing in EU elections. She rejoined the party this year to be able to participate in the primary.

Ciotti, 56, is known for his longstanding positions as part of the party’s right wing, especially on security, immigration and religion.

He wants wording about France’s Christian roots added to the Constitution and a ban on Muslim girls wearing veils.

Ciotti vowed to massively reduce immigration and wants to change the law that grants nationality to people born in French territory. He proposes instead nationality by descent, or the right of blood.

He also wants to establish a French Guantanamo to imprison people convicted of terror-related charges.

Zemmour and the other well-known far-right candidate, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, have expressed similar views.

The Republicans, which still heads several regional assemblies and holds a majority in the French Senate, is the last of France’s traditional parties to choose its presidential contender.

On the left, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo is running for the Socialist party, and the Greens chose European lawmaker Yannick Jadot, a former Greenpeace activist. The far-left leader of the Rebel France party, Jean-Luc Mlenchon, is seeking the presidency for the third time.

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Govt cuts basic duty on edible oils; major oil retailers cut wholesale prices by Rs 4-7/litre

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Edible oil prices in major retail markets across the country have declined by Rs 5 per kg to Rs 20 per kg after various measures, including an import duty cut by the government, Food Secretary Sudhansu Pandey said on Friday. The official said that branded oil makers have also revised the rates for new stock.

Meanwhile, a government release has said that the government has cut the basic duty on crude palm oil (CPO), crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil from 2.5 percent to nil  in a bid to reign in continuous rise in cooking oil prices over the last one year.  The agri-cess on these oils has been brought down from 20 percent to 7.5 percent for CPO and 5 percent for crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil.

Consequent to this reduction, the total duty now on CPO is 7.5 percent and 5 percent for crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil . The basic duty on RBD Palmolein Oil, refined soyabean and refined sunflower oil has been slashed to 17.5 percent from the current 32.5 percent.

Before  reduction, the agricultural infrastructure cess on all forms of crude edible oils was 20 percent. Post reduction, the effective duty on CPO will be 8.25 percent, crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil will be 5.5 percent each.

To control prices of edible oils the government has rationalised import duties on palm oil , sunflower oil and soyabean oil. Futures trading in mustard oil on NCDEX has been suspended and stock limits imposed.

Major edible oil players including Adani Willmar and Ruchi Industries have cut wholesale prices by Rs 4 -7 per litre. Prices have  been reduced to give relief to consumers during festival season, according to the government.

The other players that have reduced the wholesale prices of edible oils are Gemini Edibles & Fats India, Hyderabad, Modi Naturals, Delhi, Gokul Re-foils and Solvent, Vijay Solvex, Gokul Agro Resources and NK Proteins.

Edible oil prices are higher than in the past year but from October onwards there has been a declining trend. The government is taking steps to improve the production of secondary edible oils, especially rice bran oil to reduce the  import dependence, said the release.

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David Fincher’s “Mank” leads 93rd Academy Awards with 10 nominations; 2 women nominated for best director for 1st time

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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David Fincher’s “Mank” led nominations to the 93rd Academy Awards with 10 nods Monday, and for the first time, two women — Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell — were nominated for best director.

Eight films were nominated for best picture. “Mank” was joined by Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” Zhao’s “Nomadland,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Sound of Metal,” “Minari,” “The Father” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”

History was made in the best director category. Only five women have ever been nominated in the category before. Zhao is the first woman of Asian descent nominated. The other nominees were Lee Isaac Chung for “Minari,” David Fincher for “Mank” and Thomas Vinterberg for “Another Round.”

Among performers, it’s the most diverse slate of nominees ever — and a far cry from the all-white acting nominees that spawned the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag five years ago. Nine of the 20 acting nominees are people of color, including a posthumous best-actor nomination for Chadwick Boseman, and nods for Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Steven Yeun (“Minari”), Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield (“Judas and the Black Messiah”), Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”), Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), Andra Day (“The People vs. Billie Holiday”) and Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”).

Davis, who won for her performance in 2016’s “Fences,” landed her fourth Oscar nomination, making Davis the most nominated Black actress ever.

The other nominees for best actress are: Carey Mulligan, “Promising Young Woman”; Frances McDormand, “Nomadland”; Vanessa Kirby, “Pieces of a Woman.”

The nominations were announced from London by presenters Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The Academy Awards would typically have happened by now but this year were postponed by two months due to the pandemic. They will instead be telecast April 25.

The film academy confirmed Monday that the show will be held at both its usual home in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and the city’s railway hub, Union Station.

In addition to Boseman, Ahmed and Yeun, the nominees for best actor are: Anthony Hopkins, “The Father”; Gary Oldman, “Mank.”

The nominees for best supporting actress are: Maria Bakalova, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”; Glenn Close, “Hillbilly Elegy”; Olivia Colman, “The Father”; Amanda Seyfried, “Mank”; Yuh-Jung Youn, “Minari.”

The nominees for best supporting actor are: Sacha Baron Cohen, “The Trial of the Chicago 7”; Leslie Odom Jr., “One Night in Miami”; Daniel Kaluuya, “Judas and the Black Messiah”; Paul Raci, “Sound of Metal”; LaKeith Stanfield, “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

The nominees for best documentary feature are: “Collective”; “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution”; “The Mole Agent”; “My Octopus Teacher”; “Time.”

The nominees for best international film are: “Quo Vadis, Aida?”, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Denmark, “Another Round”; “Better Days,” Hong Kong; “Collective,” Romania; “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” Tunisia.

The nominees for best original song are: “Husavik” from “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”; “Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah”; “Io Sì (Seen)” from “The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se)”; “Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami…”; and “Hear My Voice” from “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”

The nominees for best-animated feature: “Onward”; “Over the Moon”; “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon”; “Soul”; “Wolfwalkers.”

The nominees for best original screenplay are: “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Shaka King and Will Berson; “Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung; “Promising Young Woman,” Emerald Fennell; “Sound of Metal,” Darius Marder and Abraham Marder; “Trial of the Chicago 7,” Aaron Sorkin.

The nominees for best costume design: Alexandra Byrne, “Emma”; Ann Roth, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; Trish Summerville, “Mank”; Bina Daigeler “Mulan”; Massimo Cantini Parrini “Pinocchio.”

After a pandemic year that shuttered most movie theaters, the best-picture nominees will have hardly any box office to speak of. It will be an Oscars not just without blockbusters but with many movies that have barely played on the big screen. Streaming services are set to dominate Hollywood’s biggest and most sought-after awards.

The film academy and ABC will hope that the nominees can drum up more excitement than they have elsewhere. Interest in little golden statuettes has nosedived during the pandemic. Ratings for a largely virtual Golden Globes, with acceptance speeches by Zoom, plunged to 6.9 million viewers — a 64% drop from 2020 — last month.

With the notable exception of fueling streaming subscriber growth, the pandemic has been punishing for the movie industry. Production slowed to a crawl, blockbusters were postponed or detoured to streaming and thousands have been laid off or furloughed.

But the outlook for Hollywood has recently brightened as coronavirus cases have slid and vaccines have ramped up. Movie theaters are reopening in the U.S.’s two largest markets, New York and Los Angeles. And several larger movies — including the Walt Disney Co.’s “Black Widow” (May 7) — are scheduled for May and beyond.

Film academy president David Rubin said Monday that the April 25 show will play out at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre as well as its transportation hub, Union Station. Expect the broadcast to do its best to pitch viewers on going back to the movies.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow