#president duda speaks english

[rightnewshindi]

रूस की पोलैंड पर हमले की आशंका के बीच जो बाइडेन से मिले राष्ट्रपति डूडा, जानें अमेरिका ने क्या कहा

रूस की पोलैंड पर हमले की आशंका के बीच जो बाइडेन से मिले राष्ट्रपति डूडा, जानें अमेरिका ने क्या कहा

Washington News: रुस-यूक्रेन युद्ध के बीच पोलैंड के राष्ट्रपति और प्रधानमंत्री के संयुक्त अमेरिका दौरे ने दुनिया का ध्यान आकर्षित किया है. पॉलिश राष्ट्रपति ने यहां यूरोप के भविष्य पर बड़ी चिंता जताई. उन्होंने कहा कि अगर पुतिन यूक्रेन जीत गए तो वो अपने युद्ध का दायरा बढ़ा सकते हैं. राष्ट्रपति आंद्रेज डूडा ने पोलैंड और अन्य देशों पर संभावित रुसी अक्रमण को लेकर चिंता जताई, जिस पर हिटलर के हमले ने…

[mariacallous]

UNITED NATIONS—It’s no small feat to steal a show as big as the annual September gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Yet even in this rarefied sphere, many VIPs will be angling to catch up with one man. For a fleeting moment, dignitaries will be able to have a quiet word or a snap quick selfie with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky without having to take a 10-hour train ride through an active war zone.

For his part, Zelensky arrived in New York with a small entourage and a big agenda, hoping to garner multilateral support for Ukraine’s ambitious peace plan and perhaps even his government’s cherished goal of establishing a special tribunal to try Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression.

“For the first time in modern history, we have a real chance to end the aggression on the terms of the nation which was attacked,” Zelensky said in his much-anticipated turn at the U.N. General Assembly’s famous rostrum today. Speaking in English, he told the assembly that “while Russia is pushing the world to the final war, Ukraine is doing everything to ensure that after Russian aggression, no one in the world will dare to attack any nation. Weaponization must be restrained. War crimes must be punished.”

With a Ukraine delegation including Zelensky’s wife and foreign minister joining him in the assembly hall, and Russia represented by its deputy ambassador to the U.N., Zelensky made it clear that he didn’t believe promises would be enough to reassure Ukraine. “Evil cannot be trusted,” he said. “Ask [dead mercenary boss Yevgeny] Prigozhin if one bets on Putin’s promises.”

Putin is already facing charges in the International Criminal Court for the alleged unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine. But an independent tribunal for the crime of aggression has been among Kyiv’s goals since the early days of the war, and its diplomats were circulating a draft resolution for the U.N. General Assembly’s consideration as early as last October. Ultimately, the proposal was left out of the resolution that was supported by 141 member states in February in order to persuade more countries to sign on. 

Polish President Andrzej Duda has been more explicit than many of Ukraine’s allies in his support for the idea. He told the U.N. General Assembly today, “we support the idea of establishing an ad hoc special tribunal.” Then, foreshadowing Zelensky, he added, “The crimes must be accounted for, and the perpetrators punished.”

But Zelensky may need to use all of his powers of persuasion to win over new converts to the idea in New York. “I’m not sure he’s going to find that the fence-sitters are very receptive to the idea of a tribunal,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group. Zelensky might be arriving in New York with a stronger hand, Gowan said, if Ukraine’s slow-moving counteroffensive were further along. “It’s a lot harder to get other U.N. members to sign up to that sort of plan when they’re still very skeptical about how things are going to turn out on the battlefield.”

Moscow and Kyiv are locked in a diplomatic tussle for the hearts and minds of some traditionally nonaligned countries. For example, the foreign ministers of both countries recently made swings through African countries that have abstained in U.N. General Assembly votes about Russia’s war in Ukraine. Thomas G. Weiss, a CUNY Graduate Center political science professor and a longtime U.N. watcher, finds it baffling that more than 40 countries can still be sitting on the General Assembly sidelines. 

“In rhetorical terms, the one thing they can usually agree on is that colonization was not a great idea,” he said. “And yet they do not condemn this blatant return to empire.”

Some U.N. diplomats have been making the explicit connection between Russian aggression potentially leading to a revival of expansionist wars in other theaters. Linda Thomas Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., recently told FP Live, “If Ukraine loses this war and Russia gets away with what they’re doing in Ukraine, it’s a signal to others in the world that they can do exactly the same thing.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that his emphasis this week would be on revitalizing the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, which are 17 goals intended to reduce global poverty and inequality by 2030. They were set in 2015 and are way behind schedule. The secretary-general said that a political declaration of support could yield a “quantum leap in the response to the dramatic failures that we have witnessed until now.” 

But he was pessimistic about the outlook for making any progress toward peace in Ukraine during the U.N.’s big week. “I would love to have a chance to be able to mediate peace talks,” he said. “But I think we are far from that being possible.”

The secretary-general expressed somewhat more hope of reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the U.N.’s only relative success since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022—that is, until Moscow walked away from the deal this summer. Guterres will meet this week with delegations from Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey, the three countries involved in the now-collapsed deal to allow some grain shipments to ship safely from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. But the mood here isn’t too hopeful, and Gowan doubted that the deal would be revived with the U.N. at its center. He thought there might be a better chance of a tacit arrangement, with Turkey facilitating shipments and “the Russians turning a blind eye to at least some Ukrainian grain exports.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain infrastructure had destroyed some 280,000 tons of cereals, enough to feed millions.

The real sparks may fly on Wednesday, when both Zelensky and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are expected to speak to the U.N. Security Council. It’s been a little more than a year since Ukraine’s president challenged the council during a video appearance to either remove Russia so that it couldn’t veto decisions about its own aggression, or to “dissolve yourselves altogether.”

Wednesday’s session on Ukraine will feature plenty of speakers, but likely little real progress on the issues that matter most. “The geopolitical situation may be the most complicated since the founding of the U.N. Charter after the Second World War,” said a senior diplomat, who preferred not to give a name in order to speak freely, last week. “We are in a different era since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, which is the worst breach of the charter since it was adopted.”

Zelensky may find it challenging to get the fence-sitters to pick a side, let alone convince Russia to forswear its aggressive war. His representatives at the U.N., though, have been doggedly trying to prepare the ground. Last week, at a screening of the documentary 20 Days in Mariupol, about Russia’s relentless siege of the Ukrainian port city last year, Ukraineian U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said, “I wish the entire Russian mission were here to watch this film.”

[beardedmrbean]

WARSAW, Poland -- Russian comedians pretending to be the French president tricked the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, into giving them sensitive information after a missile exploded in eastern Poland last week.

Duda’s office confirmed on Tuesday that he was put through last week to a person claiming to be France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Duda's office said it was one of many international calls that the president received at a tense time on Nov. 15, just after a missile hit in eastern Poland, close to the border with Ukraine, killing two men. NATO and Poland’s leaders have said the missile most likely came from a Ukrainian air defense system that fired in response to a barrage of Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The office said that appropriate services are checking how the pranksters could have reached Duda — for the second time. In 2020 they talked to him posing as U.N. secretary-general.

In the new recording posted on YouTube by Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, known as Vovan and Lexus, Duda can be heard thanking a man whom he believes to be Macron for calling.

Speaking in English, Duda relays details of the missile incident, of his plans to request NATO consultations and of being very careful not to exacerbate the situation with Russia, which invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Over more than seven minutes, Duda, sounding stressed, tells the caller that U.S. President Joe Biden does not blame Russia for the missile incident but that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists it was a Russian-launched projectile. He says he himself is being “extra careful” not to blame Russia but that Poland will seek security consultations with all of its NATO partners.

Opposition politicians lashed out at Duda, accusing him and his office of being overly lax with security.

Opposition Left party lawmaker Tomasz Trela said it's a “disgrace for the special services and for all those who should be checking who they allow to contact the top leader.”

“This is a blow for our security and for the opinion we have in the eyes of our allies,” Trela tweeted.

In July 2020, the same Russian pranksters posted a recording of a phone conversation with Duda, in which Kuznetsov posed as the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, and rendered the president speechless with questions about Ukraine, Russia and his fresh re-election. Duda's office also confirmed that recording as authentic. Two officials from Poland's mission to the U.N. were dismissed over the incident.

The pranksters have previously embarrassed European politicians including Macron and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as well as Elton John and Prince Harry with similar hoax calls. ________________________

Took a min, but I found what I was looking for

The complaint said that Spanish-language radio station WXDJ didn't tell Castro in advance that he was going to be on the radio, as FCC rules require, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Saturday.

DJs Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos called the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, identified themselves as Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, and asked to speak to Castro. They managed to work their way through the system and got him on the air live. Only then did they tell Castro that it was a joke call from a Miami radio station, and the conversation ended after Castro denounced the callers with a stream of vulgarities. The entire process was broadcast.

Bureaucratic nonsense, lol

[aces-nrw]

International Call to Solidarity with the Polish LGBTQIA+ Community!

TW Queermisia Police Violence explicit Homomisia & Transmisia Conversation Therapy Hunger Strike Imprisionment

I would like to comply with the request that came from the gathering of the Ace Organizers International (further information at the end of this text). I hereby want to take on my responsibility and use my reach as an activist for queer rights, speaking from my position within the asexual community (and if even possible, „on behalf of the German acespec …“ after consultation with fellow activist and cross-regional organizer Lea) and, as a person with German-Polish citizenship, to show my solidarity and support for the fight for queer human rights in Poland.

I hope this message will find you well, dearest warriors, and you see this as a sign of hope for you are not alone in this. Your efforts, your actions are not in vain. You shall know that we wont ignore what has been done to you and your people. And what is still happening to this very day. Our thoughts, our hearts and our deepest hopes are with you!

–

The current situation in Poland has been described as quite critical for queer people. Poland is a very conservative country with a strong hold of anti-progressive, ultra Catholic influences, who aren’t just hate-mongering in their rhetoric only, but are also to blame for vile verbal and physical attacks on people „read/perceived as queer“ in public by anti-LGBTQIA+ organizations they have helped to build (f.ex.: so-called Saint Michael’s The Archangel Special Forces), according to reports.

The climate is dictated by right-wing nationalists, anti-LGBTQIA + hate speech and propaganda spread by politicians; queerness is vilified as „ideology“ (hence the hashtag #NieJestemIdeologia – ‚[I] am not an ideology‘ used on social media), seen as a tool for recurring communism, even as a new plague (Euronews) of leftist ethos or portrayed as the influence of foreign powers to be „fought against“. Blatant lies are making their rounds, such as that sex education in schools „would make children queer„, and not few believe and publicly call for queer people to undergo „conversation therapy„ (x). Meanwhile, the streets are patrolled by a truck that hatefully equates queerness, especially homosexuality, with child abuse (Washington Post, 08.08.).

Margot in particular, non-binary activist from the Kolektyw Stop Bzdurom (Stop Bullshit Collective), was at the focus of this very hatred (Mannschaft Magazin 09.08.), especially just after being recently release of the previous imprisonment, through explicit transimic coverage from the Polish Media (e.g. via @.radio_ZET und @.PolsatNewsPL). The collective drew attention to the situation for the Polish queer community particularly by flying rainbow flags on local statues and monuments. In the very first interview (VOGUE) after being taken into custody, which many LGBTQIAP + people see as illegitimate and politically motivated, and one hunger strike, Margot criticizes not only the right-wing, but also liberal media and politicians who are condemning the actions and methods of local Polish queer activists. While some of them are seemingly pro LGBTQIA + rights, those only support equal rights under the conditions of playing by respectability politics („ale tylko póki jesteśmy potulni, grzeczni icichutko czekamy, aż ktoś łaskawie uzna nas za ludzi. Klasyczne „Jesteśmy sojusznikami, ale…„ translation: „But only as long as we docile, politely and calmly wait for someone to graciously recognize us as human beings. Classic ‚We are allies, but … ‚“).

For the Polish mainstream the active, visible, loud and proud uprising of LGBTQIAP+ people is considered a hostile affront to the status quo, a war declaration against the „good and righteous people“ of some sort. This very notion of suppressing and de-legitimizing queer demonstrations stems from an ultra-catholic faithfulness in which humility must be upheld as a virtue and any rebellion to be denounced as abstruse blasphemy.

The media often references the oh-so-democratic Poland and its threatened order by rioting queer people, although we know that extreme right-wing, fascist powers have been gaining strength in Poland for a long time now (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2013) and it’s undermining any positive progress and ultimately even its own constitutional legality (Deutsche Welle and TAZon the threat to the independence of Polish courts). It were the so-called “LGBT + free zones” mainly (Pinknews and Human Rights Watch about the violation of the constitution through such anti-queer smear campaigns), that have made many of us abroad truly aware of the inhuman and threatening situation for Polish queer people.

President Duda and his right-wing populist ruling party PiS regularly contribute to the fact that queer people in Poland experience an uncanny degree of dehumanization. These „representatives of the people” violate human rights (AP, 08.08. , taz, 17.04.20; BBC 15.04.20; Human Right Watch using the example of restricting and dismantling of abortion rights and bodily autonomy; TW cis – & endonormativity // rape). These systematic repressions, especially against activists for LGBTQIAP+ rights, have been reinforced with the help of police violence for years now (Margot: „Takie sytuacje zdarzają się od lat – jesteśmy spisywani bez powodu, policja nie reaguje na przemoc wobec nas, a chroni homofobiczne ciężarówki.„; Politico, 05.08.; Mannschaft Magazin 09.08).

You saw what had happened to human rights defender and activist Elżbieta Podleśna after her “Our Lady of Equality” artwork – the rainbow iconography of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. She is now being defamed as an “enemy of the people” and is threatened with imprisonment (taz 30.06.20; Amnesty).

ILGA Europe has created an „Anti LGBTI Timeline“ with brief depiction of the most recent history of anti-queer attacks in English. I found it very helpful for a short overview for those of you interested.

The international community, especially at the political level, can no longer accept the abuse and oppression of queer people in Poland or even dare to counter it with weak, ineffective phrase as a mere wagging finger.

It needs more than that!

I would like to call for you all to stick up for the people in Poland who are affected by state repression, violence and hostility. Please act in the capacities manageable and possible for you; show your queer siblings that they are not left behind! These inexhaustible, brave struggles for emancipation are immensely important and beyond historical importance. Let these courageous people know that we are by their sides and they do not fight this battle alone.

The request for backup and awareness comes from Marta from the Polish asexuals‘ association Asfera (Instagram: @asfera_polish_asexuals, facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edukacja.aseksualna ; https://www.facebook.com/aseksualizm) to collectively highlight local campaigns and Polish organizations (don’t forget to tag them if you write/ tweet / post something) and to support them in their fight for queer human rights!

Kampania Przeciw Homofobii (KPH) (Campain Against Homophobia)

Twitter: @kph_official ; https://twitter.com/kph_official

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lgbt.kph/

Kolektyw Stop Bzdurom (Stop Bullshit Collective)

Twitter & Instagram: @stopbzdurom https://twitter.com/stopbzdurom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stopbzdurom/

You can make donations for legal fees (available in German and English): https://www.firefund.net/stopbzdurom

Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love does not exclude)

Twitter: @milosc_https://twitter.com/milosc_

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Miloscniewyklucza

#LGBTtoLudzie #MuremZaMargot #JestemLGBT #JestemLGBTQIA

Wordpress

[veryfangurl]

If anyone wonders what is going on in Poland, just watch this.

Andrzej Duda won the election, with a little advantage, but he won.

LGBT+ community, my community, is not safe in my country. 

We were not safe to begin with, but this man promised, that he will make our lives even worse. 

Please, spread the word, and consider donation for:

https://wspieraj.kph.org.pl/

http://transfuzja.org/en/artykuly/donate.htm

https://mnw.org.pl/en/

If you can’t donate, please sign the petition:

https://action.allout.org/en/a/poland/?utm_campaign=a-poland&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

If you have twitter, you can also write to our president Andrzej Duda or prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. 

If you are living in Poland and you’re looking for help, here is the list of places you can find it, in many of them you don’t have to speak polish to get help. 

Lista miejsc, w których możesz uzyskać pomoc psychologiczną lub prawną:

https://kph.org.pl/  <- Mental health help and legal assistance for LGBT+ community (they provide help in many cities, but their main working area is in Warsaw)

http://transfuzja.org/pl/artykuly/pomagamy.htm  <- Mental health help and legal assitance for Trans community

Telefon zaufania/helpline for Trans woman in Poland from Fundacja Feminoteka +48 731 731 551 (unfortunately I don’t know if they speak english)

http://lambdawarszawa.org/lambdawarszawa/aktualnosci/telefon-zaufania/  <- Lambda Warszawa Helpline, for everyone in Poland, check their website out, they also have support groups for Ukriainians!

https://www.lambda.szczecin.pl/pomoc/  <- Lambda Szczecin, they have support groups for LGB and for T, also individual therapies, also for Ukrainians!

https://grupa-stonewall.pl/en/we-support/  <- Grupa Stonewall in Poznań, they only have help in polish, but they’ll help you to find help in your language!

This are ones I can think of now, if you know more, please add.

[argivebeauty]

— answer these questions then tag 20 blogs you’d like to know better!

tagged by:  @odysseusnostos tagging:  @artfulprecision @traggedia @queenofkategat @vindictiveolympianqueen @reignofolympus & double tagging @philtatoshetairos again

nicknames:  duda

zodiac: i don’t believe in astrology but taurus

height: 1.78m

time:  11:52 am

favorite band / artist:  constantly changing but currently  etta james. i listen to all kinds of stuff tho. follow my last.fm account if you have one and i’ll follow back

song stuck in my head:  reggaeton lento by cnco  

last movie i saw: the edge of democracy by petra costa

last thing i googled:  the english title to the movie above lmao

other blogs: none

do i get asks: yes

why did i choose this username: it was the first that came to mind tbh

following:  340 but a lot of inactive accounts (this blog is old af)

average amount of sleep: it depends? i try to get my daily 8 hours but it’s not always possible lmao

what i’m wearing: overalls & all star tennis shoes

dream job: senator but like in a country where the law actually works

dream trip:  havana, cuba

favorite food:  anything unhealthy tbh lmao

play any instruments: nope

eye color: brown.

hair color:  as above

languages you speak:  portuguese, english, a bit of spanish and i studied french for a while but then after i stopped i forgot pretty much everything 

most iconic song:  there are frankly so many but since i’ve been in a political mood i’d pick latinoamerica by calle 13 this time bc i feel those lyrics DEEPLY

random fact:  i have a selfie kissing the cheek of the best president my country has ever had aka lula and it’s my favorite picture in the world

describe yourself as aesthetic things: coffee. printed newspapers. more coffee. red lipstick. large earrings. coffee ad infinitum.

[lollipoplollipopoh]

Polarised and Partisan: Polish Media and Presidential Election | The Listening Post (Full) by Al Jazeera English Polish voters have re-elected President Andrzej Duda to another term in office and the state broadcaster Telewijza Polska (TVP) was instrumental in his media campaign. To many Poles, TVP could just as well be Telewizja Propaganda - the channel backed Duda to the hilt, and helped him scrape through with a 51 percent victory. Privately owned news outlets have been far more critical of Duda, so the president and his backers have tried to delegitimise those platforms over their foreign ownership. They have played the xenophobia card, suggesting that German investors in Polish media companies were trying to swing the election. Now the Law and Justice party government is talking about the "repolonisation" of the country's privately-owned media - thinly disguised code for "nationalisation". Contributors: Daniel Tilles - editor-in-chief, Notes from Poland Dominika Sitnicka - journalist, OKO.press Krzysztof Skowronski - host, TVP and president, Polish Journalists Association Michal Broniatowski - journalist, Onet.pl and coordinator, POLITICO (Poland) On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about the crackdown on OMN, a major Ethiopian news network that has been covering mass protests against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government. Ghassan Kanafani and the era of revolutionary Palestinian media Some of the biggest names in the world of literature - Dickens, Hemingway, Garcia Marquez - got their start in journalism. Their reporting tends to be forgotten; their prose is what lives on. Ghassan Kanafani is a name you can add to that list. Kanafani was a Palestinian writer who, through books like Men in the Sun, humanised the Palestinian condition, of dispossession and displacement. He was, however, first and foremost a journalist. He was also a product of 1960s Beirut - a period when the city was a magnet for young reporters, revolutionaries, migrants and misfits, as well as host to the Palestinian leadership in exile. It was in Beirut that Kanafani produced Al Hadaf, a forward-thinking Palestinian magazine, that has been somewhat lost in the mists of time. The Listening Post's Tariq Nafi reports from Beirut on the legacy of Ghassan Kanafani and the era of Palestinian revolutionary media. Contributors: Refqa Abu-Remaileh - professor of modern Arabic literature and film, Free University of Berlin Elias Khoury - novelist and playwright As'ad AbuKhalil - professor of political science, California State University - Subscribe to our channel: https://ift.tt/291RaQr - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://ift.tt/1iHo6G4 - Check our website: https://ift.tt/2lOp4tL

[everydayantisemitism]

Polish Jews at a recent "lowpoint" and fearful for their security due to Antisemitism

#EverydayAntisemitism

Leslaw Piszewski, the President of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, has issued a shocking cry for help to the country’s ruling party on the issue of antisemitism.

The letter, addressed to the ruling Law and Justice Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, says they are “appalled by recent events and fearful for our security as the situation in our country is becoming more dangerous”.

Jewish communities in Poland are reportedly having to spend more and more money on security, facing a threat of growing antisemitic incitement from far right groups, most of which appears to go unreported, at least in English.

The letter was co-authored by Anna Chipczynska, a Jewish leader in Warsaw, who expressed concerns that groups affiliated with the Law and Justice Party have been involved in the incitement.

A lawmaker for the Party,  Bogdan Rzonca, wrote on Twitter last month “I wonder why there are so many Jews among those performing abortions, despite the Holocaust”, in a claim eerily reminiscent of blood libel. This comment went completely unpunished.

President Andrzej Duda has accused Jews of separating themselves from the rest of Poland and the Defence Minister, Antoni Macierewicz, has defended the antisemitic hoax the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Despite these troubling signs, Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that “Poland is still a good place to be Jewish, safer than many other places in Europe” and that the letter is “a sign of maturity of the kind that exists in many self-confident Jewish communities, who feel comfortable to speak out when they identify negative or dangerous trends”. Nonetheless, in a country in which almost all the Jewish population was murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust, with around 2.7 million Polish Jews being killed, it is extremely troubling to see that 70 years on, antisemitism is still an acceptable part of political life.

[phooll123]

New story in Health from Time: The World Hits Sobering Coronavirus Milestones: 500,000 Dead and 10 Million Confirmed Cases

(ROME) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

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[itsfinancethings]

(ROME) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

[hellofastestnewsfan]

(ROME) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

[newstechreviews]

(ROME) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

[thisdaynews]

Trump’s man in Brussels at center of impeachment inquiry

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trumps-man-in-brussels-at-center-of-impeachment-inquiry/

Trump’s man in Brussels at center of impeachment inquiry

In Ukraine, it’s always about gas.

U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s role at the center of the impeachment scandal can be traced to one of Donald Trump’s obsessions — not with Joe Biden and the Democrats, but with Germany’s reliance on Russian gas and Berlin’s support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built by Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy behemoth.

It was Trump’s fury at Germany, which he voiced directly to Chancellor Angela Merkel before a NATO summit in July 2018, and his fixation on increasing sales of U.S. liquified natural gas that led to Sondland being deployed as one of three U.S. officials responsible for managing relations with Ukraine, which fiercely opposes the Nord Stream 2 project.

According to Sondland, who like Trump made a fortune in the hotel business, the trio included himself, the U.S. special representative for the Ukraine conflict, Kurt Volker, and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and they called themselves the “three amigos.”

Volker, who abruptly resigned last week from his voluntary post as special representative, met on Thursday for nine hours with Congressional investigators conducting the impeachment inquiry. Perry, who is also under scrutiny by Congress, has signaled that he may resign as soon as next month.

Former Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker | Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Sondland, by contrast, has given no sign that he is planning to give up his job as Trump’s envoy to the European Union, despite text messages provided to Congress by Volker that appear to show Sondland confirming allegations that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to pursue an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter.

On August 9, in a text message regarding a potential visit to the White House by Zelenskiy, Sondland had texted Volker saying, “I think potus [the president of the United States] really wants the deliverable.”

According to other messages, that “deliverable” appears to have been a draft statement, ultimately never issued by the Ukrainian president, in which he was supposed to announce an investigation of Hunter Biden’s connection to a Ukrainian gas company, as well as into allegations of Ukrainian connections to interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

However, in the text exchanges, Sondland insisted that Trump was not withholding security assistance for help with a political campaign.

Sondland has not shied away from slapping at the Europeans, at one point blasting the European Commission as “out of touch with reality”.

“The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign,” Sondland wrote in response to Bill Taylor, the action U.S. ambassador in Kyiv who suggested withholding security aid was “crazy.”

“I suggest we stop the back and forth by text,” Sondland added.

Sondland did not respond to a text message from POLITICO requesting comment about his role. An embassy spokeswoman has said the U.S. representation in Brussels is cooperating fully with Congressional investigators. Speaking privately to associates in Brussels, Sondland has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as “bullshit.”

While Sondland’s actions in Brussels, Kyiv and elsewhere will face intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill in coming weeks, there is little doubt that his central role stemmed in part from his work on the gas issue, and in part from his own keen desire to be at the center of geopolitical action.

Sondland, who was a longtime donor and bundler for the Republican Party and its presidential candidates before being nominated by Trump, has often said that he turned down other diplomatic jobs in favor of the EU post because he wanted hands-on responsibility for diplomacy and policymaking, not just a ceremonial job hosting and attending dinners and cocktail parties.

Courting the president and ‘Javanka’

Since his arrival in Brussels in the summer of 2018, Sondland has used his prominent platform in the EU capital and his involvement in major issues such as Trump’s threatened trade war with Europe, to build a closer relationship to the White House than most diplomats, particularly by cultivating ties to the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

In June, Kushner attended a dinner that Sondland organized as part of a U.S. Independence Day celebration — oddly held one month early — that was also attended by Zelenskiy and Perry. As part of that celebration, Sondland arranged a stand-up comedy performance in Brussels by Jay Leno, the former host of “The Tonight Show.”

Thanks to 🇺🇸@SecretaryPerry, @JaredKushner, 🇪🇺 @EP_President Tajani, HRVP @FedericaMog, Commissioner @MAC_europa, 🇵🇱 @prezydentpl Duda, 🇷🇴 Prime Minister @VDancila_PM & Vice Prime Minister @AnaBirchall, 🇺🇦 President @ZelenskyyUa, and 🇬🇪 Prime Minister @BakhtadzeMamuka and others! pic.twitter.com/HNynvyo7Lz

— Ambassador Sondland (@USAmbEU) June 5, 2019

A photo of Zelenskiy, who is also a professional comedian, and Leno, was part of a montage that Sondland posted on Twitter about the event. (Leno’s performance fell flat largely because the audience of EU officials and diplomats didn’t quite grasp jokes written with an American sensibility.)

But it is clear that Sondland’s outreach to the Trump family has met with success. Last month, while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly week, Sondland arranged a private dinner at the home of Kushner and first-daughter Ivanka Trump, for European Council President-elect Charles Michel, and the EU’s incoming foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell.

The dinner was part of an effort by Sondland to “reset” U.S. relations with the EU, which have soured since Trump took office.

EU officials largely blame Trump for the strained transatlantic relationship, noting that it was the U.S. leader who praised Brexit, pulled out of the Paris climate accords, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and ignited a trade conflict by unilaterally slapping tariffs on EU steel and aluminum products.

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker deliver a joint statement on trade in the Rose Garden of the White House July 25, 2018 | Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sondland, meanwhile, has cast himself very much as Trump’s man in Brussels, and has not shied away from slapping at the Europeans, at one point blasting the European Commission as “out of touch with reality” and accusing EU officials of stalling trade negotiations.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker helped negotiate a brief truce in the trade fight during a visit to see Trump at the White House in July 2018. Trump has shown grudging respect for Juncker, calling him a “brutal killer.”

A key factor in the trade truce was Juncker’s promise that EU countries would buy more liquified natural gas from the U.S. — again underscoring Trump’s personal attachment to the energy issue.

Los three amigos

Sondland, Perry and Volker were three members of a five-person U.S. delegation that attended Zelenskiy’s inauguration on May 20 in Kyiv. Perry replaced Vice President Mike Pence as head of the delegation.

Some weeks earlier, Sondland met in Brussels with Perry and a top adviser to Zelenskiy, Oleksandr Danyluk, to discuss gas and other energy issues. Zelenskiy would later name Danyluk as head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

Sondland and Volker were first in Ukraine together last February, on a trip to the port city of Odesa, where a U.S. Navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Donald Cook, was docked on a symbolic visit. The two Americans were part of a delegation that also included a senior European Commission official,  Jean-Christophe Belliard, and was intended to show support for Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia.

But it is another visit to the Ukrainian capital, on July 26, with Volker, that is now the central focus of the impeachment inquiry in Congress. The visit took place the day after a phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, in which the American president asked for a “favor” and urged his Ukrainian counterpart to work with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, in investigating the Bidens and any Ukraine connection to the 2016 election meddling. (Allegations of such a connection have been widely debunked, but Trump has never let the issue drop.)

A televised interview that Sondland gave during that trip could help support his contention that the proposed White House visit for Zelenskiy was not held up as part of some diplomatic extortion scheme, but simply because of busy schedules.

“We have been tasked with sort of overseeing the Ukraine-U.S. relationship between our contacts at the highest levels of the U.S. government and now the highest levels of the Ukrainian government” — Gordon Sondland

Appearing on the English service of UA-TV, a government-financed channel, Sondland was asked when the White House visit would take place.

“Well, the date is only subject to scheduling,” he said. “Both President Zelenskiy’s calendar and President Trump’s calendar, with events going on around the globe — G7 coming up, the commemoration of World War II in Warsaw — there’s a lot of travel coming up for both presidents. So we’re trying to find a mutually convenient date in coming weeks. We don’t want this to take months for both of them to meet at the White House.”

Beforethecall, another call

At the same time, the interview confirms that Sondland had an extremely central role. He told the interviewer that he had spoken with Trump just before the crucial call with Zelenskiy.

“I actually spoke with President Trump just a few minutes before he placed the call,” he said. “And not only did the president call to congratulate President Zelenskiy, but also to begin the collaboration of charting the pathway forward with the U.S.’s support of Ukraine and a White House [trip] that is upcoming for President Zelenskiy.”

Sondland was also asked to explain his visits to Ukraine.

“We have what are called the three amigos,” he said. “And the three amigos are Secretary Perry, again Ambassador Volker and myself. And we have been tasked with sort of overseeing the Ukraine-U.S. relationship between our contacts at the highest levels of the U.S. government and now the highest levels of the Ukrainian government.”

Later in the interview, he acknowledged that his diplomatic duties were stretching beyond the EU.

“President Trump has not only honored me with the job of being the U.S. ambassador to the EU,” Sondland said, “but he also given me other special assignments including Ukraine.”

Read More

[treatyoselfliteraryedition-blog]

One Ca phe to Go

by Peter Duda

02/20/14, Jack:

“Look at those lights,” I said to myself. I looked out into the city lights like a child looking at his mother for the first time. It was midnight on the rooftop bar overlooking Ho Chi Minh City. I was ready to spend two lifetimes here. I was teaching english to university students, and Maria was working in a local clinic. A cool breeze drifted into my hair. “You could just fall in love with it couldn’t you? The kindest voice said behind me. That sentence drifted past my ears like a silk ribbon dancing in the wind. “You might be too late doc, I might already have fallen.” I said as I turned to her.“Yeah, well let me see,” she said with a bigger smile in her eyes than on her face. She slid one arm around my lower back and one onto my chest.

“Well your heart seems to be working just fine, I think this love potion has really got you going,” She said with a medical intonation.

Then I put my hand on hers. Within an instant of me putting my hand on hers, it felt like God had pushed a button and time froze. It happens only a couple of times every lifetime but when it does, it’s incredible. Her eyes sparkled just as much as the city lights. I felt like we had learned more about ourselves in the past month, than we had in 2 years of staying at home. It was great that we both wanted to be here together, with each other. We talked until the bar shut down. Then we walked through the crowded streets weaving in and out of people, tables, and cars. We made it back to our small apartment. One bed, one stove, couple of shelves, and one sometimes working toilet.

“I had a wonderful time tonight, I really needed to blow off some steam,” she said.

“Yeah me too. That dress looks amazing on you by the way,” I said.

“Thank you, I really like it,” She said smiling looking down at it, like she didn’t know how good she looked in it. It was a smooth black dress and a small jacket. I would better describe the dress but I don’t know how. It was just stunning.

We went straight to bed because we both had to be up early for our new jobs. Granted hers was much harder than mine, trying to treat people who didn’t speak english or didn’t trust her.

02/21/14, Ho Chi Minh Maria:

My father had always told me: “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This nugget of wisdom was hard follow when I was neck deep in med school. When life as I knew was hanging by a thread. Jack and I had only arrived a week ago here in Ho Chi Mihn. Before that we had traveled around the rest of Southeast Asia, and Micronesia. My parents were very concern about where we were going. None of my family had been out of the United States, except for my grandfather during the war. Jack might have as well told them he was taking me to Narnia. They didn’t approve but they accepted that it was something I wanted to do.  A friend of Jack’s from college had told him that there was a high demand for english teachers in Vietnam and that he should consider teaching at the local university. Jack’s friend also found a clinic that I could work at. I wish I could remember his name, Evan or something I think. Anyway, I am loving it here, the people are so friendly, and the U.S dollar goes so far here. Jack and I are both having a hard time with the language barrier, there are a lot of people here who speak English, more than I was expecting, but there are many elderly people who can’t speak English at all. They often come into with a grandchild who has taken an english class at school. I am working on my Vietnamese as well. But it is very hard to treat patients when you can’t explain to them how you want to help them.

I need to get ready. It’s going to be a big first day for the both of us. Jack is starting his first lesson at the University today. I have a lot of orientation stuff to get through today. I am very excited for Jack, this is something he is really passionate about. Even before we were on the plan here he was deciding what his first week of lesson plans were going to be. I on the other hand was dreading my first day at work. No offense to Jack but his first day at work doesn’t usually include blood, broken bones, or telling someone that they need to have an x-ray done. First thing I need to do today is get some coffee from across the street.

02/21/14, Ho Chi Minh, Jack:

It was my first day working as a teacher. I was very excited I had been planning this for months. I had only been teaching for a little over a year. I am excited to get to know my students and see what their lives are like. I know Maria has been dreading this since Evan had gotten here the job. The idea of treating someone who doesn’t know what you’re saying to them is quite daunting. But I have faith that she can do it. I went and made myself breakfast and got my bag and my scooter helmet for my trek to the University. It was only a 20 minute commute to the school. We both got scooter because we were told that even though there were buses to take us that if you wanted to get somewhere fast we would need a scooter to weave in and out of traffic. I kissed Maria goodbye and wished her good luck on her first day. I went out the apartment door and hurried down the street. Once I got to the street corner, it all hit me at once. I was not in Kansas anymore. The streets were filled with passing motorcycles, mopeds, and bicycles. The shops on the other side of the street looked like they had been open for hours. And the coffee shops the lined both sides were already full of their regulars and people needing their morning fix. I got my scooter started and merged into the stream of traffic. The drive was amazing, the trees, the shops, the cafes, the slight French architecture from the brief moment of colonization. I got to the school and found the office that I needed to check in. I had my paperwork in my bag. I was ready.

02/21/17, Later that same day, Maria:

I wasn’t ready at all. The whole taxi ride to the clinic I had such a urge to tell the taxi driver to take me back to where he had found no matter Vietnamese Dong it took. But I told myself that I had to give it my all, Jack was counting on me to at least try. I arrived at the clinic, I walked in. There wasn’t  much to see in the way of waiting room, a couple of folding chairs, a magazine, and a two flies on the wall, I assumed they were locals. I went to front desk, no one was there.

“Hello,” I said. “Oh shoot right, what is hello in Vietnamese come on Jack was quizzing you on the plane ride. Sing Chow!” I said a little bit louder hoping they hadn’t heard my english.

02/21/17, Later that day, Jack:

I walked down the long hallway. It looked like a school in America. Pictures of students doing interesting things, sports, theater, and dance. The only difference is that everything was written in Vietnamese, although I did think I saw a picture of Justin Bieber somewhere.   I found the president’s office by trying to say his name to a bunch of wayward students. I finally made it to the the office, I knocked. I heard shuffling towards the door. The slow turn of the knob. Then before me was a short vietnamese man in a very light button down shirt and khakis.

“Hello Mr. Sanders,” he said with a heavy vietnamese accent.

“Hello sir,” I said surprised at his english and my lack of Vietnamese.

“Welcome to Ho Chi Minh, I hope you had a safe flight,” he said as we walked towards his desk.

“Yes I did, thank you for asking,” I said nervously as I stood over a chair waiting to be asked to sit.

“Well let’s get started, may I see your paperwork.” he said with an outstretched hand.

“ Yes of course!” I said rummaging through my bag trying to find where I had strategically placed it.

Then all of the sudden there was a harsh knock at the door.

“Mời vào!” (come in) he said without looking up from what he was reading.

The persons came in and started speaking vietnamese to the president. I had no idea what was happening but the person’s eyes kept moving from the principle to me and back to the president. The president then looked up at me not knowing the right words to say.

“There is a telephone call for you, it’s Evan he has been in an accident and is in the hospital,” He said sternly and calmly not sure what my reaction would be.

[a-kania-blog]

Host Country Final Report

Below is my final report that I submitted through blackboard for COMM 300. The pictures will not be in this report on tumblr because I’ve already posted them up here.

POLAND

LOCATION

The host country that I’ve chose is Poland. Poland is located in Central Europe and is bordered by several countries. In the North it’s bordered by the Baltic Sea, south by two mountain ranges known as the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains, west by Germany, and the east by Ukraine and Belarus.

http://www.summitpost.org/images/original/478207.jpg

This is a picture of the Sudetes Mountains located to the south of Poland.

https://koshertravelers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Carpathian-Mountains4.jpg

This is a picture of the Carpathian Mountains also located in the south of Poland.

http://www.unilang.org/babelbabble/graphs/1/mapa.gif

This picture shows all the countries bordering Poland.

Culture and Traditions

Poles are known to be really attached and proud of their traditions. The share a lot of customs with other Europrean countries. A few things that are shared are Christams trees, Easber bunnies, and April Fools Day. While they do share similar traditions they also have their own. Poles have a festivities like Andrzejki, whichi is known as the Polish St. Andrew Day.[1]

http://www.foreignersinpoland.com/polish-christmas-traditions/

This is a picture of one of the Polish traditions. Pole’s are known to be very religious country. Many of their traditions and customs come from Christianity. Like many American’s Pole’s celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The night before is called Wigilia and the three week period before the celebration is called advent. [2]

St. Andrew’s Day in Poland has a different meaning then most other countries. The origin of Adrzejki is pagan, but Pole’s applied a Catholic name to be more acceptable for Catholic society. Many years ago, before horoscopes, Andrzejki was used to see the future.

 http://murza.pl/kamala/wordpress-proby/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/andrzejki-2013-350x185.jpg

Above is a picture of all the elements that are used in magic during Andrzejki

Capital and Important Cities

The capital of Poland is Warsaw. Warsaw is located in the center of Europe and is at the junction of the trade roads from West to the East and from the North to the South of the continent.[3]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj-v9yF6KvTAhUV0IMKHRbSAFoQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilecomms-technology.com%2Fprojects%2Fproject4%2Fproject41.html&psig=AFQjCNGAtwyASNe2tMoLoaQW0_0JlNsmTw&ust=1492529554398269

Above is a picture of the Poland’s Capital, Warsaw.

Other major cities to consider to visit when traveling to Poland are Cracow (Krakow), Gdansk, Poznan, Szczecin, and Wroclaw.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiZ1dLD6KvTAhVn2IMKHbWsDjYQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cracowonline.com%2F47%2CFacts_about_Poland.htm&psig=AFQjCNHjcsqBha5GJXn7n6AJkka3Lx2JXw&ust=1492529692919869

Above is a map of the major cities in Poland.

Important History Events

[4]

1.      966 - Baptism of Mieszko I, the first Polish ruler

2.      1025 - Coronation of the first Polish king Boleslaw the Brave

3.      1410  - The Battle of Grunwald against the Teutonic Knights won by the joined armies: Lithuanian and Polish. It was the greatest battle in the Middle Ages.

4.      1772 – The first partition of Poland

5.      1791 –The  adoption of the Constitution, the first European constitution

6.      1793 – The second partition of Poland

1795 – The     third partition of Poland

1918 – Poland     regains its independence

1920 – The     Battle of Warsaw called The Miracle at the Vistula

1939 – Germany     invades Poland, the beginning of the World War II

1944 - The     beginning of the Warsaw Rising

1945 – Yalta     Conference

1956 - Poznań     Protests against the communist government

1980 – the     formation of the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity with     Lech Wałęsa as a leader

1989 – The     Round Table Talks

1999 – Poland     joins NATO

2004 - Poland     enters the European Union

http://www.financepractitioner.com/contentFiles/QF01/1011/326eg2Z//Poland800.png

Above is a timeline of Poland’s history.

Languages

Polish is the most common language spoken. An estimated 97% of Pole’s speak this common language on a daily basis. Other living languages in Poland are German, Ukrainian, Russian, Lithuanian, Armenian, and Romani. In recent years languages such as Vietnamese and Arabic are increasing.[5]

http://inside-poland.com/t/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/wpwrlangmain.jpg

Above is a few words the convert from our English language to Polish.

Politics

Poland’s system of government of the Republic of Poland, which was defined by the Constitution on April 2, 1997, is based on the principles that there is a separation and balance between legislative, executive and judicial powers.[6] Legislative power is vested in the Sejm and the Senate, executive power is vested in the President of the Republic and the Council of Ministers and judicial power is vest in courts and tribunals.[7]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Zgromadzenie_Narodowe_4_czerwca_2014_Kancelaria_Senatu_03.JPG/250px-Zgromadzenie_Narodowe_4_czerwca_2014_Kancelaria_Senatu_03.JPG

Above shows a meeting of the political parties in Poland.

Here is an interesting article on our government talking about how Poland is important ally for us (http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/280280,Trump-confirms-Warsaw-as-important-ally-in-talks-with-Polish-president ).

 http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2015/10/18/08d69e344d1243caafe1a1faab9139ee_18.jpg

Above is a picture of the 6th elected Presided, President Andrzej Duda.

Religion

The dominant religion in Poland is Catholic with 87.2%, Orthodox at 1.3%, Protestant at .4%, and other .4%. Catholics make the most significant religious group and this religion is a subject studied at school. The most religious parts of Poland are the highlander Podkarpackie region and the Silesia region.

http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/e6b9205e237d4591b5a6cdfdb2382eb6/rynek-glowny-in-rzeszow-rzeszow-podkarpackie-poland-eh81w3.jpg

Above is a Catholic church is Podkarpackie.

One of the most notable individuals that came from Poland was Pope John Paul II (1920-2005). Pope John Paul II was known as a supporter of the ecumenical movement and he played an essential part in the fall of communism in Poland.

https://www.google.com/search?q=silesia+poland&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw6LKc8KvTAhUS5WMKHZYdD2AQ_AUIBygC&biw=755&bih=744&dpr=1.25#tbm=isch&q=pope+john+paul+ii&imgrc=HFY4cfsxHB3CCM:

Above is a picture of the famous Pope John Paul II.

Politics and Religion

The Catholic Church supported the resistance against the communist regime for 20 years. It was one of the main influences for the fall and defended Poland’s national identity. Poland’s Catholic Church holds closely to conservative patterns and pursues its own political aims.[8]

In the last 25 years the rate of young people going to church has dropped 18%. Illegal abortions have run into the hundreds of thousands each year. 4/5’s of Poles are bothered by the fact the church regularly intervenes in politics.[9]

The Catholic Church has long played a role in the politics of Poland. This dates back to the 18th century, Protestant Prussia, the Orthodox Russian Empire and Austria divided up the old aristocratic republic amongst themselves. The Catholic faith served as the glue binding together Poles in the divided regions, and church kept the idea reunification alive.[10]

Until 1989 the church portrayed itself as a national blwark against communism, which was considered “un-Polish. However, it helped organize the resistance movement amoung dockworkers in the 1970’s and 1980’s, which in turn lead to the fall of communism.[11]

The Church has attempted to influence broadcast law. Agreements with the government and Polish Radio and Television gave the church favorable access to electronic media as early as mid 1989, after the fall of communism. The Church pays less than commercial stations for its radio licenses.[12]

Since the fall of communism the church has failed to keep with the modern age and in turn their influences in the political word are not as strong as they once were.

Below shows an estimated 30,000 people participating in Poland’s Independence Day which is November 11th. Each year they celebrate the restoration of Poland’s sovereignty as the Second Polish Republic in 1918.

 http://img.112.international/original/2015/11/11/193509.jpg

Social Classes

Poland has four main classes.

1.      Upper Class - highly qualified specialist, owners fo large companies, senior government officials, politicians, artists, scientist

2.      Middle Class - the owners of small and medium sized enterprises, skilled workers, merchants and craftsmen, academics.

3.      Lower Class - the owners of small farms, workers, the unemployed, unskilled workers.

4.      Under Class - people permanently living on unemployment benefits.

As you can see the Pole’s have a similar class style as Americans, however some of their lower class would be in our middle class and some of their middle class would be in our upper class. The Polish class system seems to be opened.

Gender Roles

After World War II women were given more equal status with men and were expected to work and contribute to the labor force. With Communist control women’s gender roles began shifting from strict traditional roles, where they spent most of the time attending to household chores, to more modern roles, they were expected to be employed. This trend continued until 1989, when Poland became a free democratic nation. After the end of communism women’s gender roles are strongly influenced by the social norm of a strong feminine presence in the workforce.[13]

With Poland’s modern female gender roles concerning women’s involvement in labor, Poland still has traces of unequal, traditional gender roles. Men are to become educated, work and only contribute occasionally to the household chores and duties. Women are expected to undergo most of the household responsibilities on their own. Polish men enjoy much more leisure time than Polish women. Men also earn a higher income.[14]

Important Media Stations

Until 1989 Poland had only on broadcaster “Polish Radio and Television” which was operated by the state. Once communism came to an end the structure changed. Polish Radio was separated from Polish Television and both were reconstructed into public service organizations.

Television

Television was introduced to Poland in 1937. Color television was introduced in 1971. The top 10 television station in Poland are: Polsat, TVP1, TVN, TVP2, TVN24, TV4, TVN7, TVP Info, TVP Puls, and Puls 2. Polsat which is one of the biggest was found in December 5, 1992 by Zygmunt Solorz-Zak. Polsat belongs to Polsat Group which also owns other channels.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Logo_Polsat.svg/1005px-Logo_Polsat.svg.png

Above is the logo of one of the most popular stations in Poland.

Radio

Some radio stations from Poland are Baby Radio, Disco Polo FM, Hit Radio, House Radio, and Polish Radio London.

http://media.148apps.com/screenshots/1138341561/us-iphone-1-poland-radio-free-live-poland-radio-stations.jpeg

Above are some more radio stations.

Newspaper

Fakt, Gazeta Wyborcza, Super Express, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and Przeglad Sportowy are some of the biggest national daily newpapers in Poland.

http://img.kiosko.net/2010/01/23/pl/fakt.750.jpg

This is the front of one of the most popular newspapers the Fakt.

The Fakt has only been around since 2003, but has came very popular with the Pole’s. It’s a tabloid style daily newspaper which seems to do well with the Poles.

Film

The Polish film industry is nothing compared to the United States, however they still produce some films. In recent years  films are dramas and romantic comedies. Some popular films from Poland are Ida (2013), Escape from the Liberty Cinema (1990), and A Short Film about Love (1989).

Although Ida was filmed in 2013 it was shot in black and white. It is about a young woman on the verge of taking vows as a Catholic nun. Orphaned as an infant she must now meet her aunt who is the former Communist state prosecutor and only surviving relative tells her that her parents were Jewish. The two women embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their family.[15]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjk3NDkzMzMtMGM3MS00YmJkLTkwNmMtZjU5ZWIyNTkzMjJkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTAwMzUyOTc@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpg

Below is a link to the trailer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718492/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Ida received a nomination from Hollywood Foreign Press Association at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.

I also found the below polish video to be very entertaining. It was a very thought out commercial and it shows how determined a man is to see and talk to the ones he loves ( https://youtu.be/tU5Rnd-HM6A )

Food

One of the famous foods that Pole’s love is Baranina or as we know it mutton. The meat of a first year sheep is called a lamb, but the meat of an adult sheep is called mutton or in Poland Baranina. Other famous known foods from Poland are bigos and pierogi. Pierogi’s are probably the most common for thing that American’s eat from Poland.

One of the national and traditional Polish courses is Bigos. Bigos is labeled as a must eat for tourist. It’s a stewed dish made from cabbage as a main ingredient.

Below is a link to a youtube video showing how to make Bigos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrEvGZNnzjk

http://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2016/april/images/tabletalk11.jpg

Above is what a pierogi looks like.

The Polish daily meal depends on the family and the season; however it usually starts with breakfast eaten between 4 and 8 am. Between 9 and 11 people may have a second breakfast similar to an American bag lunch. Dinner is considered the main meal of the day and is served between 1 and 5 in the afternoon. Dinner contributes to about 40 to 45 percent of the daily calorie intake.[16]

The most solemn family gathering of the year is the Christmas Eve supper. Family gather to share the oplatek, a thin white wafer sometimes called angel bread.[17]

http://www.workwithsounds.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/oplatek-940x504.jpg

Above shows a Polish family sharing an oplatek on Christmas Eve.

He is a blog that I found interesting, it’s about the best polish foods to try while visiting. It’s always fun to try new foods from different cultures ( https://migrationology.com/best-polish-foods/).

Manners and Etiquette

Greetings can have different meanings in different cultures.  Below is a great blog describing the different greetings when dealing with the local poles traveling aboard.

http://blogs.transparent.com/polish/meeting-greetingleaving-what-to-say/

After talking to a few Poles they tend to greet very similar to Americans. Shaking hands, taking off one’s headgear (hat) for a moment, raising one’s open hand up, nodding one’s head, giving somebody a five, smile, kissing somebody’s hand (a man kisses a woman’s hand), kissing one’s cheeks (a man and a woman), and embracing/hugging.

Hospitality is a very important aspect of the Polish culture. Traditions as being welcomed with bread and salt prove the Poles are excellent hosts. To receive this hospitality thre are some rules and etiquette you should learn.[18]

Poles are extremely kind hearted with a strong sense of duty towards each other and their family. Showing special consideration to senior citizens and less abled people are extremely important to Poles. To address Poles properly you need to use “Pan” for men and “Pani” for women together with their surname. It’s not custom to call people by their first name until they become good friends.

Entering housing require you to take off your shoes and don’t ask for a tour of the house, it’s considered rude. Only start eating dinner when the hostess invites you to do so. Alcohol is usually consumed at dinner. If you do not want any you will be saying no a lot.

Currency

Polish currency which is called Zloty.1 Zloty is equivalent to 25 U.S. cents. Zloty dates back to the Middle Ages and initially the name was used for all kinds of foreign gold coins used in Poland. As a result of inflation in the mid 1990’s the currency underwent redenomination. On January 1, 1995 10,000 old zlotych became one new zloty. Since the change the currency has been relatively stable.

http://famouswonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/polish-zloty.jpg

Traveling

The renaissance castle below is known as the Pieskowa Skata Castle located in the town of Suloszowa, Poland. It has been rebuilt several times over the centuries. In 1377 the first renovation was started.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37034324@N05/8105713311

When people think of Poland they think cold and snowy. But looking at the below peninsula known as the Hel Peninsula you will see this is not the case. The Hel Peninsula is located in the Northern part of Poland. It is approximately 35 km long. It is known for the battle fought during World War II. The battle is known as one of the longest during the invasion of Poland.

https://isocarp.org/app/uploads/2014/08/c17a7355a7.jpg

After learning about the above peninsula I started thinking about Poland’s weather. I was able to find the below link and this guy discusses what to expect when it comes to the weather. This is extremely important information to have when traveling because it will help you figure out what you need to pack. https://youtu.be/WKA4w5nuo0U

 I’ve also collect some great blogs that would help when traveling there. One of the blog’s that I collect talks about where it’s not safe to travel while visiting Poland( https://erasmusu.com/en/erasmus-blog/main/is-poland-an-unsafe-country-130170 ). I think this is extremely important to know when going to an unfamiliar place, especially when you don’t know anyone and can’t really understand the language. The last blog that I posted on my Tumblr account was about what and where to travel to while in Poland ( http://charlieontravel.com/a-backpackers-route-poland/ ). They went on to talk about the interesting spots that would be cool to see.

Music

I was able to find a few polish music videos that I found entertaining. I have no clue what they are saying, but the music sounds pretty good (https://youtu.be/jR6udHTC5BE ) (https://youtu.be/NcqiwNdOf6Y ) (https://youtu.be/riTmUdxgCh4 ) . Then genre’s sound like pop/rock. Apparently these artist are known throughout Poland.

http://media.jastrzabpost.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/All-ONS_1783230-Edyta_Gorniak.jpg

Above is a picture of Edyta Gorniak who is a famous singer from Poland.

News Articles

Here are a few news articles that I found interesting dealing with Poland.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poland-marks-anniversary-presidents-death-plane-crash-065217265.html

https://dvsgaming.org/creator-of-the-witcher-series-doesnt-receive-royalties-for-game/

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/302960,Poland-to-increase-funding-for-public-broadcasters-by-tightening-licencing

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/realestate/real-estate-in-poland.html?_r=0

http://www.nbc29.com/story/35040339/teachers-across-poland-strike-to-protest-education-overhaul

http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/301483,Poland-and-Ukraine-to-strengthen-ties-in-higher-education

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-idUSKBN16R1FV

Final Essay

Traveling to different countries can be a great experience, but being prepared for your travels can make or break that experience. Doing the proper research before traveling to your destination is extremely important. Knowing the traditions, culture, languages, currency, and place to go and not to go are only the beginning.

From doing this project I’ve learned several interesting things about Poland. In a lot of ways Poland is like the United States and in a lot of ways it is not. Unlike the United States Poland has been around for a lot longer. Their traditions are extremely important to them and knowing them will benefit your trip.

Pole’s had been under communist rule for a while, but have only recently had a form of government similar to ours. When I say recently I mean around thirty years. Within the past thirty years a lot has changed. They have elected their 6th President, President Andrzej Duda, and changed their currency rates to make it more stable. While Poland is older than the United States it’s still in its infancy when becoming a free country.

With the history of Poland there are many places to travel. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is one that has to be on your list. The city has the Wilanow Palace as well as old Town and museums. Krakow, is another popular destination to travel to. Here you can visit the Gothic Wawel Castle and fresh up on your Jewish history. Wroclaw, which is the fourth largest city in Poland, was built in the medieval period and the city covers several islands and has a very unique architecture. If unique architecture is your thing then this is the place to visit.

While Poland is considered the 24th safest country in the world there are some unsafe places where tourist should not go. Make sure you do your research and know the areas that tourist need to stay away. I suggest finding a blog by a traveler that’s been to your country. Their experiences could help you figure out where to go and not.

Currency is another big issue. Not knowing the exchange rate could put you in a bind. For instance Poland’s currency, Known as Zloty, is not the same as the United States. 1 Zloty, which is the equivalent to the US dollar, equals 25 US cent.

Weather is another important issue when traveling. Poland’s climate consists of warm summers, cool and sunny autumns, and cold winters. Snow covers the mountains in south Poland from mid December to April and rain falls all year long. You will need to pack accordingly depending on the month and destination in Poland you are going.

When it comes to Poland’s clothing they are inspired by other nearby European countries, including Italy and France. Bold colors are extremely fashionable in Poland, including colors like neon yellow. Pol

Let’s face it learning the language of the country that you travel to will be nearly impossible, but you can learn the basics like hello, no, yes, please, and thank you. Knowing these few simple words may help you more than you think. Non verbal gestures are extremely important as well. Some countries have emblems that have opposite meanings. For instance thumbs up in the United States means good to go, while in another country it could be like giving the middle finger. Luckily Pole’s have most of the same non verbal greetings as we do, so that shouldn’t me too big of an issue. Use this link to get more information about the verbal and non verbal communication styles for Poles https://www.international.gc.ca/cil-cai/country_insights-apercus_pays/ci-ic_pl.aspx?lang=eng .

Culture, tradition, and etiquette are really important. If you ever get invited to a Pole’s house make sure you take your shoes off. NEVER as to get a tour of the house, this is considered rude to the Pole’s. Always wait for the host to tell you when to eat and not just assume if it’s in front of you that it’s ready to eat. And last be prepared to drink Pole’s love their vodka and most of the time they will be drinking at meals. If you don’t want to drink be prepare to say NO a lot, but remember to say it in a nice polite way.

The majority of Pole’s are Catholic, 95% to be exact, and if you are not it’s ok. The Catholic church has a lot of influence in Poland. Their influence has been getting smaller due to the fact the younger Pole’s have stopped going to church, an estimated 18% in twenty years.

Poles sense of humor is not like the United States. It seems to be an acquired taste and takes some time to adapt to. Poles tend to rub it in more so than Americans.

Poland seems to be a great place to visit. Make sure you do your research before you go. Have a plan and make sure you enjoy yourself.

[1] http://www.foreignersinpoland.com/traditions-manners/

[2] http://www.foreignersinpoland.com/polish-christmas-traditions/

[3] https://www.poland.travel/en/cities-towns/warsaw-capital-of-poland

[4] http://www.asihs.org/mistich/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:historical-events-in-poland&catid=73:description-of-poland&Itemid=79

[5] https://www.redlinels.com/languages-spoken-in-poland/

[6] http://www.president.pl/en/about-poland/polish-political-system/

[7] http://www.president.pl/en/about-poland/polish-political-system/

[8] http://archiv.eurotopics.net/en/home/presseschau/archiv/magazin/gesellschaft-verteilerseite/religion/religion_polen/

[9] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/influence-of-catholic-church-on-the-decline-in-poland-a-843694.html

[10] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/influence-of-catholic-church-on-the-decline-in-poland-a-843694.html

 [11] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/influence-of-catholic-church-on-the-decline-in-poland-a-843694.html

[12] http://www.pressreference.com/No-Sa/Poland.html

[13] http://maltmanspoland.weebly.com/1/post/2013/10/gender-roles-in-poland.html

[14] http://maltmanspoland.weebly.com/1/post/2013/10/gender-roles-in-poland.html

[15] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718492/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[16] http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Poland.html

[17] http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Poland.html

[18] https://www.justlanded.com/english/Poland/Poland-Guide/Culture/Polish-manners-etiquette

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(ROME) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.